[hippyhippy]

I don’t really think I am BP. (this is a long un...bare with me!)

To explain is rather hard but I will try.
I became ill a year- a year an a half ago with depression induced by anxiety and stress. My anti d’s did not work very well. I had them increased and increased to max but still I felt that I felt bad (a damn sight better than I do now)

I have mood swings, yes, I always have as long as I can remember. I have always been prone to depressive moods, elevated moods, extreme angers and in betweens. As I have gotten older, the depressions have always had a reason. The highs have always been what people like about me. The angers have become more and more unacceptable.

My ill health culminated in an extreme anger which prompted me to leave the family home to go to Cape Wrath. Not quite sure why…I just wanted to. This resulted in me being admitted to hospital for a night. After this came referral to the psychiatric services. I became convinced that there was more wrong with me than mere depression/anxiety as I had several moods in one day at times. I had times of feeling fine/good/bad etc so began to research. I found that I vaguely fitted the diagnoses of BP, but not in any extreme form. I presented this to pdoc who then had me keeping a mood diary. I had fluctuations, but no real pattern and was being treated as though I did have BP. My moods were not so extreme at that point.

I however, felt for one reason or another, that the anti depressant med wasn’t helping me (I never had) and asked for it to be changed to one I had been on before. I had a reaction to it. I came up in an itchy hot rash. I also began to get quite worked up and tried to get in touch with pdoc but communication was failing. I got more and more agitated and angry at everything around me and when pdoc finally got in touch with me, he reckoned I was experiencing a ‘high’ and did not want me on anti depressant meds. This was the clincher on his BP diagnoses. That was a few months ago and it has been hell on earth since. I became physically violent to my daughter not long after that, I drove round the country and slept in a car park (very out of character for me) and convinced myself I was hearing things (if I was to be honest, the things I was hearing I knew were in my imagination due to over tiredness so it doesn’t really count as a psychotic episode)
I fell out with every med the pdoc put me on and wanted it changed as I decided it was wrong for one reason or another including my seroquel (which actually was quite good)
I have asked my pdoc again and again 'is he convinced?(yes) Is he sure?(yes) Am I being a drama queen?(no) Does he have any doubt whatsoever?(no)

I had another reaction to a med. A med given to me after a threatened suicide that I probably would never have gone through with anyway. The road downhill since this has gotten even more steep and I am falling badly.

What I am trying to say is that I think I made myself fit the symptoms of BP. Yes, I definitely have mood swings. Yes, they are sometimes on the extreme side but I like the good side of that. It is the anger and depression I don’t like. BUT…..what if my anger is purely bad behaviour and poor impulse control? What if my depression is a dissatisfaction at life and needs me to make decisions? Maybe I am hiding my head in the sand?
The things I have presented to the pdoc for example.

Suicidal behaviours. I have done some silly stuff but never REALLY put myself at any real risk.
I took some pills and was sick, but I hadn’t taken enough anyway.
I took some pills and made myself sick. Again, I hadn’t taken enough.
I waded into a reservoir at night. I didn’t go too far and I don’t think I ever intended to.
I made up a suicide pack but told shrink about it when I had only taken a half dozen of the pills (and made myself sick to be on the safe side)
I have another suicide pack but I most likely won’t do anything with it.

I DO obsess about suicide attempts but I don’t think I would actually go that far. I think I have just been being a drama queen, wanting everyone to know just how bad I felt (poor wee me, please feel sorry for me, I am pathetic I know...........)
Someone told me my behaviours were ‘para suicidal’ meaning that I don’t intend to kill myself, but my behaviour could result in it. I don’t think it could, I don’t think I would go that far.

My highs. I do irresponsible things like book a holiday that I don’t want to go on without thinking through. Definitely ‘impulsive’ behaviour. This is surely just a human failing? I get very high and jolly and am described as a typical Gemini twin as I can be from one extreme to the other. Surely this is just my personality? Besides…my highs are why people like me. People don't like the plain every day me, they like the jolly happy up in the air me.
My anger. I am just a bad tempered bitch who has never learnt control. Yes, they scare the life out of me and I know I am doing wrong and if I believed taking lithium would stop me from being like that I would take it gladly. But I think it is just my poor impulse control again.

This brings me to here.
I do not think I am mentally well. Someone who is mentally well does not carry on in the way I do. But maybe by accepting I am mentally ill is a contradiction? Do mentally ill people not generally think they are fine? But in a way I am doing that by trying to convince myself I do not have BP.

Lithium. What if I am not BP and I take this drug? What does it mean for me if it doesn’t work? Do I really want it to work? What happens to me if I am not BP? What if there aren’t any fixes for me in a pill packet? What if it subdues my moods and no one likes me anymore? What if it feels like a chemical lobotomy for me?
This actually brings me to my most desperate point of the whole year and a half. I really believe I am at last chance saloon. I don’t think I can carry on fighting whatever it is that I am fighting. The weird thing about not feeling genuinely suicidal is that I feel nearer to it now than ever before and that scares the living hell out of me.When my husband left the house this morning to get his hair cut my first thought was 'great! I can go and take my pills' Yet I don't want to commit suicide! What did I want to do? Did I want to punish him for some weird reason? But I definately wanted to take those pills. Was I about to commit my first real, genuine, bona fide cry for help? But I am getting help! Do I want to be committed? But when I had the chance to be in hospital, I lasted 3 hours!
Hey, I might scare myself to death! ....No time for puns, seriously...I am so worried now at the course my mind is taking on some points of the day and it makes it worse to think I have brought it all on myself.


I don’t think I can accept what I believe to be the truth. I am just one of life’s chronically unhappy people. I am being punished for not being happy with what I have. I am being punished for being such a crap mother, an ungrateful mother, an unwilling mother. I am being punished for being glib about extreme emotions and now they are really coming to get me and there is nothing I can do about it.

Hippy