Bipolar Check-in #86

@Blueberrybook:

I'm overjoyed you're doing so well! We all want to see each other succeed. I'm thrilled that you are enjoying your drawing which is VERY impressive, and this comes from someone who sketched intensively in their teens, so i know what the creative process is like.

Glad you are enjoying baking too. I prefer cooking as i am determined to lose weight even tho the deck is stacked against me with menopause and anti-psychotics on board still. I hope to rid myself of the APs in the next twelve months, as my diagnosis is now dual "Progressive Grief Disorder" (PGD) with considerable mood disturbace, so APs are contraindicated.

They just make me fat and tired and lose out on life. So sorry i ever saw that Doctor Patrizia Cavazzoni who pumped me full of Epival and i gained 125 pounds in a year and my hair turned grey at 29. What a drug dealer she was, now working for the US FDA.

So negligent, such a criminal. The Hypocratic Oath is "First, do no harm," and she violated that in spades. And now she's in charge of what American's eat and drink! Such a harmful, negligent human being, beware.

Well, on to cooking adventures in the kitchen tomorrow morning. I have everything on hand. I prefer to cook with beans and vegetables. I can't justify baking, because it's so caloric. I like desserts, but i must forego them temporarily while i get down to a healthy weight. I won't travel internationally until i am fit, hale and hearty, and can once again protect myself against ne'er do wells.

It's been a joy to see your sketches, and colored pictures, and watch you grow as an artist. You are a real force-of-nature here on this forum, and i hope you continue to participate with such VERVE!!!!

I'm taking the day off, which is why i'm writing so much. Enjoying myself, but don't want to tire you all out, so will try and resist for the rest of the day. Might be hard, as i have nothing else relaxing to do, tho, so apologies in advance. Went to an art gallery yesterday, so i've had my fill of the city, and it's Saturday anyways, which is a bad day to go out into the city, with huge, hectic crowds about.

Just feel like reconnecting here and repairing the relationships i ruined during my recent episode of benzo withdrawal, during which i was such an inexcusable bbiiaattcchh. So very sorry for everyone's feelings i hurt. That wasn't ME talking, that was the benzo deprivation talking.

But it's my fault for being addicted to benzos, and my fault for running out and thinking i'd be okay. Surely, i have learned my lesson the hard way, and know that skipping even a tiny dose of five milligrams of valium turns me into a monster.

It really scares me for the last-ditch attempt i will undertake to rid myself of benzos for good. My doctor and i have planned to take it slow and cautious, and reduce by only 0.5 milligrams per month, which is VERY WARY.

But these darn things have such a grip on me, i just don't know if i can do it. There's a risk to attempting it as i become a raving bbiiaattcchh in benzo withdraway. I once got banned from a mall for arguing with cashier over a penny.

In benzo withdrawal, i can't get along with ANYBODY. I can't get anything done without causing a scene. I argue with cashiers, bus drivers, bank tellers, waitresses, etc. I'm risking going to jail when i withdraw from benzos. So sorry i ever took them on Doctor Patrizia Cavazonni's advice. Such a drug dealer of a shrink. Negligent. Criminal.

But i was the one who swallowed the meds. It's ultimately on me, tho i was influenced by bad advice. But i have no one to blame but myself for my benzo addiction. I am my own worst enemy.

I slept all day until 1pm. I just couldn't wake up for some reason. I rescheduled my visit for a telehealth next weekend. I'm still just lying down but I'm awake now.

Blueberry i love the pineapple! Its so art deco and so vibrant! It dances off the page, its alive!

@JaneOnceMore

It sucks you're stuck on 5mg of diazepam or your anger gets out of control. Can you try cutting the 5mg in half and see how you do on half? I don't get angry. Last time I was cut off my diazepam cold turkey I became kind of manic, yet overall sick, etc., and INCREDIBLY anxious. Sadly. I'll be okay though in a few weeks, then I'll go down another 10mg. And once I'm on 10mg I'm cutting that sucker in half and taking half, then I'm cutting it into fourths and taking one of those a day, and THEN I'm going off it completely! This must be done. I guess we'll just see how I do.

