[shutterbug]

Part of the following was response to a pm i sent earlier, but it discusses several things that have been on my mind lately about the difficulties i've been facing with a growing craving to gamble so i wanted to post it in-part here in my journal. I hope the recipient of my orginal message doesn't mind.

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I know all-to-well the horrors of major depression and not being able to do even the simplest of things ...and even when having to really push to do something as minor as a load of laundry or mailing off a utility bill...it is totally mentally or physically exhausting. These types of depression can be near-totally disabling....and i wish more people in the world could understand this without stero-typical judgements.

There are mainly 2 types of bipolars (bipolar I and bipolar II) I get them mixed up due to my ADD, but one is where the person struggles mostly with mania and the other is where they struggle mostly with depression. I am the latter. I have rarely been truely manic, but I have a lot of hypomanias (lessor form and mainly just feel good and really alert and need less sleep), but i'm also a rapid cycler so i can be sitting at my desk and get so depressed that I have to hold back the tears (or can't even sometimes) and then an hour or two later i'm fine).

Most bipolars in my same catagory don't realize that what they are experiencing is hypomanias. We just feel good and actually feel like doing the things that we couldn't when depressed. We tend not to question it b/c we are so glad not to be experiencing the depression and for the most part we just think we are feeling like our normal selves again.

I was hypomanic in college for a year and a half and hadn't a clue back then that that was what I had experienced. And then again about 3-4 years later I went back into a consistent hypomanic state for about 2 and a half years - still unaware.

Both times I thought I was just more motivated than other people and had more interests in my life to do and that I just had the ability to push myself to get all those things done rather than get a good nights sleep. I accomplished a lot during those episodes...usually the equalvalant of 2 full-time employees doing the same job.

But....as I was to learn...there was hell to pay as a result of that increased activity. Both episodes were followed by deep, major depressions. The first depression lasting about a year and this last one about 2 and a half years. (for those who don't already know...bipolar disorder is a progressive illness if untreated...so hence the second being twice as bad and long as the first major depression). I didn't discover i was bipolar and that there was a bigger issue going on besides the depression until i was already in the second major depression.

I lost so much of my life through dealing with ignorant doctors and being mis-diagnosed over and over....so its kinda my thing to try and educate others so hopefully anyone else out there like me can get a correct diagnosis without loosing any more than they already have.

As you may already know..addiction and mental illness are passed through generations most of the time...and with 60-80 percent of bipolars being addicts...well... most addicts also have mental health issues beyond what they know or realize.

It's actually surprizing to me that addiction support groups like AA and NA don't include education efforts about mental illness...since most bipolars and others have a much harder time staying sober if not properly diagnosed and treated (since most addictions start as a way of semi-unconscous self-medication).

I need to point out that when i talk to anyone here on SR about bipolar disorder and the connects to addiction and depression that i'm not trying to convince anyone that they might be bipolar or anything...I'm just passing along what I know of situations where depression and addiction are involved. Creating awareness if you will.

yeah i've done the med clinic thing where I spent 5 days a week, 7 hours a day, in a group setting and in educational classes...for about 3 months in all (as long as my health insurance would pay for it before and after being fired from my job from the major depressive episode symptoms).

Now i'm at a great job now (though still dealing with some residual affects of my old boss knowing about my bipolar disorder and discriminating against me since I work in a field that is fairly small and where if successful, or believed to have caused problems, the main players become aware of you and your past and can sometimes hold it against you.) But I am still blessed to be at the paper i'm with now and would have a hard time asking for better.

Right now...my main problems are financial and include a growing addiction to gambling that is scaring me really badly as the weeks go by and i'm still doing it. I feel stupid for knowing as much as I do about addiction and mental health and yet....here i am...in the midst of an addiction i thought i'd never have to deal with and struggling to shake myself away from it. I am truely scared. One of the big problems I see is that I have no motivation to get involved in a gamblers support group or anything. I started off this whole self-awarness/improvement journey with a commitment to Alanon to help me recover from my severe codie ways with alcoholics. I threw myself into it...and it led to my bipolar diagnosis and I then threw myself also into learning how to cope with my mental illness as well. I'm not ready to take on another fight...i'm still fighting with the codie and bipolar stuff.

I recognize that I know better though and that's what makes it doubly stupid of me to continue fooling myself into thinking I can handle it...but i suppose that's the nature of addiction to begin with...it overrides our intellegence and 'know-better'.

I've not talked about this much with anyone yet, only a few and only a slight mention in my last year's journal toward the end. I believe a large part of the gambling has roots in my self-esteem issues and in not having much in my life by way of close relationships to foster - primarily a significant other. So i have lots of free evening and weekend time on my hands (and usually not much physical or mental energy left after work to do the life things at home I would want or need to do).

My last relationship was with the late-stage alcoholic who resulted in my finding Alanon. So I don't regret it at all, but knowing what I do now it has me scared of relationships and the person i become when in one. And it's not like guys have been knocking down my door or anything since i'm over-weight and most people have a hard time looking past that... even though i'm not morbidly obese or ugly in the general sense of the word. I've become SO much aware of guys being nice to me these days that i'm constantly trying to decide if they are just being nice or interested. And that has actually become a mental annoyance for me....does he, doesn't he...maybe, mayble not...what if he does, what if he doesn't...why, why not?

I have a new group of friends where most are married or in long-term relationships except for the one person I knew previously from school years ago. And at first i thought he was interested, but over several months ive come to mostly accept that he's just not (as opposed to me just thinking he was shy about girls).

So I spend my time working and with family and working on outside projects that are along my career lines. The casinos provides escape from so much i suppose. When i'm gambling...i don't think about my loneliness or longing for closeness or my depressions or work or anything...i just gamble...waiting for the machine to hit so I can go home feeling good about my life or at least what's in my pocket. Problem being that the machines rarely hit and when they do.... i play it back and end up going home with lossing an amount that I would have been thrilled to have won! So 99 percent of the time i feel worse after a trip to the casino...yet i'm still drawn to it. A lot of that doesn't make sense to me...yet it just dawned on me that that feeling is a familiar one that I dealt with when i was in toxic relationships - a lot of giving on my part and rarely an giving coming my way...and a lot of feeling bad about myself. So perhaps the gambling is creating a feeling inside like that of reconnecting with a toxic old friend.

So perhaps i've currently replaced my codie relationships with a codie-like gambling problem.

I don't know that i'm making any kind of point with all this rambling...i just know that I sat down at the computer tonight wanting to write about what's been going on with me and this issue.

I have yet to make any med changes....i need to go to the gen doc for another bad sinus infection, but even that creates money issues since i switched my health plan to one that i'm going to have to pay cash for most everything this month and next so that i won't have to pay hardly anything for the rest of the year.

paying off an old $400 bill to my psych doc is hendering me from going to see even him for my mental health issues...but i've finally at least starting sitting down with my finances several times a month and making an effort to improve my debts (something i just couldn't handle doing when depressed). So if my plans work out then by this time next month or the month after I will be on a good path with docs and them regularly monitoring my meds and health.

anyway....thanks for listening to my ramblings. I would enjoy reading any and all imput you may have since I know I can't fix this on my own and for some reason i'm not feeling comfident in my regular therapist to significantly help me with this particular issue.

Hugs,
Jenna