[TgrsPurr]

For those of you who don't know, I have chosen a chemical- free approach to my bp. For the most part I'm capable of doing this without making the collosal errors in judgement that I use to make. In another thread I spoke of a special self-awareness and inner reflection that being bp affords. I also spoke of the beast of a cycle I'm currently in...and hopefully almost out of. The rollercoaster was more than I could handle this time around. My emotions and lack of sleep so completely overwhelmed me. So at one particular persons insistance I sought out meds to treat the acute extremes of the rollercoaster ride from hell. When I'm manic, depressed or mixed theres no way for me to hide what is taking place within me, my psche, even my heart and soul. The cycle oozes from every pore of my body.

I haven't taken any meds for a very long time, 3 years or so. It hasn't been easy, but I'll take the harder path if the reward is worth it...it's worth it to me. The cycle I'm in got the better of me, it's been extraordinarily treachorous and harsh. Okay, so I've been on meds for a week or so now, enough time for certain meds to take effect and do their job, sometimes too well. What I'm experiencing now is an emotional flatness and a borage of side-effects. I can't deny that it's helped me some in the sleep dept. and the extreme highs and lows. This is also precisely my point, I can fake my feelings to other ppl when I want to. When someone carelessly asks "how are you?" I can say I'm good, then smile and be on my way. When not on meds and am in the throes of mania "how are you?" becomes some endlessly fascinating journey with this person about how I'm doing and feeling. If I'm depressed I'll mumble some response to that person or else I carry on with how pitiful my life is and how the whole world sucks.

My dilema is this...I find myself kinda liking the fact that I can make myself appear to have just about any emotion I want, like an actress in a movie. There is a certain freedom in this that I find quite appealing. Ppl will know only what I want them to know. On the other hand, I can't truly feel my life on meds. My true emotional state is flat-lined, dull, pale, blah blah blah...

What was suppose to be a simple point has turned into something far more self-indulgement than I meant for it to be. For that, I apologize. I am curious about other ppl's thoughts, feelings in regards to: fake it 'til ya make it!
TgrsPurr

i am probably older than you.....i've described after years and years of faking it.....i couldn't any longer. i'm now on meds that are working for me and i'm thrilled to death. all i feel is normal...like i did in another life.......xoxoxo pat

[TgrsPurr]

Hey Pat! I thinks it's just fantastic that you've found the right med for you and that you've been able to create a balanced and healthy life for yourself. That's precisely what meds are there for if your one of the people they truly work for. I'd be lieing if I didn't say I envy you that.

I agree with you that pretending is not the best thing to do, but wearing my heart on my sleeve is not necessarily the best thing either. I'm just simply stating that there is a certain appeal to it for me and a certain advantage to it for me. But again this is about one of those crossroads you come to in life. What are you gonna do? Which way are you gonna choose to go? What is the right choice?

Thanks for your input Pat. Always good to hear from you.
TgrsPurr

[darkeyes]

That's okay if your post became longer than you intended, perfectly fine, and natural.
I do not know you, and it is fine if you can be med free, but don't totally abandon them if you near a point that you may need to take them, sometimes we can not always heal ourselves when it comes to Bipolar, and if one is severe Bipolar, it is near impossible to go without some mood stabilizer of some sort.
Another thing people need to keep in mind, that it is no sign of weakness if it comes to taking meds. and/or therapy.
I wish you luck with this.
I had been on various meds in the past that made me feel miserable, blunted, fatigued and worse than when not on meds, I kept open minded to let pdoc change and try me on different one(s) and wow, I am glad I did, cause the particular mood stabilizer I have been on for a little over 3 yrs. has been great, no "zomby" side effects, no blunting, no weight gain, and best. . . no fatigue.
I hope whatever you decide, that you do not give up the idea of meds if you should come to need them, life is too short to be miserable if you do not have to be.
Please take care,
DE

PS
Use caution with the herbal/holistic approach, most of it is hogwash, and 9 out of 10 times does not work.
Vitamins, fish oils and Borage oil capsules are helpful along with meds and even alone.
Also, have your thyroid function evaluated if you haven't already, some of my depression lightened after my bloodwork revealed (what I suspected for awhile) I was hypothyroid (sluggish thyroid function) once I was put on Synthroid, and a few weeks past many of my physical health issues improved as well as state of mind.

[sqrlb8]

Hi Tgr, I read this last night, but decided it was too good not to sleep on before responding. You have put into words very beautifully some real core issues for all of us I think.

For now, I'll try to address three different aspects of your post, even though the various tributaries attached to your questions are well worth travelling. lol. Maybe this will end up one more of those monster threads.