@Blueberrybook

Love the pineapple! 🍍 It is my favorite fruit.

@JaneOnceMore - It's wonderful that you apologized to the woman you had an argument with; it is very so important to get bad feelings off your chest especially when you felt terrible about the argument afterwards. Sleeping on an air mattress is tough; I don't know how you managed that. Whenever we visit my middle sister, H my daughter & I all share an air mattress; I never sleep very well there! Sorry for your mood coming down, but more sleep is always a positive thing! I am so glad the melatonin helped you sleep! I take melatonin too, it helps me a bit though Seroquel does most of the initial hard work of getting me to sleep in the first place. The melatonin I think helps me sleep through the night. No problem writing just about yourself and only responding to others when you are up to it. And sometimes, I don't have the time to and there are times I don't feel up to it either. Thank you for the compliments on my sketches; some are better than others, but I've had a lot turn out that I didn't think I possibly could get close to. I'm discovering the joy of using the darker B drawing pencils which really help emphasize shadows and highlights in my drawings I don't know the size of the tablet of benzo you take but if you can cut it in half or fourths, that is the way to go.

@giddykitty What movie did you see? How was it? Did things turn out all right with your mom and sister?

@raspberrytorte - Benzo withdrawal is hard? How much did you cut down? I don't know the dosage/size of the valium pills but some steps of tapering clonazepam I had to cut the pill in quarters. I took 4 pills initially and the first step down was 3 and 3/4 pills and so on. Is there an intermediate step of lowering the benzo dose you can try or not really?

@June08 - I'm so glad the Seroquel has been helping you. You seemed to be struggling quite a lot betore it, if I recall? Seroquel is practically a miracle drug for me, letting me sleep, keeping mania away. I fortunately do not gain weight on it, but I do exercise a lot.

@crazyHitch and @BeyondtheRainbow - Were you able to catch a nap? It's so hard to go without sleep.

@MuddyBoots (((HUGS))) I am sorry things are so hard for your right now.

@Nammu - It's good you slept, especially after giving blood, your body really needed the rest!

Hi ya all, again.

Jane, it’s so nice to see you posting again. I really do miss you. Sorry about the meds situation. Yeah I gained on my AP too though they say it’s not a gainer! Ha! But my metabolism is messed up from my last depression. I just was in bed and not eating for a year. Loss a ton of weight but my metabolism sllooowwed down to nil so the additional AP and normal food intake was enough to make me gain. I’m stuck though cause with my back I can’t walk far or exercise. Ohh boohoo, I’m stable and that counts for a lot.

Blueberry I agree stability is great. A bit boring but great. I too love your pineapple! It’s got great energy.

I was downstairs playing games but they left off to watch Jack on tv. But it’s not captioned so I can’t follow it. My coat came today, but ha ha, the weather is warming up nicely! Going up to the 40’s for most of the week. Yahoo!

Sorry for anyone I missed here...I had a lot of posts to catch up on and it gets tricky when things go to a second page.

Thanks all for the compliments on my pineapple! I'm so happy to share it with everyone! It makes me crave pineapple; I actually have some ordered for my grocery store pickup tomorrow morning. I like to serve it with fresh strawberries (also on my grocery order!) as dessert with dinner. We always have fruit for dessert now; I totally converted H from expecting cake or pie or ice cream! However, now I'm baking more, have made chocolate chip cookies a few times, probably will make them again sometimes this coming week.

My blueberry muffins turned out great. I have used this recipe before, one I found on the internet but a pretty good one. I like having sweets like banana bread, blueberry muffins, etc. for breakfast, but of course, I do exercise quite a bit, and if I lose any weight from my present weight, the pdoc will have a fit. So if I want to exercise as much as I do, I have to eat enough calories to maintain my weight.

Blueberry muffins (sorry for the K-cup maker cord in the background!)

@JaneOnceMore - It was very interesting to read about your life in Vancouver! Sorry, I forgot to add that to my previous post.

