Bipolar and Addiction (Long Post)

[tsukiko]

Huge post. Don’t expect anyone to get through it. Just need to say this. Anyone wanting an insight into bipolar or living with it might get something out of all this, but otherwise you'll prolly' just get bored.

For those who don’t know, I got diagnosed with type one, rapid cycling bipolar. Actually it was no surprise: I got told I had it in my teens, but i was too drunk or pilled up...messed up to care.

But this time I ain’t got anything to hide behind.

...So, I’ve finally accepted it, and come to recognise patterns in my moods, triggers etc -doctor’s advice seen as I won’t take meds.


Things have been real stressful lately, and I’ve loved it, but stress is a major trigger for me and I’ve loved it because it’s triggered me.

It’s like speed without the negatives: You need less sleep, less food, you think so fast and everything’s do-able. You’re happy, almost euphoric.

Sounds good?

Well, Monday I spent £20 on satsumas...I live alone. That’s a lot of satsumas. (O.O)

Last time I went from hypermania to mania (recognised in hindsight) I bought over 5kg of raisins. If I start buying food in bulk then, I know now, I’m getting beyond what’s safe.

Thing is, without meds, all I can do is ride it out, but, when things get real fast you start wanting to get off, and you can’t.

So...you get high...and I know I shouldn’t, but knowing that and what’s logical or sensible gets harder to remember .

Eating, sleeping, everything starts feeling like a distraction rather than a necessary function.

Gear alleviates the anxiety like a cold cloth on a hot head, and getting to the hotter end of hypermania makes it increasingly hard to remember why you shouldn’t do ‘the bad things’, or even why they’re bad.

I’ve only had one manic episode since getting clean originally, and it ended in handcuffs, tears and relapse.

I’m trying to keep grounded...and that’s the point of this post.

If I don’t say all this ****, well, keeping it in don’t help, I’ve learned that. And though I’m rambling, I’m at least aware of it. I’m posting this to try earth out some of the tension; this is me trying to be sensible.

I can’t really say this stuff anywhere else. I can deal with the stigma of being a ‘junky’...but bipolar’s different:

1# I didn’t cause it. It wasn’t a choice like using gear or drinking, yet I still have to take responsibility for it. I guess that is part of the reason I don’t think of addiction as a ‘disease’.

2# I’d happily admit when on heroin that my happiness was due to the surprisingly good score I just got, but admitting to hyper mania is different. Most mental illnesses are associated with feeling down or being delusional, while bipolar encompasses both those things, happiness is also a symptom. Who wants to think they’re only happy ‘cause they’ve a brain disorder, does that mean they should actually be miserable? It really can make being happy, ironically, quite miserable, and thus you spend half your life in a perpetual state of heightened ambivalence.

3# If you are open about being bipolar, anything you do needs to be defended. All achievements, beyond ‘coping with bipolar’ are the result of being bipolar, not hard work. And if you screw up you’re either accused of using bipolar as an excuse or, worse, people pity you. Being an addict, I accepted. I knew the things I did because I was an addict. I could at least draw a line between me and the addiction, to some extent. Ultimately addiction affords you more choices. While addiction and bipolar both your identity in that they work as referents: people know you as ‘junkie’ or ‘manic depressive’, bipolar steals your identity without ever being able to ‘get clean’ and show people what you’re capable of without it...its life long. You’ll never know exactly what part of you is bipolar and what you’d have left if you weren’t bipolar. You’ll always be a junkie, whether you use or not, but you don't get a choice to ‘quit’ bipolarity.

4# Unlike an addiction which means ‘getting clean’ to be healthy, to be ‘normal’, the only way anyone knows how to make ‘bipolar people’ ‘normal’ is to medicate them, sometimes at the detriment of their physical health.

And finally...

5# Because it is now ‘cool’ to call yourself bipolar, people either assume you’re lying about it (wanting the label, not the teeshirt), that you’re using it flippantly to describe yourself as ‘wacky’ or actually think you are ‘cool’ for suffering from manic depression. Most the people who haven’t been keeping up with what is ‘trendy’ think you’re contagious or plain dangerous.

