What was life like before you started meds?

My life was stressful. Depression was crippling and hypo/mania caused me a great deal of trouble.

I would often cry and have suicidal ideation and I didn't understand why. That frustrated me quite a lot because I was looking for answers, but could not come up with any or find any.

When I was hypo or manic, I got a lot of work done. I didn't know about bipolar disorder at the time, so I was confused as to why I could be so efficient sometimes but so inefficient other times. So, I quickly became frustrated with myself when I couldn't get work done... because I knew I could get stuff done, but for some reason it just wasn't happening when I was stable or depressed, no matter how hard I'd try.

I lost a lot of friends along the way, and I'd say that was the most frustrating thing of all.

Before I started meds I was self medicating with alcohol. Total drunk. Got into a lot of trouble. My life was horrible. And I was so depressed and anxious. Most likely because of all of that alcohol I was drinking! I was a bottle of vodka a night person.

After detoxing myself I was put on zoloft, which was a nightmare.

But after that I was put on lamictal and my life got a whole lot better! That first lamictal year was the best year of my life.

I was fearful of just about everything. I was in a psychotic episode that lasted two years. I started meds my senior year of high school when I received a psychosis NOS dx. I used to think my food was poisoned and I had to cut myself to let the cyanide escape. I had very chaotic relationships. I had frequent hallucinations of insects, animals, fire, and random things moving when they really weren't. I had two particular hallucinations that were people from an alternate universe, they were called 9twoO and K-Fin. They were very mean to me and followed me everywhere. I would spend days underneath my bed at a time, no getting up to use the bathroom or eat; I would starve and piss myself. Then I would get manic and not sleep for days and run around town screaming about one thing or another. Things were very tumultuous to say the least.

I followed a band around the country from the age of 18 to 23, pretty much all of that time I was in a manic state. I was convinced that the FBI was after me. I used to change cabs and busses like I saw people doing on Spy movies. I had long periods of time they were probably more Hypo than manic. But I know that I had a year that was completely manic, I was hospitalized in San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Boulder, and home in Burlington. I lost a lot of friends, made a lot of bad choices, I am lucky that I did not end up with A life threatening disease. I self medicated with bad drugs, and I eventually ended up incarcerated. Being manic in jail is no fun, although if you get bad enough they send you out to the actual hospital. I got sober in Jail, but did not get diagnosed. I married after jail and I really think that she fell in love with hypo/manic me, we have had problems ever since I got diagnosed. Although I have had worse episodes in the last few years and I have tried to commit suicide several times. My life is like a strange book. Maybe someday I will write it all down. I am sure it would give some folks a laugh, and others a good cry.
I wish that my parents had been more observant of me in high school, i showed the signs, and the disease is all over the family. oh well.

Fear, stress, loneliness, depresion, mood swings, instability - until I swung into mania and was finally diagnosed.

I had a ripping good time, international travel, a million different jobs and passions, with brief periods of depression when the results of hypomania caught up.. until the huge, crippling depression hit and constant suicidal obsessions.

Drinking, gambling away my whole paycheck, not paying bills then falling into depression. ..missing whole weeks of work, put on prozac...ended up ip and med changes and dx there

My life was a shitshow before meds. I racked up lots of credit card debt, did way too many drugs to self medicate, and couldn't hold down a job. Almost got divorced, and crashed two vehicles, one of which was a burly rollover. I'm much happier knowing what's going on and being medicated.

Self medicated with alcohol. Had to detox 3 times. Horrible depression. 2 DUIs. A few days in jail. Lost family members bc of drinking.

Thank God for meds and a great pdoc and therapist.

It was horrible. Lots of buying while manic and giving away when depressed. Burned through my late husband's life insurance in a few years. Lot of relationships that fizzled. Somehow I managed to raise my daughter through most of it, but it was rough. I was previously diagnosed with MDD and anxiety so the meds I got for a long time didn't help. I now feel somewhat better with the right meds and therapy.

Too much pain -- both physical and mental -- from physical illness and a long history of trauma. Depression, pain, confusion, lost the will to endure more pain.

Meds are helping for now.


WC

Lots of turmoil, self medicating, running away from home to different cities and never being happy with myself. Feeling different from everyone and not knowing why. Dramatic stormy relationships and lots of anger.

Pain, turmoil, some self medicating
(Allergic to most meds - so "before" is also "now" )

pretty much the same as it is now, hell.

sleep issues, instibility, bad thoughts, etc

the only good thing that's come of it is that i've not been in hospital so much (where before i was in their all the time)

my last stay was april, that was for attempting on my life.

at least it's not every month now

total crap

I was told many many years ago that I had depression.
I paid it no attention and just went on with my life.
I always had issues much the same as everyone is expressing.
Also many issues as a child.
When I had children I was able to hold it together for many years even though
inside I was in total turmoil, happy one day sad the next, not able to see things
clearly unable to sleep, in a very unhappy marriage on and on.
I was almost 50 years old when I got the bipolar diagnosis which made so much
sense to me. I finally got it, I had an answer to what was wrong with me.
The meds have helped to keep me stable for the most part.
I wish I knew 30 years ago that I was bipolar.

I was a mess, cycled pretty rapidly, finally had a hypomanic episode that turned into a dysphoric manic/mixed episode last year, tried to off myself and ended up in a PHP program for 21 days, now I'm on meds...

Extremely depressed, suicidal, tried once and probably would of tried again. Had no hope every day was torture and cried almost every day. Was a shut in, in fact I think I was dead, just cause what I'm doing is not living at all.

Now I'm hopeful. Suicidal ideations are gone for the most part. I do smile but still not enjoying life as I would like. I'm on the verge of being financially set. Which means I can go out more and have tons of activities planned for next month. As my "Phoenix rising" tattoo I'm reborn.

I walked out on my family and just partied for
6 months. My pdoc told me that if I didn't go ip I would be dead within a month. Either from a heart attack or from my life style. So I went ip and started to come down. I was so embarrassed and remorseful I didnt know how to start fixing things. But I ended up back with my family and things are going well now.

Chaotic. Very. Deep dark depressions in the winter. Hypos in the spring. Manias in the summer. I was always up and down in between bc I was on an AD and sleep meds but nothing to stabilize me. I do miss the hypos. But I'm happy to finally be properly medicated and stable.

A complete shitshow

Like you described it, bluebicycle, "crippling" also describes the depression that I felt prior to being diagnosed as BP. It was scariest before I even truly knew what Bipolar was. I was living in fear and paranoia during times of mania, made tons of reckless decisions, my raging anger affected my family relationships, and the guilt I experienced during depression was unbearable. Physically, anxiety had complete power over me. I would often shake for a good portion of the day for weeks at a time when paranoid and couldn't sit still since noises were too loud and would startle me. Also, I developed a problem with alcohol and pills. When things hit rock bottom, it prompted me to study Psychology, and I was relieved to learn that there was a label for the hell that I was experiencing and glad to hear that treatment has helped many. I don't know if I would have made it up until this point without the help of meds and treatment.

Although I still get symptoms and episodes, knowing that it's Bipolar and med adjustments and other forms of treatment are always available to me gives me hope that no matter how bad things are, they can get better with time-- and that there's always ways to cope.

My life was miserable. I felt completely and utterly hopeless and helpless. Although I still have these feelings, they are less prominent than they had been prior to starting on meds.