tsukiko

So I had my estranged Mother come stay with me for two weeks.

My mother is in recovery from an eating disorder she’s had over thirty years. So, nearly four years into recovery she was all for talking about ‘the past’.

The visit went well, but at times I felt I was bordering on mania and I lost over 6kg over the fortnight.

The cycles have noticeably intensified and become more rapid. The lows have become more persistent and I’m increasingly feeling near mania the longer I’m clean. Even using I've only ever had one period of remission (neither manic nor depressed) and that lasted six months when I was sixteen. I don't give in to episodes or allow episodes to smother me or those around me, but I don't know how long I can maintain that on my own.

I promised myself a score when she left. Every time she put the kettle on and started talking I took myself to the moment when she’d leave and imagined my score. I feel bad about that, though I haven't used.

Heroin made existence manageable and life impossible. Sobriety makes life possible, but existence seemingly impossible.

I’ve asked for cbt and therapy. The doctor’s solution is lithium or sodium valporate. If I’m gonna’ take drugs again it ain’t gonna’ be antipsychotics and mood stabilisers, I know that much.

I’ve heard people say ‘Avoid major decisions or life changes for the first year of sobriety’ and I’ve heard doctors say ‘[If you are bipolar] avoid stress’. Both seem logical, but wholly unrealistic.

I guess my question is:

Is that the deal? I get to choose whether to be a manic depressive or take drugs for the remainder of my life?

Done_With_It

Some people see these "Drugs" as medication. Just like people take medication for cancer, diabetes, or whatever else, people do what they feel leads them to a better life. I do what I need to do. But your recovery is in your hands.

If you chose to try something today and see if it helps you that does Not mean it is for the rest of your life. One day at a time.

JMO

mistycshore

I would consider my doctor's opinion to hold more weight that what people might say.

Getting a good balance on those drugs can take time. Hang in there.

And KUDOS for not using.

tsukiko

I've hit this topic before, but taking antipsychotics and mood stabalisers ain't like being diabetic. Diabetes is not in your head....your mind, your brain, the part of you that makes you who you are. Taking insulin does not change your personality or govern your behaviour, alter your thinking patterns or potentialy mess with your very core...

I mean, I've heard a lot of people say 'bipolar is like diabetes', but funny enough I've never heard a manic depressive say that...you don't hear someone who's lived with bp likening their situation to being diabetic too often.

And I've never heard anyone or a doctor say 'being diabetic is like being bipolar'...because it doesn't work the other way round...because essentially the two illnesses are not alike....one afects the body in a very physical way and one and the other is more like having an inoperable tumour attached to your identity.



You can’t just try mood stabalisers. Doctors will honestly make this clear; things like lithium are long term treatments. If you begin taking lithium or sodium valporate etc and then you stop taking it it usually worsens the condition and few people will return to the equilibrium they knew before trying the meds. So, they ain’t medications you can just test out.

As well, unlike insulin, people who take lithium etc usually end up on a cocktail of drugs to balance each drug out. The mood stabilisers often only part iliminate the mania and ‘positive’ symptoms of bipolar leaving a sufferer with crippling depression which needs to be counted with antidepressants and is never fully alleviated.

Then there is the fact that you need regular blood tests to ensure the mood stabilisers ain’t destroying your liver and kidneys. I stopped sticking needles in my arms and I ain’t about to restart that. Having blood taken is a constant reminder of my using and triggers cravings for me.

And that still ain’t all the issues....the meds themselves usually cause serious weight gain, sometimes hair loss and birth defects etc. They are serious drugs and a decision to use them is not to be taken lightly.

Bipolar, unlike diabetes, is not so much an exact science...how can it be when you are talking a chronic brain disorder which on a daily basis affects and to some extent governs who you are.

It is a big decision and right now I choose to try and combat my episodes without needles, drugs and jeopardising my physical long term health because I am coping. I'm not jepodising my own health right now because I ain't medicated, so ama' carry on.

I just wish there was the option of cbt or some talking therapy etc to help me to manage the bp the way I am choosing to cope with it. I'm finding it hard to do this alone and the doc' says meds are my only option.


I know my recovery is in my hands, that is why I'm here asking for your thoughts, guys. I know my eventual actions etc are in my hands, that's all the more reason why I wanna' talk through those options first and hear other peeps thoughts / insights etc.