First I guess is the anti med stance. I'm there myself, we know we have that in common. Most of what I want to do by way of response in all of these aspects is to challenge the "givens." For example, is it more accurate to say that you are opposed to side effects of inappropriate meds for you, or to say that you are philosophically, and militantly opposed to the concept of medication? I stacked the deck there in my favor with that second question, I know perfectly well that doesn't characterize your attitude, but for the sake of contrast and illustration I take liberties. lol. The "given" I'm trying to expose here is the idea that at any given moment you "know" what your best coping life will look like in terms of which meds and when and why. That is a picture that you will always be reexamining as cycles change, circumstances change, effectiveness of meds change. Against such a changing back drop it isn't very healthy to feel certain about sticking with this or that course and level of treatment. More important is developing an ever increasing ability to self monitor honestly. Maybe you want to consider loosening your grip on the med free stance to allow a more lucid condideration of options before you are in a crisis again. That's the kind of thinking I'm driving at.

Btw, you do really well. You've got a life that's working and I'm way impressed with your insight and tenacity. None of this is anykind of chastisement. I hope you hear that. But this is how my mind works.

You present a dillema and want to make the right choice between being able to fake appropriate feelings while feeling numb on meds, or to have to express inappropriately according to the cycle de jour. Is that really the true "given" here? My idea is not to choose. Look for the middle of that. Is it truly such a fork in the road? According to the PDSMP (the big dx book) the extreme ends of extreme cycles usually last up to two weeks. You have to ask yourself questions like, how many weeks are between those bad ones? What is the quality of life for those weeks,or however long? What med does what and how soon for how long? Which ones get you out of crisis? I'm pretty sure I'm at least as anti med as you, but I know to ask for Zyprexa by name when I get psychotic symptoms. lol.

It seems to me you've had one of those rude awakenings of bp finding new avenues of expression at the expense of your life's peace. You aren't at a crossroad. You don't have a right or wrong choice to make. You have your life to live in whatever way you choose is best for you, and you will have to modify that for yourself forever. In that process, you will often have to look at the truth of two opposite things and find where they overlap. Let the question burn inside you, and drive your conciousness and your mind, but try resisting the impulse to "answer."

The third aspect I mentioned has to do with reading between the lines on my part. I sense that you are sort of rattled at feeling like your anti med stance is threatened right now. Like maybe the dilemma about weather to fake your feelings is, in fact, a "fake" for trying on what you fear is a cloak of defeat? A subtrefuge of sorts? I don't mean like you are trying to deceive in the post, but that for yourself if you look at the question of the dilemma, does it want to turn into a question about to medicate or not to medicate and how that makes you feel? Hope that long shot guess isn't offensive, don't mean to presume or anything. lol. You never know how something is going to sound to someone else. I can get pretty wrought about it. I think the world of you, and I trust that's understood. lol.

The fact that you are seeing a choice in how you emote with others is huge. That is really worth studying. What is emoting, who's doing it, what is it? If the seroquel has shifted your awareness for a moment into a kind of third person dispassion, I would take full advantage of that to explore this new perspective on emoting. Find the "givens" and challenge them.

Tgr...in no way was i disparaging your choices concerning the meds..i genuinely hope you don't think that. if i could conquer the BP beast with a holistic approach...i'd do it. my disease was so bad when i lived in NM and i tried all those approaches, it's a state full of herbalists, and nothing worked for me. and i second what another poster said about the thyroid problems. the psych doc sent me to the lab and lo and behold, that was a big part of my makeup...she has me on a small dose of a thyroid med and i'm feeling so much better. my energy level skyrocketed...i'm here to support you regardless of what choices you make..i'm so sorry if it appeared that i wasn't...xoxo pat

[TgrsPurr]

LOL, sqrl you little bugger you! You certainly have a way of taking things down to the nitty gritty. I think I both love and hate that about you, lol.

Okay, yes, I need to be a little more relaxed about "no med" stance. With this last cycle I gave in and I'm glad I did. It's the sleep issue that did me in the most. Without proper sleep I deteriorate rapidly, everything becomes so much more exaggerated. Even though I may "think" I'm fine with the 2 hours of restless sleep, in reality I'm not. So I sought help for that most specifically.

I've remarked in another thread about the unique "quirks" of each cycle, so I understand what you're saying about having to adapt and adjust to any particular "given" in any "given" cycle. That, I think, I've had some success with. Over time I'm getting better...all apart of the self-relection that usually follows a cycle and I'm just coming out the other side.

