I am treated solely for depression. I've had some hyper but that is my body getting used to change of anti-depressant.
I drive on auto-pilot, no radio or anything, get so busy talking to myself in my head I drive by the exit.
Absent-minded....totally! I just forgot to mention I am also treated for anxiety
Attention span? I haven't had a tv for years...which I could care less, but one time I really tried to watch because it was part of a world lit class, I found that my mind couldn't stay with it for 60 seconds. I was in my own world before I knew it. I can and do like concert dvds, for some reason I like musicals and can watch them without interference.
Paranoia...one time I told a shrink what all I was worried about, he said I was paranoid..and then it all happened just like I was worried about. And I know people think I'm a bit crazy and odd. I'll admit to that, all though just last year I asked that I quit being referred to as crazy, because I am not. Odd, sure. So what? Does anyone of them want to know all that I think of them?
I have a great vocabulary but can't use it verbally. I, too, lose words and more aggravating.... important things!
People underestimate my intelligence because of some of these symptoms. Some times I just go along with it and laugh about being ditzy.
My family knows I am gifted in that one little way, so they prefer to attribute my eccentricities as part of it.
I am narcissistic enough to not care what other's think of me. Sometimes this hurts me because too much of jobs are about politics and I can't/don't/won't play. This caused me to be in the first cut in the lay-offs.
My anxiety is well masked. Because I am a risk taker. I will not let fear stop me from doing the things I want to do. I take a pill and go for it!
Few people see how when my printer won't turn on I come so unglued I get physically sick. Actually the machinery thing is my temper hot spot. The anxiety is an underlying thing always there, susceptible first because I am a high strung personality and then triggered into a real constant thing because of traumas. So I take a Xanax every morning. and if something happens that I start having anxiety attacks, I dissolve one under my tongue. My shrink taught me that trick, gets it into the blood stream much faster.
People say, well maybe some day you won't take all those pills. God! I hope not. But they don't understand and how could they? Those pills give me back my life!
BTW, lexapro is one of two of the antidepressants I take. I worship it!
Most important thing I do everyday is make sure I take it. I am done fighting the will vs pill issue. very simple no pill, I get sicker each time. I don't get cured when I feel well and get my life on track, the only way to stay well is to stay treated Learned that the hard way too many times. I surrender.
Weight...when I am sick I look like I just walked out of a concentration camp. Last year I ganed and out grew my clothes....you have never seen anyone so proud of their belly bulging!!!
Well, I am not too thin yet, but the old clothes are fitting again. Eating is a bother unless it is chocolate in the middle of the night. I have always wished they could put a meal in a pill like a vitamin. I've just always got something better to do (or I think so) and that contributes to headaches.
Headaches are my nemesis. They are horrific migraines associated with the release of a certain hormone that starts my period. They used to give me shots of demerol and send me home. It knocked me out but my head still hurt. I am on new meds that are a miracle.
But I still get chronic low grade headaches due to stress and not eating right. And I never learn! Some days I think I am really taking care of myself by eating 3 slices of bread.
That's the secret question I hate to be asked..."What did you eat today" I don't want to talk about it!
The biggest mind and best values person I have ever met was bi-polar. Severely.
The manic thing may feel good, but for those of us on the outside looking in it is scary!
He got really delusional. and If I tried to talk reason to him, I was just another one against him. The pills flattened out his affects but if he stopped taking them he would be way out there and in the ER within 3 days. Always on the manic side.
But, shutterbug, you are ding what you need to do, arming yourself with education.
Take care!
Tena