Oh, and did I mention...another symptom of bipolar, specifically hypermania or mania is excessive speech: rambling.

[FunnyOne]

Excuse me, I am new to this board. Why not medicate with psychiatric prescription drugs? If you had Type 1 diabitis, wouldn't you take insulin?

[tsukiko]

There is no insulin for bipolar. It is a brain disorder, not a physical malfunction of any organ of gland. It is not an exact science. It's a complex mental illness that has huge implications for a person's identity and personality. It cant be reduced down to popping a pill and bingo, you're fixed. Diabetes has particular certainties. Bipolar doesn't. Everything's a gamble.

There are only cocktails of antipsychotics, mood stabilisers and anti depressants.

It can take years to find a balance, some people never find it.
There are the potential of some pretty nasty side effects too....major weight gain, hair loss etc which can lead to depressive episodes and impact on your physical health. So then they start whacking on the anti depressants to combat that, but anti depressants were never meant as a long term treatment. They were intended to help in the short term while cognitive or talk therapies would take over, or the patient would recover. There is no recovery in bipolar, only remission between episodes and some people don’t even get those.

Then there's the fact that lithium, valporate...those sorts of drugs are a poison. You need weekly, then monthly blood tests to check your levels, to know the 'cure' isn't poisoning you, destroying your liver etc.

Before you even choose to take something like lithium you have to have blood tests etc to check you're even healthy enough to take it, to try work out the risks.

Plus, lithium / valporate isn't a drug you can simply try and then stop taking. Those drugs cause (in most people) their condition to dramatically worsen if they stop taking the meds...so its not a decision to be made lightly. Once you're on lithium or whatever its long term, possibly lifelong.

If you do decide to stop taking meds, once you've started, you often encounter suspicion, accusations...people, family, doctors think you're 'not in the right mind', that you won’t cope without it. Often you get preasured into taking them, not for your own well being, but so the people around you feel safer.

Oh, and the meds also have been proven to cause birth defects and other stuff. If you get pregnant or decide to start a family you need close monitoring. If they have to take you off the meds then you have to quickly replace them to avoid spiralling into mania...while pregnant. Pregnancy itself has been proven to be dangerous for the mental health of people with bipolar itself, which further complicates matters.

Then there's the reality that these meds could change who you are, that being advised to take them is being told who you are isn't right somehow...may sound illogical, but a lot of people feel that way.
Insulin doesn’t chemically alter the brain...the part of you that makes you you.

All that aside...I miss the needle (yeah, that's going to sound mad to some people) and going to a clinic every week to watch someone, feel someone inserting a pin into my arm isn't something I want in my life. I realised that last time I had blood tests and then spent a week trying to convince my mates the bruise was caused by a nurse, and that I hadn’t relapsed. That isn’t something I need either. Plus, if I do have weekly blood tests I could get away with relapsing much easier because of the blood tests. I don’t want to think about that.

That's why I choose not to be medicated. And I accept the consequences. That's why I posted what I did...to deal with the negative in a positive way.

[tsukiko]

And...to add one more to the list:

I rely on my creativity to put food on my table, and the meds can alter or even diminsh a person's creativity to varying degrees.

Taking meds for something like bipolar is a big life choice, to be judged from person to person.

[jhvw2000]

I don't have any advice to offer but I think I understand. I'm a bipolar drug addict/alcoholic. I was diagnosed in my early teens, well before that it was ADD and all sorts of things, that's what got the pill thing going...anyway....

I just stick to lamictal now as a mood stabalizer. It has some rather funky and scary side effects but it works for me. They don't give me any typical (haldol, etc) or aytipical (zyprexa, seroquel, risperdal, etc) because I end up abusing them for sleep. Depakote and lithium were also knocked out after a few suicide attempts.

Bipolar is no fun ride. For me it goes hand in hand with my substance abuse issues and all together it's just been a giant ride through hell. I see a psychiatrist, psychologist, go to AA meetings, and a cognitive behavioral therapist. Thank god for medicaid.