I also agree with your assessment of my black and white attitude about the whole "med" issue. I thank you for bringing that forth into my consciousness. A very important point you make. I'm really not at a fork in the road unless I choose to make it a fork in the road. I can be pretty thick, retarded and stupid about some things. Including the fact that I do see "having" to take meds as some sort of defeat. Not in that I think of myself as wonder woman, no, I just think of myself as having to make a trade off I'm not happy about, nor do I feel good about. So the issue becomes, what am I willing to sacrifice when it gets so bad that I'm considering a med to help me. Truth be known, I've got a drawer in my bathroom FULL of medication. I'm happy to say that drawer gets opened very little. I get stubborn about it. I can recognize that now I'm a little more sane, the errors in judgement I make in the throes of a cycle.

Okay, all that being said, I woke up at 4am today with only one thought treading water in my mind. FREE WILL. This is a monumental gift from God to the human race. In EVERYTHING we do, say, think and feel, we have a choice. Regardless of being bp. What we choose do within any given moment of a cycle IS a choice. We are not victims by any stretch of the imagination. Bp, to me, is a wonderful gift. It has colored my life in many, many beautiful ways, including this very moment. It encompasses every emotion, every thought and every act (when cycling). With bp we can't always control how we feel. Our defenses are down, self-preservation is weak, we may even have "psychotic episodes", which many times completely removes reality. However, we still have free will with what we're gonna do with those feelings that are so overwhelming. How to channel them, use them, grow from them, artistically express them, write them, share them AND block them with meds if need be. It's always a choice that we have free will over. Yeah! This is very good news ppl. Don't throw this gift away, don't shove it to the back of the closet, don't block it by telling yourself and others how powerless you are. Don't hide behind it, pretending to use it to manipulate others. Grab it with both hands, embrace it, allow it to permeate your whole life...bp or no bp.

Okay, now I have to clarify certain things...the things we're born with are not things of free will. Those are a given, I can choose not to be bp until I'm blue in the face and it won't change that fact that I am. The free will factor comes in with, what am I going to choose to do with my illness. In there, lies the key. In there lies the issue of, to medicate or not to medicate. This also means I have a choice as to whether or not I'm going to "fake" my feelings or wear them on my sleeve. The goal, to find that middle ground, as you implied in your post sqrl. When I'm no longer able to make that distinction, most likely it's time to take a med that is best for that particular cycle, one that is good for the short term, not intended for the long term, for ME anyway (which is why I refrain from stating my meds). And the reason for this desire to "fake it" is that a lot of the time, most of the time, ppl don't understand, ppl take things personally that were never intended as such, ppl will see your work suffer and judge you about it, a loved one takes irritability to heart and then becomes frusterated themselves because the next thing they know is you showering them with love, life, profound insights into the relationship (whatever it may be, mother, brother, wife, child, etc...). This in my opinion, is a "given", which is why I feel the need to be able to have a choice in how I "emote" to other ppl.

Thank you sqrl, pat, DE for sharing yourselves with me. You've all given me much to think about, things that I want to think about. That, too, is a wonderful gift. TgrsPurr.

[sqrlb8]

[TgrsPurr]

Sqrl, huh?

[sqrlb8]

lol, I just enjoyed your post, so full of energetic reflection, I was toying with the idea that maybe you were just getting started, and if I just sat and watched, more would unfold.

In another vein, I'm tittilated by the free will topic as a "given" which, for me, turns out not to be altogether unassailable by scrutiny. lol, I think that would be better in a different thread.

I enjoy all your posts. You are wonderfully animated in your grappling with life and that just makes you my kind of people. The popcorn smiley was just how much I enjoy your posting. tc. xo.

[TgrsPurr]

Holy Crap! I just saw how long that post was. Geez, I can really be long winded, huh? Once I get started, man, it's hard to stop. I will go out on a limb here and say it's pretty safe to say I'm a little manic today ya think? It would explain being awake at 4am, right?

Anyway, I do apologize to those attempting to read that post. But I do hope you get something out of it. TgrsPurr.

Oh and sqrl, I think it's pretty safe to say there's plenty more where that came from, but I'll refrain from that 'til I can give it proper attn. I'm doing all this on company time. Shame on me!

[TgrsPurr]

Pat, I just wanted to acknowledge to you that I never thought that were passing any kind of judgement about meds. You were stating the facts for you, which can certainly be helpful to others, even if it's just that someone took the time to respond to something you put "out there". You're way cool.
TgrsPurr

thank you.....i don't feel very cool today....but i'm trying...pat