Thanks fella', for the reply...and best to ya'.

tsukiko

I don't hold a doctor's opinion higher than anyone elses. However many years of medical school don't outweigh the expierences of others, far as I see it.

I'm not asking for someone to tell me what to do, just figure it is worth hearing as many opinions, as much potential advice as possible when I'm making some pretty big choices. I can sit and think out my position from now till christmas and I won't see every angle of the situation, cause of where I am sitting. Anyone can offer me any fresh or new perspectives then I'm wholly grateful, whether they're a doctor or a dustbinman, y'know.

The doctors have admitted themselves that they advise meds 'cause there just ain't the money to offer anything else and that there ain't no point me seeing them or going back unless it to get meds.



Cheers for the reply.

mistycshore

Life experience, no. Medicine, yes I would weigh a doctor's opinion more heavily than others.

I hear that. It sounds like you've made your decision, and I hope it works out for you. Not being bipolar, I don't know what perspectives I could offer you - other than that heroine isn't the answer. There is a mental illness forum here on SR and one specific to bipolar here:

Bipolar Support Group

They might be of more help in giving ideas how to manage the manic/depressive cycles. SMART recovery is based on CBT, so you may find helpful stuff there too.

Good luck.

tsukiko

THank you mistycshore. I'll be sure to check out the support group.

I've been asking for cbt for some time now. I'm hoping eventually a doctor will hear me or refer me when there is a place going.

I'm pretty good at managing episodes and that's why I've been able to be functional so far without meds. At the moment I have made my decision about meds and will not take them, but I won't go as far as to say I never will. If my life begins to deteriorate to the point where even meds would improve it then I would reconsider and I try to be open minded. As it is at the moment, I am hopeful of finding other solutions and very determined to find a drug free way to live.

Thanks once again.

least

I am on "drugs" for depression, anxiety, and bipolar. But I don't consider that being "on drugs", I consider it saving my life, as the depression and all have made my life a living hell. The meds I'm on have helped a lot to bring some balance into my life and I'm grateful to be on them.

If you're determined that meds are not for you, then all the best to you in finding therapy or whatever helps you. As for me, I'm glad to be on these meds as they make my life manageable.

Bamboozle

Hello, tsukiko.

I don't have bipolar...but I am on meds for depression.

I may have found a combo that works--I haven't had a suicidal thought in the last two weeks, whereas before they were nearly constant.

From the reading I've done bipolar is worse than unipolar depression in terms of being able to manage and also in severity. Not everyone is the same, but I cannot manage my unipolar depression without meds...hence why I used to drink so much. If I stop taking them I will experience a relapse in my depression.

I don't want to go in that hole again. I feel so much better right now.


Whatever you decide to do, please talk to the folks who have bipolar at the Mental Health forum. They can give you more support than I can.

Wanting you well. Take it easy.

Done_With_It

No doctor has ever told me that my meds will worsen my condition, nor have they. For me I was just looking at a solution to the misery of the bipolar
and depression without going back to meth. My doctors helped me find that.

I'm happier now than I have ever been, and deal with life on it's terms, so like Least I'm grateful for the balance.

Honestly, I don't give a damn what anyone says. We have certain beliefs and we are going to look for things to back those beliefs. So whatever your beliefs are you are going to find things to back them.
Not trying to be mean, but people say all kinds of things, you end up hearing what your beliefs are.
I've come to the point where I don't need to hear or care what other people say about me and my recovery, etc, besides my doctors and myself. When things work for me, great, when they don't, I change them.

Take care and Good Luck!

tsukiko

I ain't looking for anything to back my beliefs. Doctors, documentaries and testing has proved that most people with bipolar will experience worse episodes after taking mood stabilisers if they stop taking them once they have started and do not continue the treatment. Chesk it out.

I respect those who take meds, that is their choice. I can also at least partly see why they would. I have considred it a long time and thought hard about it and accepted there may be a time when I reconsider my decision. Right now I am where I am and I've made the choice I have and I'm looknig for ways to better the life I've created through my choices.

I'm a libertarian...like Mill I believe you silence one man and you silence the world, 'cause that one man might just have the answer. Also, I believe it is important to challenge your beliefs constantly, how else do we strengthen their foundations, realise their weaknesses, assess their worth and develop? Y'know.

