Hot - cold - hot - cold

Does this kind of rapid mood switching sound familiar? I am on a quest to eliminate pharmaceuticals except for emergencies. I am down to only one anti-depressent - Remeron. I have been on that diet for about a year now.

Here is the curious thing. I am having spells of a hour or so, to a couple days, of rapid alternating emotional washes. I am generally pretty awake, even cheerful, but within seconds can be washed over by a wave of anxious, black emotion. it can sometimes provoke a rapid crying/tearing, too.

Anyway, this kind of sounds like what a friend years ago had - rapidly cycling bipolar disorder. The only thing is the up sides are not near so radical as the down sides.

No matter what, I am feeling greater and greater confidence in being "out" as a "mentally ill" person. The concept of "illness" is loosing its power on my attitude. I am getting more comfortable with joining what my mother might have called eccentric people.

Viva the mad!

Where would the world be with out the irreverent crazy people who broke the paradigm?

I just noticed my letter lacked some coherance... That too.

Can't respond more than that -- am frantically packing to go out of town for 1.5 weeks. Thinking of you, though.

Viva la mad, indeed!

Dear k, I think I'd talk to my therapist about the mood swinging, especially if it's been going on for a year, or did I mis read that? Are you sleeping? When I don't sleep I get extra wingy.

As far as being out as a fruit loop, I proudly consider myself an eccentric old lady in training. I've got the eccentric down, and time is working on the old part faster than I'd like.

I once had a second tier friend tell me,"You have to pick a style...." then words failed her. She could not imagine I had.
tee hee I felt so sorry for her lack of imagination, I kept my mouth shut and just giggled to myself.....

Glad you're giving yerself room to play with it. Onward, you wierdo you........glad yer in the club!!!

sounds like bipolar to me. i am bipolarbearian. talk to your T. xoxox pat

Bipolar. This has crossed my mind from time to time. I have always defaulted to not drawing attention to it in therapy/Rx sessions. I don't want to medicate the highs away. They are managable and pleasant. This is when I feel to be my "real" self. My excuse is the "high" is not all that high - not like speed or coke by far. I also am not inclined to doing anything with my flights of fantasy. I simply enjoy the tops of the waves and maintain course.

On the down side, these rapid waves are quite short and endurable, at least for the time being. There have been times when they persist and lead to a bit of paranoid "delusions". It seems they don't linger as long if I don't fight them off.

In the past few years I have found there is a way to induce very long lasting high cycles. It has been very expensive, but fantastically fun. Travel, especially to very foreign places like Africa and Asia. It is a socially acceptable addiction. When in the midst of a very strange place, I am in a constant buzz of hyper alertness. I am very talkative, and sociable. It is as close to a cocaine buzz as I know of without actually taking any drug.