@raspberrytorte:

I used "The Ashton Method" to get down to 25% of one milligram of the Clonazepam i was on. One milligram of Clonazepam equals 20 milligrams of valium. So you see, my plans to cut my valium down by 0.5 milligrams a month are very conservative. Your plans seem far too ambitious.

Benzo cuts must be made small and cautiously. Cutting a dose in half is far too big a cut. You'll just go into benzo withdrawal. See if your doctor will support "The Ashton Method" of substituting in valium for your benzo (Clonazepam or Ativan [Ativan is 10X one milligram of valium]). "The Ashton Method" is best because valium can be cut in such small doses.

Doctors here in Ontario will support "The Ashton Method." It is the most cautious and easiest method of getting off a benzo. And even then, it's challenging at the lower doses. Witness my experience going below five milligrams of valium.

I've learned to take it slower near the end of a benzo taper, because the cut represents a larger fraction of the dose. For example, i had no trouble going from 20 milligrams of valium to 19 milligrams. But i had horrendous trouble going from 5 milligrams to 4 milligrams. That's because it's a 5% cut in the first case, and a 20% cut in the latter. The end of a benzo taper is always harder.

I hope to conquer the last 5 milligrams but cutting down slower at 0.5 milligrams. I have my doubts tho. I just don't know if it's worthwhile to attempt it, given that i may end up in jail if i go into benzo withdrawal.

Cuts of 0.5 milligrams are about the smallest i can practically achieve with a pill cutter, cutting 2 milligrams valium pills [the smallest size on the market] that are scored and snappable into 1 milligrams quite easily, into halves to achieve a 0.5 milligram cut.

If cuts of 0.5 milligrams are still too challenging, there is a lab here in the city who will prepare a solution of valium that can be cut in smaller doses, and taken with a syringe-eye-dropper orally. That's my fall-back if the 0.5 milligrams cuts are too impossible. If that doesn't work, i'll just have to give up and reconcile myself to being a drug addict for the rest of my life.

So angry with Doctor Patrizia Cavazonni for turning me into a narcotic-dependent patient. So negligent! Criminal! Drug dealer!

And now she's with the US FDA. I sure don't feel safe having her in charge of what you Americans eat and drink. Psychiatry is notorious for not being an evidence-based branch of medicine. Surely a plain old Medical Doctor would serve as a better leader of the FDA than a psychiatrist, who relies on anecdotal evidence, doesn't even insist on double-blind studies nor longitudinal ones either.

The woman is a fool. She cried during an appointment with my peer, whining, "You don't know how hard it is to be a psychiatrist AND a mom!" Loser! How unprofessional!

She used to wear the shortest of mini-skirts and she had neurodivergent MALE patients. She was a pretty, tall, thin blonde who drove a motorcycle and was addicted to aerobics.

But still, i'm sure her male patients had a lot of trouble concentrating on what she was saying when her skirts were riding up to her vagina! What a train-wreck she was. A sshhiittyy doctor and a sshhiittyy human being.

Well, i'm stuck with the legacy of my experience with her, nearly thirty years later. So sorry i ever encountered this criminal of a doctor. Trying my best to dig out, but the decks are stacked against me, and because of my misfortune of encountering Dr. Patrizia Cavazonni, i may never be able to travel out-of-province. I may never get to see the world because of this drug dealer of a doctor.

I'm still just hanging low. I feel fine anxiety wise after my shot and all my meds. I'm just a bit of a slug physically. But the only symptom I have is severe fatigue. So idk.

@Blueberrybook:

Glad you enjoyed hearing my tall tales of life in Vancouver. I was really ALIVE then, tho in incredible pain, and protracted benzo withdrawal the whole time. Doctors in British Columbia are a lot more cautious about benzos than those here in Ontario. This is good for new patients, but not for ones who are already dependent on benzos, like i was when i arrived in British Columbia. It was really hard to function, and the fact that i still managed to have a colorful experience there i think speaks to my resilience as a survivor.

