[Icare dixit]

Hi, I am Icare dixit (or: "Icarus, he said") and, like you, sometimes care too much, sometimes too little.

I'd written a long, manically mixed, introductory post before that no-one was ever going to read or fully understand (including me!).

So here is a retry:

Hi, again! I have BP-I, with a bit of schizo mixed in.

I have 8 years of full-BP experience and feel euthymically confident I will fight this thing to the end (mine or it). I am currently doing scientific research on psychotic disorders and perception.

I look forward to giving and receiving support, when needed. Just let it be known that I am very much of the school of this-is-not-just-an-uncontrollable-or-even-uncurable-disease. However, I am no merchant or believer in miracles. Far from expecting too much of ourselves, I think we could all use some self-acceptance and less pressure to achieve. It is one paradoxical frame of mind which will ease our way to further improvement in functioning with our particular brand of difference, I think.

I feel welcome already and hope I am. Hope we talk again soon!

[Skeezyks]

Hello Icare dixit: So... I guess it's welcome to PsychCentral (even though you already have 111 posts!) I guess I missed your long introductory post. I was having computer problems for a while & was gone from the internet. Otherwise, I might have ready it... manically mixed or not! Anyway... I hope you find the time you spend here on PC to be of benefit.

[violetgreen]

Hi Icare dixit, I'm with you on the self-acceptance and less pressure to achieve. I don't have anything to prove, that's a bit of freedom

[Icare dixit]

Thank you so much! I felt right at ease here, so no worries, Sheezyks.

I am glad some of you can relate.



violetgreen: exactly!

[Victoria'smom]

Welcome to our little corner!

[1278]

Hi Icare dixit, I noticed you always give good advice and respond to many of my posts and as a new user I really appreciate it!

[Keegan2015]

What do you mean by "with a bit of schizo mixed in"? Are you schizoaffective?

[Icare dixit]

Originally Posted by Keegan2015

What do you mean by "with a bit of schizo mixed in"? Are you schizoaffective?

Yes. But I hope I grow out of it. But without antipsychotics: definitely.

It is what it says in my file. Prefer mood flippin' psychotic or just very crazy and moody. A lot shorter.

I will post my very lengthy personal story below.

[Icare dixit]

In the original (redux) introduction, I had kept my cards pretty strongly to my chest.

As I feel very much at ease here, on our little, well-kept island away from the "real" world, I will share you my story. If you really rather not, I understand.

It is very lengthy. But if you ever only read something else of mine, I wish it were this.

I am pretty confident in saying that I lived through all of the spectrum.

I started off pretty much disorganised schizophrenic (as in prodromes; bad memory, strange ideas, trusting intuition more than reason), then I acquired a borderline-like personality which allowed me expression and eased my way then, but certainly not in the long run.

After a few incidents of aggression and more and more reactive mood swings, lots of crying, all that: I put a brake on. Went back to impressionable, mildly delusional, and very little expression of emotions, but now with mood dysregulation. Got more and more mildly depressed, then quickly severely depressed.

It took me years to recuperate. I lost my early teen years. My new life was completely built on my own, unchecked ideas. My theories about perception and consequently BP, stem from that time. At that time, very much delusional, as in relying on them. Over time, re-socialising, these ideas became less consequential.

I lived a happy life for some years. Pretending my "delusional" ideas were just me having a laugh, my beliefs laughed out of court. It was ok: all my friends were normal and saw me as next-to normal. Fine. Had a great time.

Then I met a good friend (still), who lives/lived (somewhere between the two now) very much at the borderline. My father saw it coming: I strayed off the path my father had kept me on. By, mild but impressive, force. And you know what, I am actually very glad I did.

My first mania was just to warm up. It was the last real hypomania I have ever experienced.

My normal is what people call hypomania: I really can't see the difference. At any rate, it was great.

It was what no-one asked for, but it was all under control.
Cost me lots of money (thanks mum and dad, truly) and missed chances, but I learned a lot and was also quite respected.

I did things others wouldn't because they had no need or desire for the costs, but what they would've in a better world with more courageous and caring people (sorry, I drift off). It was very much worth it. That is, that's what I thought (and still think).

At the time I went to university, I really was ready: mania and incongruent psychosis with mixed intervals between weeks or months of that, hit full force (did but is shorter, I remember much less; just fragments, mostly of people shouting or speaking with lots of determination to me, while I told them how it was them, not me).

I brushed it off as dyslexia at that time. It was the only word I knew to describe the problems I'd always had at school. But dyslexia is so much more than a reading or writing difficulty: it is an appraisal and association problem. To me it was what I was, till the very core of my being.

I still believe that: the comorbidity of (early-onset) schizophrenia and dyslexia hasn't been lost on clinicians and scientists alike. Loosened associations is what makes words, sounds, letters and concepts blend together. What's more, bright lights; visual perception. Thoughts and ideas. Everything transcends, including the self.

Ok, at any rate, I didn't yet know that more severe cases were, after exposure to stress, called psychoses.

