Hello, I just joined this forum and found this daily check in feed. I’m grateful to have this new to me platform to try. It is 3:42am where I live. I woke up at 2am and since I couldn’t sleep, I fixed a Chamomile tea and then checked messages on my phone.

I was diagnosed as Bipolar 1 in October 2010. This summer, our family relocated overseas. We will be expatriates for two years. The international move in the middle of a pandemic and on the heels of two and a half years of acute stress has been challenging. I met today with my new psychiatrist for the second visit. He has recommended an electronic encéphalogramme. I have taken Lamital for 10 years, and he wants to see how my brain waves are connecting to determine if there may be dysfunction secondary to Lamictal (antieleptic drug originally developed and marketed to treat seizures). I also have atypical migraines regularly and extreme sensitivity to unnatural light sources, especially overhead lights and light from screens

Each month, I have periods of a depressed state with brain fog and the desire to withdrawal from life because it all feels overwhelming when my brain isn’t functioning optimally. I also have periods of insomnia and sub mania each month, directly following several weeks in the depressive/frozen state.

I realize this post is a bit choppy—that’s my brain flitting from thought to though without finishing my original train of thought or purpose for initiating communication. I struggle to keep my communications relevant to a specific audience and succinct.

Can anyone relate? Has anyone had an electric encéphalogramme?