Glad that you can enjoy baked goods. Jealous, as i love them too. But as a 235-pound woman, i just can't include them in my diet. You're in the opposite situation of NEEDING the extra empty calories. Sigh! We are on opposite ends of the weight-management spectrum. I surely would rather be on your end, than mine. Getting up off the floor is a circus for me. I'm developing skill, but still have to coach myself to be methodical and mindful, and that's not always practical when i first wake up, and am all dopey from meds, and sedation.

Well, hopefully my new passion for fruit will help me cope with my extreme weight gain. I'm not counting on it tho, as i am in menopause, and carry a lot of weight at my waist, have high-blood-pressure, and metabolic syndrome. My doctor agrees that the best course of action is to try and be healthy at my current weight, since weight loss may not be practical, or even possible at 58, and female.

@Nammu:

Yes, we all have to decide for ourselves whether the advantages of meds outweigh (sic!) the disadvantages. I feel i have metabolic syndrome from APs. Not only do they make me have the munchies, they make it impossible to lose the weight i gain. Really a nasty, nasty business, those APs.

And i've never ffuucckkiinngg been psychotic! Christ, what a nightmare that Doctor Patrizia Cavazonni was! Pumped me full of Epival and ruined my nice slim, trim, athletic figure, and gained 125 pounds inside of a year!

I barely remember that year i was so stoned with sedation from the Epival and benzos. What a ffuucckkiinngg drug dealer of a doctor! She must work for Big Pharma, cultivating customers for them, like she does, with such zeal, and recklessness. She must be on their payroll.

She's a pawn of Big Pharma.

@JaneOnceMore - Yeah, I've had some BAD psychiatrists too. The worst one told me I would surely kill myself and commit suicide if I stopped psych meds to get pregnant and have a child. H was with me at that appt. and he couldn't believe the gall of that woman and that was the end of that place, but we should have filed some complaint against her, I regret that I didn't now, but quite frankly, we were both in shock that a doctor would tell me something so horrible! And at that point, I had only been diagnosed with major depression not bipolar; it wasn't until my 30s when I showed up for a pdoc appt. in a full manic phase that my diagnosis got changed pronto to bipolar I. The psychiatrist who diagnosed me was fabulous though. I started seeing her when my daughter was around 6 weeks old, and she had me down as postpartum depression (though after she retired when I got my medical records from her, I saw she had question marks about possible bipolar up until I showed up manic at that appt.) I don't think I will ever have another pdoc as extraordinary as she was (even though she did get me on the clonazepam but she was pretty old school); her retirement hit me hard. My current pdoc is great, wonderful in fact (and he got me off clonazepam) but he doesn't have the same personal touch she did; he was a colleague of hers in the same clinic and does have many of the same practice type policies she had including the much needed after hours cell for emergencies that are not quite to the scope of 911 but still fairly urgent.

I survived the festival it was packed! I ate some sushi and had a sugar free mango tea because I’m trying to be good. The last few posters clearly understand me when I say I can’t lose weight on these meds it’s impossible. They make you gain a sheet ton of weight and then just keep you at that weight then you have to pay for very expensive meds to try get the weight off. It sucks that’s for sure.

@JaneOnceMore why does your benzo keep you from traveling to another province? Are they outlawed in some provinces? Can I not come to Canada with my clonazepam? (I did this a few years ago; did I inadvertently do something wrong?

Just curious

I had a good day. I got on the treadmill for 30 minutes in the morning. Then I cleaned my apartment and read for 4 hours. The day flew by. I was listening to audiobooks the entire time I was cleaning which was probably a combined 3 hours and I read on my kindle for an hour. I just journaled and took my night meds. Probably gonna read more and meditate again before bed. Tomorrow I’ve gotta get back to practicing violin as I have some assigned stuff from my teacher to work on now. My mood is pretty good. Yesterday my mood was super good then in the evening I started dissociating and panicking. I took one of my PRN meds and took a shower and it went away. Then I was able to get to sleep and slept great.