I ain't looking for people who agree with me...not interested in starting a cult or boycotting pharmesuitical companies lol, just musing, working through stuff and interested in what everyone else has to say...whether I personally agree with it or not, it has its worth and I wanna' hear it, if someone wants to say it.

So thanks guys.

kj3880

Hi Tsu,
I was wondering how you were. You are such an intelligent woman and have been through such a lot this past year or so. I remember when you came here with the b/f and you using heroin at first. I think you went off to treatment and came back a bit better, is that right? and then got rid of the using b/f if I remember correctly? I may be off because I'm starting to get a bit senile.

Anyway, as far as psych meds go, I've tried a few combos for my chronic, severe, clinical depression. I've made my peace with the fact that I'll need them for the rest of my life. My brain just never made the endorphins it needs to make me feel normal.

So meds aren't perfect, and I look forward to the ever-improving new ones. Right now, Wellbutrin is helpful to me, but I don't think they use it too often for BPD, because it can trigger mania. The nice thing about Wellbutrin is it doesn't cause weight gain. In fact, it causes weight loss.

There are many meds that you can try. My son, who suffers from severe OCD (continually obsessed with getting tumors and dying when not taking meds) and minor case ADHD, does well with Zoloft. He's tried a couple different ones also, and that's the one for him. He hates the side-effects but has come to the conclusion that occasional sleeplessness and twitches beat the heck out of feeling like you are dying all the time.

My Dad is on Prozac for chronic severe depression. Works OK combined with St John's Wort for him.

In other words, everyone is different, and we have to sometimes try different things. Clinical depression and BPD are real disorders. They run in my family. For me, the hardest part of mental illness is the denial. When I'm feeling OK, I sometimes try to stop my meds, denying that I have a real disease, that I need the meds for. Then I get sicker again. Ignorant people sometimes deny that I have a disease, and sometimes that makes me doubt myself and my doctor.

I had a rough time with doctors until I found my current one: an addictionologist who treats mental disorders/dual diagnosed patients with over 30 years experience. When I visit him, it's a completely different experience. He is respectful of my opinion and treats me like a valued patient, not a stupid mental case or a junkie. He listens.

Maybe the problem you have had with docs is that you haven't had a good one. I know how challenging the health care system in the UK can be to navigate, especially when you have what some health-care "pros" call a "low priority" case. Some people don't understand that you don't have to be in physical pain to have a life-threatening condition.

I suggest and hope that you take your psych conditions seriously and begin to dilligently investigate new treatments and meds as they are developed for your condition. Mental illness can and often does return us to active addiction if left untreated. Don't let anyone in any meeting tell you that your prescribed psych meds are somehow the same as using opiates to get high or to get "well." It isn't "well" at all. It's sick.

Love,
KJ

Zencat

I too have a choice but my choice arose out of utter desperation. I tried to manage my mental illness myself. I tried and failed miserably. I guess it boiled down for me to being locked up or try medication. Here in CA they lock up uncontrollable mental patients in a special prison. Usually the person has broken the law so grievously that they end up in lock down. I was headed there...lock down with a criminal record. Today psych med's help me manage my life so I stay out of trouble. Although reading through you post and your reply's I don't think your as a desperate case as I was. I could be wrong but you seem to have it together better than I did when medication was my last hope.

sfgirl

NIMH · Bipolar Disorder

I used to have daily uncontrollable panic attacks. I tried everything but medication for awhile. Nothing worked. Then I started taking zoloft. Finally they went away. It was quite an easy and tangible thing and in many ways mimicked a virus or something although it probably was more complicated. One day the panic attacks started and then a while later the zoloft made them disappear. Faced with the decision of random chronic panic attacks and taking a little pill everyday for me it is a no brainer.

However, it is a personal decision. What I do wish though is that I had tried the medicine earlier and not waited as long as I did. Throughout the years I have had some uninformed psychiatrists— so you need to shop around for one who will really work with you when and if you decide to take medicine. Maybe you need to find a really good one to give you the absolute facts of what medicine can and cannot do for you. It would just be a shame to make a decision based on perceptions when something exists to make you feel so much better. I know how hard though it is to try something that you don't believe in and do not trust.

emmanuel2012

I personally take advice from doctors seriously, but with grains of ignorant salts.
For instance, most doctors don't think bipolar or diabetes are curable conditions.
But guess what they have in common? They can be cured. Cancer too. I firmly believe this and there are more and more studies revealing this fact that lies apparantly contradictory to most of todays western medicine practices.

