Bipolar Check-in #80

I don't feel too good. I can't keep any food down and all I've had is a small bag of Veggie Chips, and a small bag of Harvest Snaps. I did keep down a protein shake this morning. I'm achy too.

@MuddyBoots I can bring a letter next time. I can't write well right now but hopefully will by the time I see him.

@Victoria'smom I wouldn't say it has to be well written. You could even make a list of symptoms/thoughts going through your head and what you're doing to not act on stuff they'd see as an immediate danger like "drawing on your skin," (obviously the disordered eating and getting high isn't healthy, but in my experience that's not super concerning to the pros unless it's repetitive use of hard drugs. When my ED is bad and I tell my pdoc I don't feel all that great physically or she sees obvious symptoms she sends me for bloodwork that raises concern and she makes me agree to nutritional drinks like instant breakfast or ensure. My bloodwork from her only came back abnormal once. Not sure what she would've done otherwise, but I refused to be medically treated while also self harming and yeah, I went IP involuntarily (which was ****ed up because I went to the ER voluntarily after the appointment and they assessed me and were about to d/c me but my case manager petitioned for an IEA which somehow judge said "yeah, state hospital for 10 days"???? Literally hospital psych said I was good to go, and agreeing with them was reason to get the court involved? wtf? sorry, tangent.)

I'd still get some thoughts out in case you don't get to the point you feel like you can write well enough before the appt. You can always revise if you do feel better, but it'd be good in the case it goes the other way and gets harder to write.

Yay! I got some love! ❤️ 😍 I am on cloud nine. I REALLY love my husband (and not just because he's a sex GOD lol). I didn't think it was going to happen because Husband was all like, "I feel like I'm taking advantage of you in your current state." SERIOUSLY?! It's not like I'm impaired! Anyway, so now I'll be able to concentrate on novel planning.

I'm SO incredibly anxious right now though. Omg. Tmi but it's giving me diarrhea. Picked up my prescriptions from the pharmacy, so I got my prn seroquel. Just took 200mg. Hopefully it helps my anxiety and knocks me out for a couple of hours. We'll see if it works.

My therapist never texted me back. I guess, what advice could she really give me anyway? I see her Friday morning anyway. She'll probably just tell me my hormones are out of wack again and say I need to see my primary doctor, who is just awful by the way and a complete moron. I mean, why would you put a bipolar on PHENTERMINE?! Luckily it just made me depressed and not manic.

I've decided to stay away from THC now permanently. I had an extremely bad experience from it recently and it made me very unstable so I quit it 5 days ago. No more getting high. I don't think there's anything wrong with it per se but for me with my bipolar/schizoaffective it's a bad combination and not worth it for me personally. So yeah. Yesterday was my 30th birthday. I felt horrible all day. due to anxety and near psychosis from thc from 5 days ago. But I feel better today. So here we go, living a calm life, taking my meds, sleeping, no getting high, doing self care etc all the good things.

Well, seroquel knocked me out for about 45 minutes and hasn't helped my anxiety. I don't know why I'm so damn anxious right now! 😫 I hate being anxious. I don't know what's wrong with me. I've been taking benadryl for my allergies. I wonder if that's the culprit. I'll have to look it up.

Just trying to chill tonight. No walks. No getting too excited. Just relaxing as much as I can. I feel like I have a motor on inside of me or something that won't turn off. Like I'm physically tired as fukk but can't sleep because the motor is propelling me forward. Don't know if that makes any sense. It's really annoying though. Like I can't focus or read or concentrate for some reason, like my thoughts are overlapping each other and turning into layers.

Told Husband we're going on a romantic getaway over my birthday in August. Depending on whether or not that's the Monday I'm seeing Dr Parakeet (or whatever his name is!). I have plans. Involving pink champagne and chocolate and strawberries and a full night of ceaseless love ❤️. I'm so excited. I should look at hotels.

I'm having a really hard time with Vraylar withdrawals. I stopped it 2 weeks ago and I'm experiencing brain zaps, full body zaps, and really strange hallucinations.

