My check-in for Thursday: This was an okay day, not great because my worry thoughts kept coming back, but still, okay--good enough to continue to try things and to hope.

I was hoping that going back on the medicine would cancel out those thoughts, the way it did before, but it hasn't yet. I'm not sure whether to treat it as regular OCD or just a side effect of untreated bipolar. If it's plain OCD, you're supposed to "sit with" those thoughts until they bother you less. I've done that some but hate to waste my time that way if the medicine is going to knock them out soon. It's not stuff I used to think about at all, before my mind went hyper on me..

Still, it was a good enough day; if I had stayed with my schedule it might have been better, but there was something not on the schedule that I had to do this morning, and my cousin called in the early evening, which was nice, but not on the schedule (I always planned to ditch the schedule when a really good social occasion is offered). And I'm still being a bit slow and lazy; the schedule isn't new any more, and it's considerable work. The house looks better though. Maybe I'll get the energy back tomorrow.

Saturday I can increase the lamotrigine--it's a medicine that you have to increase very slowly, which I guess is why a lot of people don't try it, and the doctors don't always prescribe it. It's very hard to wait that long--the increases are supposed to be every 2 weeks, starting at 25 mg. It usually starts to be effective, for SOME people (me included), at 100; other people need more.