I'm tired. Oh so tired. I want life to get better, I want to get one of these jobs I interviewed at. I want things to start looking up. A new medication is supposed to help me. I truly hope it does. I'm taking my pills right finally. It's been a while since I did but now that I am I'd say I feel about 2% better then I did. I know pills aren't the solution and therapy will help but I blew of therapy the other day. I didn't want to hear "fake it till you make it". I don't think that's helpful. My psych said to give my therapist another shot. Tell her that I want to find out my deep seeded issues but I don't think that is gonna work. Everyone knows my depression makes me not want to do things. When I'm manic that's another story but my depression makes me not even go to therapy. I want to believe I can do this but it's getting hard. My son is driving me insane. Completely insane. He always has to do something. Always has to be moving or playing and always expects me too. I just don't want too. I want to relax sometimes. Sometimes I don't even want him around because of how terrible he can be. He doesn't know how to listen or do anything. He keeps saying he forgets things or is confused and the doctor last week said it was only because he wasn't getting enough sleep. Now I think that's bull ****. Anyone have advice on my life?

[sarahblue]

Sorry you're not feeling great.

I always believed that the purpose of meds is to get you stable enough to be able to work on things with your therp. I hope that they will kick in for you.

How old is your son?

[pawn78]

I don;t know what will help you, but a good start is:
-taking your meds EXACTLY as prescribed
-going to therapy
-getting a regular sleep pattern
-getting regular exercise (where you are breathing hard, and warming up your whole body)
-eating a healthy diet

I know its hard to do all of that, and to believe it will actually do any good, but it can do a lot of good.

HUGS

[LastQuestion]

Forgetfulness and confusion can occur due to poor sleep. Without enough sleep it only gets worse. A proper sleep cycle is necessary for any person no matter their natural bio-chemical balance and especially for those with bipolar. The last eight weeks for me have been terrible, and the first two weeks of June I had gotten less than seventy hours of sleep.

The only way I could think with any relative clarity was to essentially meditate by closing my eyes (visual stimuli), laying down in a relaxed position (motor function), and doing so in an environment with relative quiet or consistent background noise [like a fan, drier, the sea, wind sweeping through trees, etc] (auditory stimuli); by reducing the processing of tasks my brain needed to complete I was more able to focus on the problems I needed to solve. Even then I had trouble keeping things in memory and towards the end of the second week I knew I was bordering on psychosis, all due to a lack of sleep. That is what happens to the brain, any brain, regardless of its inherent deficits.

Melatonin before bed can help, so can eating a protein source like Greek yogurt, whey protein power, milk - some type of protein source which is either lean or has good fats, such as almonds and many other nuts, should suffice. If it's still a problem consider asking your psychiatrist for a sleep aid. The most important thing is to go to bed at a regular time, plus or minus one hour, and do the same while waking up. The best way I've found, personally, to maintain this is to read before bed and use an alarm clock I have to get out of bed to turn off.