[sui generis]

According to my mood chart the past week and a half show that my mood has improved (from severe/moderate depression to moderate/mild depression) however I can't deal with the sudden hike from mild to moderate. When I'm mildly depressed, I can still get work done, I'm able to write, be productive, exercise etc. But as soon as it hikes to moderate I just can't.

It's so amazing when I get that glimpse of hope when I wake up and I'm able to function that when it gets taken away from me it just hurts so much. Even though I'm not severely depressed atm, it's having something so close and then having it taken away from me the next day that really kills me. I'm scared I will never get better and it's becoming difficult.

edit:

Okay so I just got into a small fight with my mum and she says my meds are making me worse. I'm really paranoid that meds are bad for me because I've always had such bad reactions. She thinks the meds are making me moody and irritable, but I was like that off meds when I was depressed too! But it is true since first seeking treatment for depression in december I have gotten worse (though I think this was because I was put on anti-depressants, this was before I was diagnosed with bp II).

When I got back from the Philippines at the start of 2013 I was so happy and at peace and I was so amazed that finally I wasn't depressed after 10 years. I'm freaking out that I'm screwing up with my brain chemistry even more or that this whole bipolar thing isn't real and that I'm just bad and can't control myself. Oh god, I feel so bad and paranoid right now. I just felt like I made so much progress over the years and then december 2013 came around and I just woke up depressed again, no trigger, nothing, it just sucker punched me. I can't believe this, I'm really freaking out now.

[roads]

You're not "bad," sui generis. But you might be bipolar--try to think of a correct diagnosis as finally getting the most current edition of the map you'll use as you move from day to day ... take each as it comes, only a small bite. Today. This hour. Now, sui generis ... if that's the most you can handle without "really freaking out"!

I've been increasingly freaked for the past week, my road not even just unpaved but vanished. I've built a safe and functional support team since my diagnosis of bipolar disorder over six years ago, made by a psychiatrist in the psych unit of a local hospital. My best friends in real life sent me by ambulance, after I'd withdrawn to my bed, ignoring knocks, doorbells, and phones.

Somewhat like you, my original diagnosis (decades earlier, in my case) was Clinical Depression. The psychiatrist kept me inpatient for a month and worked to find the best possible meds for me ... instead of merely "good enough" (to keep me out of jail or another psych ward). But after six years, with a devoted and knowledgable psychiatrist, I had to change the mood stabilizer I'd been on for five years.

The drug we decided to try was Trileptal, which many folks on this site use with great results. I had a bad trip on it. I had an unlisted side effect: I lost all emotional response to my life, my world, myself. My support team, mostly PC members online, held onto me, hung in there with me, saved my life and sanity.

So yes--mind-altering anything is dangerous and potentially deadly. If you take prescription meds, every time you take a med new for you remember this: You have become the Head Lab Rat on the stage of your life. And there is NO OTHER WAY to learn whether or not it's the "best possible" drug for your mental health needs.

I trust my pdoc with my life and my sanity. I get second and third opinions if that trust wavers in the slightest. I have his cell phone # and I used it last weekend once my freaked-out, terrified, suicidal self figured out I wasn't insane or demented ... I was on my first & only Bad Trip.

If your pdoc is your BBF, if your trust in your relationship is solid, if you have the absolutely best support team you can ever put together and count on--then I would take your & your mom's concerns to your prescribing psychiatrist and DO NOT LEAVE until you're comfortable with the plan you've come up with, BOTH OF YOU, as a team.

I'm available, dozens to thousands are available to you through PsychCentral. I wish you peace, deep easy breaths, a quiet soul, and your own safe & mostly stable life.

roads

[gayleggg]

Roads has some good advice. Talk to your doctor and I agree take your mother. I take meds and couldn't stay sane if I didn't but it's always a problem to find new ones that work when the old ones quit working and for me that's been most of them.

Good luck :hug

[roads]

Sorry, I didn't say what I meant, gayleggg--I think sui generous ought to take her mom's concerns ... but not the mom herself.

[sui generis]

Originally Posted by roads

You're not "bad," sui generis. But you might be bipolar--try to think of a correct diagnosis as finally getting the most current edition of the map you'll use as you move from day to day ... take each as it comes, only a small bite. Today. This hour. Now, sui generis ... if that's the most you can handle without "really freaking out"!

...

Somewhat like you, my original diagnosis (decades earlier, in my case) was Clinical Depression.

You might have missed it in my original post but I have already been diagnosed with bipolar type 2 but yes originally it was major depression + dysthymia for years and I was put on antidepressants around december 2013. So I guess my brain chemistry has also been through a lot because I had to get off antidepressants that were making me rapid cycle then on a mood stabilizer (the nz equivalent to depakote, we have a different name for it haha) and I had a horrible reaction to that...