Most peope look at treatments and medication as ways to alleviate symptoms.
Healing and curing from an illness, recovery and such changes do more than that,
They alter or eliminate the root causes, sources or crux of the illness.

Just as staying sober with self control may "treat" an alcohlism problem, *recovery* from that problem requires more work at the source of why the alcoholic suffers with and without booze.

I also have a dual diagnosis. I could go on a tirade about psychiatry but I've done that many times already. Mental Illness being real is not a myth, imho, but full recovery from mental illness is *indeed* possible, AND slowly becoming well documented. Knowing my moods and triggers, managing my nutrition, reducing risky behavoirs, prayer, meditation, yoga and spiritual growth practices have virtually eliminated my need for pharmacology at all.
Peaople do this with cancer, diabetes, all forms of mental illness EVERYDAY.

It seems as if the root cause of all most major health problems is continuing unhealthy lifestyle choices, while the sure cure to these problems is enacting healthy lifestyle choices, while reversing the damage done to the body, mind and spirit while we were making unhealthy decisions.

The only cure to sickness is health. Think Health, Do Health, Be Health, and, by God, you find yourself Healed. I swear it works!!!

We don't have to live. We are living because we want to.
So, its all about desire anyway. To manifest health and happinesss,
Find out what that means to you. Take meds or not, its ultimately up to you.
We are responsible for our own afflictions, and happiness, some say even our own existence.

I'm supposed to take Abilify everyday, but I take it AMA *as needed*. Its what works for me today. Tomorrows different. Yesterday was different.
I know that my happiness depends on ME.
I like to simplify things when they don't makes sense.
Some people do the opposite and complicate them.

To know yourself, .. is so fundamental
"The unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates

So also "if you hold on tight, to what you think is your thing,
You may find, you're missing all the rest, ..and a lifetime's
Past you by.." -dave matthews "jimi thing"

Have a blessed day, and thanks for the discussion.

tsukiko

Thanks for the kind words Kj3880, so sweet. How’re you?

Senile! Lol Not a bit...

I was about 80 days clean, then I used again for a bit, then I stopped, then I relapsed, then I split with my partner. I’ve been clean now since 27/August/09. D’know how much of it I posted. I didn’t go into a treatment centre, but I went and stayed with a mate away from London.

Thanks for listening :ghug3

I first got told I was manic depressive when i was about fourteen, the same year I realised I was physically alcohol dependant. It took becoming a junkie to kick the drink. It’s taken until now to start kicking the denile.

I got diagnosed a second time since getting clean.

I had an 'incident' last year, posted about it somewhere. I think I mentioned I’d been clubbing and had a drink, been arrested and then taken to my estranged mother’s house. Can’t remember how I explained it...I know I didn't tell the whole truth though.

I’d gone from hypermanic to manic and had a psychotic episode which ended in trying to jump off a bridge. Still don’t remember most of it. The police caught me as I jumped, arrested me and the next day took me to my mum’s place, though we were then estranged. Wasn’t a suicide attempt...I was psychotic, and for a while in deniel.

Bipolar runs on both sides of my family too.

At the medical centre I’m registered you see whoever’s available. Often it’s a nurse.

I have to explain my situation every time I go. The only thing they all agree on is that there’s no chance of cognitive therapy or counselling. Its meds or nothing.

They see my refusel to take meds as me refusing help altogether.

I quit meetings back in 2008. I tried a few groups but I disagreed with some of the fundamental parts of NA, and at the time I was relapsing.

At the moment I’m officially ‘homeless’ again too. Trying to find a place to live back in London, but without being able to get there right now it’s proving hard.

I finished my degree in June and my rent was up yesterday.

I’ve an unconditional offer onto post grad study and I’ve just been offered a full scholarship which means I don’t have to pay any of the £5000 tuition fees and they’re even offering to help me with ‘living costs’!

Life is going amazingly well, just I know the stress of having nowhere to live and of my mum visiting the other week has taken its toll.