My pharmacy is in the process of filling my Rexulti prescription and I hope it's ready tomorrow. I need some kind of antipsychotic to help relieve these withdrawal symptoms.

Taking things one step at a time. Hopefully I will have Rexulti tomorrow.

@Scooter9

That sucks.

How long were you on vraylar?

Fudge. Benadryl CAN cause anxiety, and it can take up to two days to completely leave your system and I've been taking it for the last THREE DAYS because the pollen count has been high. Ugh. I'm mad.

😠 😡

Benadryl causes me to have really bad anxiety and it also makes me ravenous.

Ugh. I am mad 😠. I didn't know it could cause anxiety. Going to have to get some Claritin tomorrow and dispose of that nasty benadryl! Benadryl sucks. Fukk benadryl. Causing me to have anxiety.... pisses me off.

Sucks it causes you anxiety, but at least I know I'm not the only one. I couldn't figure out WHAT the issue was!

Benadryl = YUCK

Lots of emotions from today. Right now, my anxiety has kicked in because I am working on plans to visit family. The only one who stresses me out is my mom. Since I was diagnosed with bipolar, almost every visit has triggered symptoms. Thankfully, I only see her once or twice a year.

I saw the gynecologist my pdoc referred me to today. Sadly, I do have to pay out of pocket. If they ran my insurance, I'd have to pay the out of network costs so they said it's actually cheaper to just pay out of pocket. The doctor clearly knows her stuff, gave me a lot of information about what to expect with the med she suggested (Sprintec), and was willing to prescribe it in a way where I don't take the placebo pills. Paying out of pocket for the med, even though it's the brand name, is dirt cheap at her office. Because of all the really bad, negative side effect experienced with antipsychotics, I have anxiety about starting about adding another med to my list.

Seeing a commercial for a bipolar depression med while in the waiting room, and a song I listen to a lot when experiencing bipolar depression symptoms coming on on my way home, both helped me remember through the anxiety that this very much is the next step/is worth a shot. For once, it feels like I'm taking control of this stupid disorder instead of it always controlling me.

I'm lowering my gabapentin just the tiniest bit but it is definitely a little harder to get to sleep. I finally fell asleep only to be awakened an hour later by what sounded like a creepy voice hissing my name. That made me jerk awake and now I'm still riding an adrenaline high nearly an hour later. Tired but not relaxed.

I don't want to take my PRN but I'm going to have to. I just don't want to hear the scary voice again.

@BeyondtheRainbow

Why are you lowering your gabapentin?

My mom doesn't know how to close the door to the garage quietly and slammed it shut at 8:41. I haven't gotten back to sleep since. I drank a smoothie around 10 which was fine on my stomach. Then I ate a small bag of Reeses Pieces half an hour ago, and I got sick very fast. And I feel like I'm going to have diarrhea but only when I'm lying down. When I'm actually in the bathroom, I'm fine.

Idfk anymore.

Because I'm overmedicated and it's making me unable to do much of anything besides sit on the computer all day. I'm emotionally numb and haven't cried since someone I laoved died 3.5 years ago. And I need to sleep so much that half the day is wasted by the time I get up.

Gabapentin is the easiest sedative to reduce so I'm going down 100 mg/night if I can. I still have that much as PRN; this is a very low stress attempt. I just want it to work. I'd really like to get down to 300 at 11 (I take 1200 at 8:30 and 400/500 at 11) at least. She said it might make losing weight easier too.

I'm fortunately getting sleepy again, I think. I Hope.

Today is our daughter's school picnic. It's at 11AM. I'm going to try to get out of going since that's during my rest period. I took about 600mg of seroquel yesterday (since I have a refill of my prn now) and feel more grounded I think 🤔. I'm not sure. I'm trying to go back to sleep. I went to bed at 11pm and woke up at 1am. I feel like going for a walk but it's dark out and I don't want Husband to get upset with me. I can take a walk in a couple of hours. Took 150mg of seroquel. Hoping it'll make me tired enough to fall back asleep for an hour or so. Allergies bothering me. 🤧 Headache. Itchy eyes. Ugh. Stupid pollen. Laying in bed right now listening to Sleep Token. Husband asleep. Luckily I'm not thinking about funny things again and geeking out!

