Posted by Mr Cushing on November 18, 2002, at 18:39:22
In reply to Is there ever a normal after a BP diagnosis?, posted by fluffy on November 10, 2002, at 11:47:23
Hey Katy, I was also diagnosed as being Bi-Polar about 2 months ago. It's a hard thing to get used to. I'm just really happy that I've got a family that is willing to support me, even if they don't understand what I'm going through, and provide me with the time needed to get well before moving on in my life.I've experienced probably the lowest lows that you could possibly hit (not too sure how I managed not to kill myself during this period), then once I treated the depression with an AD for 2 years and it went away, I slowly became manic untill I was basically psychotic. It scares me to think of what would have happened to me if I hadn't gone for treatment and continued to ignore it thinking that it was just anxiety and that I should be able to overcome this myself.
Thus far Depakote (Epival) has REALLY helped me with my mania. Every day it seems to be easier to control and seems to disappear just a little bit more. I'm not sure what to do about the depression part of it though, I'm going to have to start looking into that with my PDoc on Wednesday. Currently I'm on 375mg of Depakote a day, about 1-1.5mg of Klonopin a day, and I'm just about completely off of Effexor. I find that SSRIs make me too manic when I'm on them. Since Mood Stabilizers are supposed to be your primary medication if you're Bi-Polar, I want to try and gain control of things using "just" mood stabilizers for the time being.
The hard part is knowing that you're going to be dealing with this for the rest of your life, and knowing that you previously have already lived most of your life suffering from these symptoms but they just didn't stand out as much. Just like I've already asked Krysti, how do you know when you are normal? So is there a normal after being diagnosed as being Bi-Polar? I don't know since there are so many different definitions of normal. I do know, however, that things do get better once you start treating them.
With over-analyzing yourself, I would actually recommend that you start really analyzing yourself. Nobody will be able to tell how well you're doing with your mood swings except for you. Most of the symptoms of being bi-polar are not exactly evident to other people. You can look like everything is normal while you're a complete mess inside. So analyzing yourself is definitely a good thing. Currently I'm trying to learn just about as much about this illness as I possibly can, therefore, I'll be prepared for the future and be able to fight this off.
Mike
poster:Mr Cushing
thread:127130
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20021116/msgs/128177.html