All your points struck bells in me. I still try to keep my mental problems "in the closet" while admitting I'm a gay drug addict/alcoholic isn't an issue at all. The stigma, all the crap from family you get any time you behave any weird or different sort of way for me either means I'm on drugs or I'm not taking my medication (ie drugs). I stay up for 2 days to rebuild the engine of my vw, and suddenly my ex has the police at my house asking if I feel like I need to spend 72 hours in a psych hospital for evaluation. Those are worse than any detox clinic I've ever been to, especially while you're detoxing in there and nobody seems to care. I guess I need to stop, I'm rambling lol.

Hang in there, you know there are always ups and downs but hang on, eventually you find what works for you and your ride starts to smooth out.

[tsukiko]

Nice to know I ain't the only one jhvw, but sad too. Cheers for the words.

Yeah, definetly hanging in there, I've actually been much calmer quite suddenly, distracted, but not as generaly antsy. Just wish I could get gear outa' my thoughts.

I was planning on giving up smoking this month....now I'm chain smoking just to distract myself lol. Oh well. Lesser of two evils, huh.

Cheers once again.

[fatchance]

Sorry guys I know you'll think magic is a stupid word but that's the word that came into my mind after reading your two threads.

I've never disclosed voluntarily, at any rate, my bipolar for all the reasons and more you've mentioned and to see you guys talking so candidly is magic to my eyes.

I won't bore you with the details, you both know know the score but I would like to ask you something...

2 years ago I headed out to the far east with dire warnings from my doc, shrink & counsellor but had to go, they gave me 6 months worth of meds and the doc, bless him gave me his email addy so he could send more. 6 months down the road and in a different world I staggered the tail end of the meds to give me an easier step off but realised a couple of months later maybe they were right. Up and down like yo-yo on coke, I found Opium was just the ticket to help out, short term of course huh?

Now I've jack'ed in the drink, which is ******* with my head something chronic, another story I guess, but I've moved and lost the poppies too. Never in my life have has the cupboard been bare, and I'm a touch worried about the next few weeks. Any advice guys?

Can't see a doc, there ain't none here for that kinda thing and lost the old one's email addy long time back, would be off his books by now anyway. I live in a place that's difficult to comprehend I mean physically. How does in a bamboo hut, in a refugee camp in the Jungle sound? lol, told ya!

Trying to hold down a respected job but reckon I've screwed up a few too many times already with the drink, gotta get real about what's gonna hit in the next few weeks. Just asking if you've any ideas?

[tsukiko]

Heya Chance. Sorry to hear 'bout your position right now, can't say I've landed myself quite as far as India, but I'm glad you found the post useful. I was really hoping someone would.

I don't see a therapist or get any help either. I'm in London and they can't offer me anything, nevermind India.

Advice? Hmmm...I can prolly' only say what you've already heard and every person with bipolar hears:

Try and go to bed at a good time, even if you can't sleep.

Exercise moderatly.

Eat healthy.

Avoid drink, drugs etc (sound so easy, eh')

Try to minimise stress as much as you can.

Keep yourself occupied so you don't get as anxious about the coming weeks.

Write all your feelings etc down, even if it don't seem to help at the time.

Avoid triggers and recognise warning signs.

Personally, I'd say keep posting on here. The best thing about writing on here is you ain't just talking to y'self...we're here and we're listening.

Is there anyone there you can talk to, on the phone or meet up with? Even if you can't be as candid, I find 'chilling' (not clubbing or whatever, just sitting with a brew and a mate) helps me to try control the hypermania and takes my mind momentarily away from the thoughts of gear.

Maybe the most useful (and difficult) thing, I find, is reminding myself 'I am responsible for me, not the rst of the world.' So often when I'm hypermanic and getting faster I start trying to take on more, fix everything, maybe because I feel able to, often because of the anxiety.

Also, when you're feeling antsy, go for walks. Exhaust yourself physically. Are you able to do that where you are?

Sorry all this is the usual stuff people say, but I really can't say much more. I'm not in India, but London's its own jungle and I guess I'm searching for the same thing.