For some reason the higher my moods start out in the mornings the worse my anxiety is in the evenings like my mood is euphorically elevated then crashes to dysphorically anxious. Anyway today was good though mood was level all day. Got a ton done and felt motivated and stayed really active all day.

Those muffins look great and that’s a great pineapple drawing @Blueberrybook I love baking. It’s very stress relieving to me

Didn't do much today. Slept in, went on a nice walk, watched a live stream interview of the lead singer of my favorite band, grocery shopped, and watched a lot of tv. Tomorrow, I will be deep cleaning. It turns out I don't seem to have completely gotten rid of the head lice I recently obtained at school so I am trying again, deep clean and head treatment, tomorrow. If I don't get rid of it soon, I'm going to message my pcp for some prescription stuff.

I thought about getting up early and going to Mass at the crack of dawn tomorrow, but I think I'm going to let myself sleep until I naturally wake up and then plan out my day. I can't believe tomorrow is already Sunday.

@Blueberrybook you are correct-I was really struggling before I started seroquel. My pdoc doesn't know I've started taking it every day, but I think he'll be okay with it. I would have waited until my next appointment to consult with him first if I thought he might not support me starting it every day instead of as a prn.

3:17pm and I’m wondering what to do with the rest of my afternoon. Monday morning feels so close I can almost see it in the air. I’m going to spend a large portion of my Monday morning marking assignments on biomes. They’re quite big assignments that students spent quite a bit of time doing so I have to be careful with my marking.

@BeyondtheRainbow:

Health care in Canada is funded federally but each province administers their own program, with their own policies and procedures. Ontario is fairly loose about benzos, tho they are getting tighter.

British Columbia is very unreasonable about supporting benzo users coming from Ontario because of the massive street drug problem in Vancouver. When i went there in 1999 i was on two milligrams of Clonazepam, and they refused to write me scrips for that much.

They would only write me two milligrams of valium, which was only 5% of what i was used to back in Ontario. There was no negotiating with the doctors there. So on top of all the stress of relocating on a tight budget, and with my private disability benefits appeal pending, coming off a , i was in what's called "protracted benzo withdrawal" the whole six months i was there.

It was really hair-raising. The provincial policy regarding benzos was restrictive and enforced, and no doctor would listen to reason. I fought with everyone. How i stayed out of jail i will never know. There's a lot of bad behavior in Vancouver, so i guess there were others behaving worse than me.

I was merely belligerent, never violent, so it was tolerated. I had a lot of friends, i didn't fight with friends, just anything to do with money, because i was so poor. So i'd fight with cashiers, bank tellers, sales people, bus drivers, etc. I got alone famously with friends tho as there is nothing to do there but socialize, when you're poor. I had so many friends i knew five guys named Bob. All guys tho. No women wanted to know me.

I didn't mind that much. I get on well with men. They wanted sex, but i'd just tell them firmly that it was not gonna happen, and they hung in there, thinking i'd change my mind, but i never did.

Of course, you're allowed to bring whatever meds you like into British Columbia, you're just not able to get a refill once they run out. I had a short supply of benzos when i moved there. I didn't anticipate having a problem getting a refill. It never crossed my mind that they'd have a restrictive policy. Remember, this was back in 1999 when there was very little knowledge about benzos. I thought they were just like any other med.

I got too poor while i was there to afford any meds at all. So by the end of the six months i was drug-free and skinny again. I lost ten pounds a month there. It was a very unpleasant way to lose weight, lots of nights i went to bed hungry. Also, i couldn't afford food.

It was a very intense time, good in many ways, but also a time of great suffering. It was hard hanging in there, never knowing if my private disability benefits appeal would shake out in my favor, or when they would, if the poverty would EVER end. I lost hope, and just lived because of the involuntary actions of my heart continuing to beat and my lungs continuing to breathe, etc.

But all of a sudden, my appeal was decided in my favor, and i went from having nothing but an apartment, no phone even, to suddenly have a chunk of cash in the high five figures and a middle-class income. I decided there were too many obstacles to staying on in Vancouver, so i returned back East, where doctors are co-operative, and homeowning was in reach.