I’ve lost over 6kg, I’m smoking thirty a day and I’ve been bouncing between hypermania and borderline mania for some time now.

Kept clean, just landed a new charity job book keeping and I am coping, but feel like Batman sometimes; by day I’m the grade A student, actively involved in charity and working out every day, and by night I’m a manic depressive junky trying not to crack.

Thanks for the reply, v much appreciated and hit me up. Be great to hear how you’re doing too.

tsukiko

I respect the choice you made, it sounds like the right one for you. How are you doing now? Hoping you're well Zencat.

I have it together best I hever have right now, but I do get scared sometimes.

I have a criminal record, but England's too poor right now to be locking anyone up who ain't atacking civillians on a daily basis (blessing for some, curse for others).

Maybe meds will prove my last hope, maybe not. If they do then I'll face that. At the moment I'm determined to get a handle on this med free. If it doesn't work then I take full responsibility,and if I'd shown any sign I was a danger to others (not that I am speculating you ever were, Zencat) I'd reconsider my choice straight off. As it is, I never have been, so prepared to keep trying down the med-free route until something either changes for the better, or god forbid, for the worse.

Thanks for your post and I hope lifei s treating you well, mate.

tsukiko

Thank you sfgirl...that's exactly it...trying something I don't believe in, forsaking my beliefs...the beliefswhich have kept me alive against all (even the doctors') odds so far, the idea of giving up on them when they've proved effective so far, in favour of a drug or number of drugs I do not trust, nor have any reason to is exactly it. You hit the nail bang on the head, girl.

I guess that's why I dont want anyone to think that my decision to not take meds is actually a judgement on their decision to take meds. It isn't. I respect, maybe even envy their courage to take that plunge. It is something I can't, I won't let myself do, not yet, maybe never. I haven't a bad word for those who take meds, or for those who don't.

Cheers again, sfgirl...really appreciate what you said.

tsukiko

Sorry guys, had to quote it all...because it says it all.

Like I just said about the meds thing and envying those who can take that plunge, decide to give part of themselves over to something to improve their life...I can’t do that. I won’t do that, not yet, maybe never.

In the past year I’ve quit heroin, worked my body mentally and finished a degree, won a scholarship, worked my soul and given hundreds of hours to sometimes working with three charities simultaneously, worked my body and got my body fat percentage to 21% and my fitness up. My life has done a one-eighty in less than twelve months.

I just can’t give up on the idea that if I carry on putting the best stuff into my body physically, mentally, emotionally etc that it won’t eventually give that back and maybe one day I’ll reach remission from the episodes, or at least get to experience periods of remission like some people do.

It isn’t working quite like that just yet. On the positive, I am coping and achieving, on the negative it has cost me over 6kg of my weight and I’ve neared mania (which aside from being dangerous in itself also makes it near impossible to resist scoring) more than usual recently, but as of yet I’ve managed to pull myself back, rein myself in. Maybe with more practise it won’t be as exhausting to keep doing that and 'cause I won’t be as emotionally stressed I won’t even get to that point as often as I am right now...

That is what I’m trying for.

Sure, I didn’t choose to be here, but I choose to remain here and thus I accept responsibility for my being.

I am still getting to know myself.

I have made a decision not to use meds. While that decision sticks, my job is to find positive ways to cope with my episodes and my cravings...both separately and together, and as well to cope with the life I have now...seen as I now pay the bills and participate in society.

Sounds easy, huh lol

Great post Emmanuel, and by the way the name? Isn't any reference to a certain German born Philosopher is it?

RobbyRobot

Hi Tsu, my young old friend. Great thread you started. I wasn't gonna post on this thread since i don't hang in the forums like i did last year, limiting my time to post and reply with proper thought-out due diligence. Also, the forums don't have enough of what i need to keep my daily mojo working, and so naturally i look elsewhere, to both give back and receive.

Having said that, the forums were a real lifeline last year when i was all fukked up with my divorce and rebooting my life. My friends here know who they are and how they helped me get it together to have closure on my past life and begin a new start on my rebooted life. Thank you all!

Being sober since 1981, and my life experinces, I was never in danger of losing sobriety over my divorce, and so the forums helped me in an entirely different way: they helped me reach out and remember again what i know so well is that loving others is always the higher road to take, and i'll always be grateful for the last year on SR which made it possible to love others in so many good ways. oh yeah, baby. sweeeeet!