Husband is really distracting me from falling asleep though. Considering seducing him in his sleep, but I don't know if that would anger him or not. And I'd feel bad if it made him upset. Ugh. Does he really have to be the epitome of all sexual desire?!

Yeah. My psychiatrist said it's an easy med to taper too and that it can cause weight gain. I'm NOT going off it though! Sucks you're so overmedicated. I hope the taper off gabby works for you and you can cry again.

@raspberrytorte
I've had Claritin cause me anxiety too. Hopefully that won't be the case for you. It also made it harder for me to sleep if I took it later than lunchtime.

I'm doing pretty good. Emotions are level, not too much towards any extreme. It's weird to be feeling this way. I was depressed so much of the winter and spring. I think the Cymbalta is also helping the peripheral neuropathy I have in my feet. I still feel tingling but not as much and not all the way down to my core, which really put all my nerves on the very edge. It's nice not to be dealing with that all day too. I think having the neuropathy somewhat under control has helped my mood. Only thing is I wish I'd get my sex drive back, but I think the psych meds have totally killed it

Yesterday my therapist asked me how I feel about my body. Yeah, way heavier than I want to be. I like making quiet footsteps.

So yeah, parts of that memory are on repeat in my mind today. Oh, and they assigned me a pdoc! No clue when I'm seeing her, but the only med I'm going to agree to is Naltrexone or the Vivitrol shot right now (which sucks because that shyt gives me massive headaches, stomachaches, diarrhea, depression/irritability, and some other less bothersome stuff like sleepiness...but I guess that's better than being drunk 80% of the time, feeling good, and then actually sleeping at a decent time, and God forbid a chronically suicidal person die a little sooner than without the drink). But yeah, the Naltrexone/Vivitrol is only going to be if I keep drinking excessively. I haven't had anything since Monday so I'm probably fine now.

ughhh an opiate high is looking mighty fine right now. Two prior ODs say if I screw up again it's going to keep happening and meds are going to be pissed they feel the need to keep treating me. Just let me stop being a part of an unhumane humanity for a bit. Guarantee I'll wake up because I literally cannot die, and I won't get pissed at whoever Narcaned me if they don't do it in the first place!

I saw weird stuff happening outside last night. Like some unknown intelligent species doing some sort of cult ritual. Idk. Not going out without a knife and pepper spray anymore.

Hi, I guess I haven't been on since Feb of this year...I was in an online training program to jump start my work life again. I see folks who are struggling with meds and I have so much admiration for that courage. It took me literally decades to get the meds even remotely balanced.

Now I was hoping to deal with some other bipolar side effects. It has taken me more than 2 years to even get close to working again. My brain was rattled by back to back episodes for a few years before I got stabilized. Does it then make sense that it took more than a year for balance and clarity to properly return. I am beginning to think so now. Reminds me of brain repair I went thru after I quit drinking over a decade ago.

My thoughts go to ---no more opportunities for looking at disablity, My dad is about ready to throw me to the curb as he cont to support me. A yucky middle ground. Interested if anybody relates. Peace & Love

Just the same puking up everything this morning. I slept about 7 hours but there was a huge gap between 8 and 2 and it was more like 2 naps then a full night sleeps.

I made it to therapy ok and it was productive. On the way home my mom called her a "large woman" I puked up my lunch and then I fell asleep for an hour only to once again have my mom wake me up by putting a package on my bed.

Now I don't know whats up. I'm not throwing up but I feel off. I know I went from being in my house for a few weeks to going everywhere on Sunday and Monday and to the hospital all morning on Tuesday and to therapy today.

But at least the Prestiq has kicked in and I told my therapist I want to go back to work as soon as I get my health figured out.

I was on it only for 2 months but before it I was on Latuda for years, both of them 2nd gen antipsychotics.

The pharmacy called and said Rexulti is ready for pick up. Hopefully it'll reduce the withdrawal symptoms.

Good for you for wanting Naltrexone/Vivitrol despite the side effects.

I hope things work out for you, Muddy.

I hope rexulti works out for you!