All the best and stick with us

[jhvw2000]

tsukiko - glad you're still hanging in there. I guess the one good thing I've noticed about being bipolar, well this can be hell too, is how fast your moods can change. I have a great therapist that does cognitive behavioral therapy, it's kinda helpful. I'm sure your dr. can guide you. I was told to do a mood diary but it was just too much to keep up with. Hang in there, do the best you can, communicate with your dr/psyc and things will smooth out.

I'm struggling hard with the smoking thing now too, I noticed in the mental hospital that almost everybody smoked. Seems like an odd coincidence.

Take care
Jon

[tsukiko]

Big cheers jhvw / jon for the message, really. (And as for the smoking...rather cigarettes than the alternatives, way I see it.)

The medical centre where I'm registered you don't usually see a doctor, you see whichever nurse is available and they seek a doctor's advice if they can't deal with it or you need a script for something. Every time I go I have to hash up the past and it is impossible in a ten minute appointment.

I've asked for cognitive therapy or any therapy so many times. There's a counselling service at the centre, and I mentioned if I could go to that, but was told that that service 'was not for bipolar heroin addicts' and that 'the staff weren't trained to 'deal' with people like 'that'.

I can't get in with another practise and this one is nearby.

Someone I know who's been chronically suicidal was on the waiting list two years and only just been able to see a shrink. I can’t even seem to get on the list. The shrink who diagnosed me doesn’t council patients. He refers them, and there is no one to refer me to.

I tried NA, but (without going into it) it wasn’t for me.

I do keep a diary. I've kept a diary since 1998 actually, before I'd ever touched heroin or been diagnosed bp. It helps.

Just sometimes, I d'know, I guess not being able to talk, it sort of splits me down the middle...

'Out there' I'm the confident, 'always falls on her feet, success story' who's overcome alcohol, speed, heroin, past abuse, over sixteen fractured bones, three neck braces, septicaemia, liver failure, deep vein thrombosis, heroin OD, rape, trauma, seen countless friends die, been abandoned, estranged, slept rough and at 21 has beaten the odds and 'got over it'.

'In here', I'm this 21 year old kid, not a year clean on her own in a flat in London with rapid cycling type 1 bp, no family within 300 miles, no family or friends, near or far, who want the 'h word' or 'b word' mentioning and sometimes, not always, but sometimes...it’s hard.

Most of the time, I can't deny it, life is so exciting, so good to me, but just sometimes I feel like I'm strapped to a time bomb, or worse yet there's just silence.

I sit down for two minutes between the laundry and work and it hits me: If I just stayed sat there it'd be at least a month before anyone noticed. Usually it'd be numerous months before anyone came knocking, even the landlord. I know because it's happened.

I don't want to sound ungrateful, because how can I be...no one could be ungrateful for what I have considering the things I've done, but I guess if I did wish for anything it'd be someone to tell that too.


I rang one of my closest friends yesterday, intending on ‘being honest’. I realised I don’t even know what that is. After an hour long conversation about the holiday abroad she’s planned and movies we have or haven’t seen recently she had to go. I did say I’ve been feeling a bit on the edge recently, but she laughed and said that’s who I am.


I know my mates care and they won’t hear what I am saying because it scares them, but not saying it scares me.


I feel like a ghost sometimes.

[fatchance]

Hey Tsukiki,

Your words strike different chords that sound different tunes in me, but I'll say again, thank you. May sound odd but having never spoken to anyone with bp except a shrink or too, it's quite scary and at the same time reassuring to read what you say.

The isolation you feel is uncannily similar, past exploits and horrific experiences chime too. I was born and bred south of the river but was moved when I was 15 to rural Wales of all forsaken places, which was the biggest culture shock I've ever known. Hey, I'll stop the ramble, felt one coming on...

Just, I dunno, fancy meeting online for a chat? No worries if not, and the time diff would be a bugger, I'm BST +7 (or is it six?), and can only access the net from 7pm till 9pm here. Unless like now the sun is shining and we have a bit solar power, but the monsoon is nearly here.