It was the best decision health-wise, and financially, but i do miss the lifestyle of Vancouver, which is very neighborhood-oriented, and you don't have to have a car or take public transit, everything is within walking distance. The Spring there was lovely too, blossoms everywhere, verdant green grass, Stanley park and towering trees, the ocean, the kindness of strangers, the British immigrants, the parks on every corner, the constant conversation, the friendliness, etc.

Here it's more business-oriented, and services are better. It's more civilized, and overall it suits me better, because i LIKE Winter. It's sunny and refreshing. I'm decended on my dad's side by one of the first ever Canadians from 1650, and i just have The Canadian Sheild in my blood.

It was the best thing for me to return to Eastern Canada, but there were a lot of things i liked and miss about Vancouver. It's hard to have adventures here in Eastern Canada. People don't play as hard, they tend to work hard, and that's unfortunate for me, being on private disability benefits, and having a lot of time for play, but everyone is at work, or resting so they can go back to work.

I tend to end up associating with a lot of older people who are retired, and that can be tiresome, as i am only 58, and very young-at-heart. I spend a lot of time alone here, and i get lonesome. In Vancouver, all i had to do for company was walk a few steps to the park on the corner, and there was always someone to pass the time with. It's very isolating here, and that's a steep disadvantage.

My home is comfortable and i have two neighbors i am close to, one a senior woman who is still very sharp, and another, a 31-year-old man doing his Ph.D. in psychology, who is very woke, and fun, and up-to-date on the recovery movement. He's recently been diagnosed with PTSD from his work with victims, and on meds to cope so he calls himself "neurodivergent" now, tho his problem is not endogenous. He's very supportive and fun, but also very busy, and there's the age gap too. He's got an extraordinary dog, so loving and snuggly, we all fight to take care of his dog when he goes out-of-town.

So there's a bit of community animation here in the building. It's just that stuff like i tried to throw a luncheon party recently, and everybody was too busy. Stuff like that brings me down. In Vancouver, people would have fought to be invited, and stayed all afternoon.

When were you in Canada? What province? How long did you stay? Did you like it here?

Lying in bed thinking. How nice would it be if real life had the ignore button like msf. I could mute my assistant principal and put staff who annoy me on ignore. Ahhhh but I can only wish 😊

I've been wanting to tell you that 30 mg of diazepam is like taking 3 mgs of lorazapam. I would recommend coming off of them verrrrry slowly.

I'm sorry I didn't respond to that many.

I'm so tired and busy. My caregiver found a place that will take the stuff I no longer want. I've lived in this apartment for 13 years come August. The closets are jam f all of I don't even know and I have so many clothes to go thru. I have a huge pile of blankets and other things that I haven't went through since I moved here.

I start cbt on Tuesday and I don't know when I'm going to have time to do homework. I wish I could get my schedule where I wake up at least 11am. She wakes me up.

Then I have my son constantly wanting things and the guy that were working with said don't start giving him things bc he posters ME for more and more and more. I bought him 4 borrles of old spice body wash bc what they get there is all dollar store producs, 2 things of shaving cream, 1 stick of deodorant and a big thing of llaundry detergent bc they just use tide free and clear and he says that it doesn't get his clothes clean. That's exhausting for me. But I do it bc sometimes I get this horrible knot in my stomach what his life is like now.

I took the bus during my time when I was in college. So we would go and explore downtown. There was this little Italian place with the best bread sticks in town and they sold pizza slices. They had marble paintings like all combined even on the ceiling. They had a great salad bar there too.

We went and saw the green day musical, we went to San Diego where my brother lives and went to SeaWorld twice. That's before I saw blackfish. I didn't Luke the zoo bc all the animals looked angry and depressed. But all the different kind of beaches were cool. The family beach, the alternative beach etc. We had so much fun before this schizophrenia.

Anyway, what time do you think would be the best time to do my cbt homework?9⁸

My caregiver leaves at 4:30 my time. So I'm thinking right after she leaves. That's probably my best bet.