I like you Tsu, always did right from the start. You have a unique recovery. We all do, of course, but some more than others. What i mean is some work n' sweat at being unique, others enjoy blending into fellowships, and others slip and slide thru their recovery forever til they simply die. Whatever works, we all walk some path rightly or wrongly, who is to judge?

Six years before i achieved a solid sober n' clean date [1981] i was 18 years old in 1975. I was drunk and drugged up like the loser i was and dying from my daily choices. I destroyed one two year scholarship the year before, then changed majors, and blew off the second scholarship. I was actually using and drinking in the pubs with my profs and the college resident shrink; we became friends of a sort, and i kept dying. Just like that.

One of my very best friend for years was a clinical pyschologist as well as a Doctor of Divinity, an Anglican priest, although we never used together since we met in recovery. I believe he is now dead. He went back east, to his roots, and we lost track of each other over the years.

One bad weekend in 1975 i simply lost it and called the suicide hotline, got a cab ride, and checked myself into the premier mental health hospital. I was in on a 72 hour evaluation and lockdown to the floor. Things went bad quickly when i would not take any of the anti-psychotic medications they said i 'required'. i even refused ordinary sleeping pills. Leaving out alot of the personal drama that goes with these things, on the second day i was told i would be kept for 30 days and then discharged and 'required' to attend the out-patient program. I would also be 'required' to receive anti-psyc meds, for the rest of my life, and stop my drinking and drugging, although they did not believe my 'current addictions' were the main concerns, my mental illness was, and i was duly diagnosed with 'stable chronic undifferentiated schizophrenia'. Hmmmmm.

I should also say at this point they had full access to all my medical records, as i allowed and approved, so they could see the battery of psych tests i had undergone from the previous two years. They had detailed information to base their conlusions, and so had confidence in their treatment plan. I did not share that confidence. Also in my records was my high I.Q scores, which means not much itself understanding what I.Q is, but it does have some symbolic meaning nonetheless, and can come in handy, lol, time to time.

As it turned out i talked with the chief shrink and was released after three days, without medication, and with my records clearly stating their objection and their original treatment plan detailed. There is more to this of course, but not today, and not in this post.

As for me, yeah i heard the voices, i had the hallucinations, i had the delusions, i had the panic. i had the attacks. I accept that i endure textbook schizophrenia to this very day. My life seriously got worse over the next 6 years, finally i checked into a drug residential rehab in 1981, became an excutive program director by 1986 of the very program that saved my life, and when the bottom dropped out of our mutl-million dollar family of rehabs across Ontario, the whole thing folded in 1988 and that was that. My life moved on...

What am i saying? Tsu, it is possible to have a mental illness and have a better life without medications then with medications, i am proof of that. others also do without the medications. just do a google search, and its all there that it can be done. I must say though, that having a serious mental illness without medications is a recipe for life failure. I would think that most persons would rather choose the medications prescribed then go the route of simply living with the illness. As you yourself know, there is no cure for what you and i have, and management is the only option.

Not choosing meds for my illness does not give me a free ticket, and actually is a very tough path to walk. it means my brain does what it does chemically without the control and modifications offered by the meds. i have no choice but to endure what is happening or freak out and risk destroying my life. I have had to rebuild my life several times [!!!] as i learned better management skills particular to my situation(s).

Do i still have the same symptoms? yes, i do, it happens time to time, and i manage my life always with my strengths and weaknesses well in mind. [hahaha] I use a variant of Gestalt Therapy for all my personal philosophies, and simple recovery program modalities for my continued sobriety. I believe in a Higher Power, a Christian God, although i am not religious in any sense. it all works for me, at the end of every day and the beginning of every morning, day in and day out.

Tsu, i hope that i've just given some idea that the path you are considering has some options, as you have already gleamed since you are not taking the meds. my illness was more 'thought disorderd', and yours is more 'emotional disorderd', but both are brain disorders, so i have empathy with you. i have sympathy too, but who needs that? [hahaha]

Robby

p.s. no medical advice is being given in this post and my opinions, although informed, are not medical fact. in addition, no animals or aliens were harmed in this posting. as for upset or excited humans, well, ....

Rock On!