Thanks for the advice too! I'd forgotten most of it to be honest, just in this rubber bubble hiding out in my hut. I can go for walks but have dipped after a blazing drugged up high in the golden triangle, and although I know it'd be good just don't. Not in India btw but the border of Thailand and Burma. Whereabouts in The Smoke are you?

So, about that coffee? Your call no sweat.

[tsukiko]

Heya Chance, nice display pic' by the way. Had a mate who was crazy over Hunter S Thompson and disapered into Manchester few years ago to bring Gonzo Journalism to England, lord knows where he is now...geographically and spiritually, heh.

Useless at keeping the time here, introduce different countries and I'm gone. Sure we can find some time though. I'm awake any time that ain't between 4am and 9am over here, and I'm about more now 'cause I've finished up uni' and have two weeks work free.


I'm in south west London by the way, but I can usually be found around Soho and Islington. Spend more time north of the river. Before I got clean, if I wasn't in Slough, I was usually in the east end or New Cross.

Yeah, I've stayed in rural parts of Wales, north Wales. Years ago now, but I've lived all over...north, east, south, west. So can get on the culture shock.

Drop me a time you're next free and I'll see if I can make it, and look after y'self.

Oh, and if y'wanna ramble -lay it all out. That's what I've been using this thread for. No noe has to read it if they don't want, y'know. And I check in regular.

[jhvw2000]

Ok...this may be a LONG post because you guys hit on some big topics, the last of which I read was about Hunter S. Thompson, who I've been a huge fan of since my mom was an idot and gave me the great shark hunt when I was 12. Anyway, that's a whole other story.

Fatchance, I'm sure you know the basic at least old-school psychotics. I know I shouldn't give out med advice on this board so I won't mention medications. There's a website called crazymeds.org or something like that, google it, and I think they have links and names for drugs in different countries and how to get help. I know you're pretty isolated, but to at least write these things down, like mentioned above with your moods and thoughts, might help in the future. I'm also open to talk about BP anytime.

I also think my BP is very involved with my substance abuse, and it'd be nice to talk to people who might understand what I mean.

I hope you're doing well tsukiko, and I'm always checking this site multiple times a day and will check this post too. I can identify with so much of what you guys are discussing.

[tsukiko]

That was you 'long' post Jon? lol. Oh dear, you've seen mine recently!

Another Thompson fan, eh? Good stuff

Good advice for Chance, btw, and ta' cause I wasn't sure what advice I could offer, especially on the meds side of things.

Be good to chat with y'both. As I said, I'm pretty flexible, so whatever's good for you guys. Just message me on here or pm me. I check back often enough.

I hope you're well too. I'm feeling a lot better thanks. I was certain I was heading for mania, but I am feeling much calmer now. Think pouring all that crap out really helped, stopped me causing myself to go bananas.

Cheers guys , and don't be strangers.

[jhvw2000]

Oh, my post can get longer than that when it comes to the topic of bipolar disorder, especially related to drug abuse, etc. I'm doing pretty well. Life has been busy and physically exhausting enough (and still nicotine free!!!!) that I'm just crashing at night after busy days. I don't mind it. It won't last long, my brother is going back to work for half days starting tomorrow.

I love Thompson fans
I hope fatchance can get on here and find some help she needs. God knows what I'd get into in an environment like that...I really would like to be able to talk to people about this problem and possibly help them if I can.

Anyway, hope you continue to keep doing well and mabye we can setup some time to chat and discuss what we all might have on our minds. I have a very flexible schedule, I work from home.

Best wishes to all,
Jon

[tsukiko]

Glad you're doing well Jon. Hell, go you on the not smoknig front. I ran outa' baccy, didn't decide to quit, just went to see how long I could last before I started going batty with it. Went 17 hours, then ran to the shop lol. Think I'm going to have ponder over how to quit smoknig a bit longer, maybe try the doctors, see if any of them can offer any advice. Everytime I stop my moods, within hours, sort of get beyond what I'm comfortable or feel safe with.

Was good to hear from Chance too, I wish him the best as well.

Drop me a message if you're free to maybe catch up in the chatroom at any time and I'll keep checking back.

All the best fella'