I was put on a dose of antipsychotic which was far too low and after that they kinda gave up. They had next to know experience with the likes of us (or me). After some time I left, despite a crusade by my mother ("I am not crazy, but you are!") to give me proper treatment, despite all my efforts to keep the identity of my psychiatrist and NP secret (I told her it was apparently called "bipolar disorder", what I was now experiencing). Hyper-dyslexia with the specifier "with sparse memories and visuals loosely associated with each other—and with mood".

But the antipsychotics, as I learned during my second occurrence of fully psychotic mania, helped. I'd gone from schizophrenia-like to SZA/BP-I-like, at that point.

A few months later I went to rapidly cycling BP-II-like when I started a mood stabiliser, but without severe depressions after hypo- or rather pre- (less stable), mostly, mania.

I finally felt more sane than my mother for the first time.

My mum is not far off the borderline of the spectrum. But occasionally her excitement or ecstasy trumps that of mine 3 to 1 or thereabouts. She got worse after having my sister and then worse still, having me. I'd never known normal, really.

My father and sister are quite normal, but not really really. And always very much frustrated with the both of us, sometimes exploding.

My father thought my mother crazy and did everything to keep me from from straying off the path; his very narrow one.

Family dynamics were, as you might imagine, less than ideal.

Having never felt this stable in 20 years, it seems that the brake I put on the excesses of my personality is off. I feel like I live at the borderline, see a relatively normal life before me, but I can't yet cross. I am getting therapy after I am more "truly" stabilised, what ever that may be.

Thank you so much for reading all that! Wow!

[Takeshi]

Hi, can I ask you what you got in your signature lines? How am I supposed to read those? Thanks.

[Icare dixit]

And I have felt myself sliding for some days, so I might have to bid you goodbye, for now (give it a few days; find some footing):

I hate sliding: makes you unable to tell where you are at. I prefer a crash.

Not one from great heights. Not the mixed period that then for me generally follows, not the severe depression afterwards for weeks. But no sliding. A crash.

Than a rapid rise. Work to do: ease up and go up. Hope at least that, it will. This is by no means a farewell, but please may it fare well.

Probably won't go far.

When I feel more comfortably depressed or maybe stable or more, know where I am at (like I ever, really!), I will be back (who knows, tomorrow).

Sliding brings back memories from way back. The years it took to get back up. It could be just that: a memory.



Love you all, already. Like I've always known you!

No worries, 1278. Glad I could help. Hope my memory won't be too clouded to keep some of that up.

Or I'll just moan on here (this is just how I like to see it for myself; I take depression very seriously). And ramble, just like now. But it will pass.
No matter how deep.

Ramble, ramble, slippery slope...

Sorry, Takeshi, I am too far gone at the very moment (poor me! : also just tired ) to answer you now but I might write it down somewhere where it fits. I think it could be useful. I have no idea whether this will a descent to another three months of mild depression or just a new stability I hadn't known yet. Just need some footing, won't be long. Ramble, ramble...

Originally Posted by Takeshi

Hi, can I ask you what you got in your signature lines? How am I supposed to read those? Thanks.

Originally Posted by Icare dixit

...Sorry, Takeshi, I am too far gone at the very moment (poor me! : also just tired ) to answer you now but I might write it down somewhere where it fits. I think it could be useful...

I'm a bit nervous to do this, and really hope it is ok. I would never presume to answer the question, because truly, I couldn't, and it's not my place. But I remembered reading a post you'd made about it, Icare dixit, and thought it might be a helpful bridge to Takeshi till you are up to elaborating. Again, hope this isn't out of line...

http://forums.psychcentral.com/4937481-post5.html

[Takeshi]

@Icare dixit

Well, please do take care of yourself and I'd like to say a late BIG welcome to you for joining this lovely community. WELCOME! As you probably already know, this place is not only for you to help the others, should you need any help at any mood state, please do not hesitate to ask others for advices, then we'll be able to offer you some sort of support.

And I hope you can read this when you get some rest and come back, I have read quite lots of thread you've made so far and I enjoyed all of them immensely.

I am pretty confident in saying that I lived through all of the spectrum.

I find that statement quite interesting, I am curious about what you can show us next time around, that is not to say that you have only seen the broad spectrum of kaleidoscope, that is a beautiful side of human mind, but the suffering that you must've went through with it.

Please do take your time to get back on the stability, St.ability and all of us will be patiently waiting for you, right here, maybe with some of your musics that you love listening to. That was a good list/posts. Thank you.

@IZ, thanks for the help, I guess that was exactly what I was after, I missed the post somehow, and that single post link is quite neat trick!

[Icare dixit]

Originally Posted by Innerzone

I'm a bit nervous to do this, and really hope it is ok. I would never presume to answer the question, because truly, I couldn't, and it's not my place. But I remembered reading a post you'd made about it, Icare dixit, and thought it might be a helpful bridge to Takeshi till you are up to elaborating. Again, hope this isn't out of line...

http://forums.psychcentral.com/4937481-post5.html

Not at all, Innerzone. Thanks for that!

Thanks, Takeshi, that was elaborate and sweet.