So now I'm on lamotrigine, and so far I haven't experienced any negative reactions but my mum is making me paranoid that it's making me worse. I think she thinks I should just be suddenly better or something. Generally I can tell very well whether I'm having a bad reaction to the drugs, and I don't feel it's because of the lamotrigine. My gut feeling tells me to stick it out but I think I'm not fully accepting the diagnosis as well as I originally thought I had. I was like that with depression too, I knew it intellectually but emotionally I couldn't accept it for years (and then that dx ends up being wrong, oh dear hahaha).

Originally Posted by roads

So yes--mind-altering anything is dangerous and potentially deadly. If you take prescription meds, every time you take a med new for you remember this: You have become the Head Lab Rat on the stage of your life. And there is NO OTHER WAY to learn whether or not it's the "best possible" drug for your mental health needs.

Ha-ha good thing I've taken the semester off, it's been such a rough road the past 6 months with different medications etc this has been the longest depressive episode I've ever had. Usually they're about 2 months long and then a sort of dysthymic mood which kinda fades into normality and somewhere there will be a couple of weeks, sometimes a month of hypomania. I've only ever had two stable years, 2010 and 2013.

Originally Posted by roads

I trust my pdoc with my life and my sanity. I get second and third opinions if that trust wavers in the slightest. I have his cell phone # and I used it last weekend once my freaked-out, terrified, suicidal self figured out I wasn't insane or demented ... I was on my first & only Bad Trip.

If your pdoc is your BBF, if your trust in your relationship is solid, if you have the absolutely best support team you can ever put together and count on--then I would take your & your mom's concerns to your prescribing psychiatrist and DO NOT LEAVE until you're comfortable with the plan you've come up with, BOTH OF YOU, as a team.

I'm available, dozens to thousands are available to you through PsychCentral. I wish you peace, deep easy breaths, a quiet soul, and your own safe & mostly stable life.

roads

My pdoc is good in terms of his manner and he's the only doctor I feel comfortable seeing, he's good at making sure I get the help I need when he knows he can't do it (e.g. referring me to specialists and chasing them up). Unfortunately because I don't drive, my mum has to take me to my appts if I can't get there by public transport and she wants me to see another doctor that's closer. I find that really really stressful because it took me awhile to find a doctor I like

NZ has "free" public health care except that it comes at a cost (ahahaha...) which is I only have a limited number of appointments with the psychiatrist till I can't see him anymore, so there is a lot of pressure to find the right meds for me in time. We decided to push our next appt to about 6 weeks time to give the lamotrigine time to work and I can email him if I need to. I'm happy with that plan because I mean, what else can we do at this point except wait? With my psychologist it's the same deal, there are only 6 appts you're allowed and I JUST started opening up fully on the 6th appt (she gave me one more appt tho yay). So it's not really possible to have a support team long term =\ and there is no way I can afford to go outside the public system.

Also I have to be honest, I don't like bringing my mum along to these appointments because she just makes me anxious

And thank you for this reply it's good to just talk this out with someone and yes peace and mostly stable life is what I really need haha!

[sui generis]

Ahhh crap so I just realised that pdoc means prescribing doctor not primary doctor lol. In that case my pdoc is my psychiatrist who I only have a limited number of appts with.

[roads]

But if your pdoc has you on a regimen that includes those prescriptions, then you must have sessions for as long as the pdoc wants you on the meds. Or refer you to another pdoc. No one (at least in my country) can prescribe for you unless they are currently doing therapy with you.

Ask, because I don't think you'll be cut off from psychiatric sessions if the pdoc diagnoses you as having a permanent condition that requires a psychiatric level of treatment. To do so would be unethical--and in many places illegal.

Ask now, because you might have to ask several people several times before they get it right.

roads

[sui generis]

Nup, you absolutely can only have a number of sessions, and I understand why they do that. Because it's free they can't keep seeing people long term. I think there is only one psychiatrist in the area as well and usually there is a 2 month waiting list, sometimes longer to see him. I think what happens is once they know what meds work for you then you get repeats and once the repeats run out you can just go to your gp to get a refill. That's how it works in NZ anyway. You could probably see the psychiatrist again if after awhile your meds stopped working and you needed a reevalution. imo that doesn't seem unethical.

[roads]

My GP wouldn't risk prescribing psychiatric medications for me--in my country, she'd be sued for malpractice and banned from all medical professions.

Do you by any chance know where Apollo Health is in Foxton 4814 NZ? At 66 Main St? It's a centre for mental/spiritual/physical healing. I know him IRL--I want to go to his centre. Want to meet for ginger tea?

[sui generis]

Umm well it works differently here and I'd appreciate it if you left it at that. I trust my psychiatrist. The issue I'm having here is less to do with my psychiatrist and more to do with my paranoia about medications (which intellectually I know is not actually a problem but emotionally I'm paranoid about the meds) and me unable to deal with coming to terms with my bipolar and dealing with having a depressive episode again.

Foxton is a long way from where I live haha.

[roads]

Sorry, I'm not being at all sensitive to you/your needs/your feelings.
I need sleep, and I'm excusing myself to spare you from the hypomanic me.
roads

~ ~ roads ~ ~