Posted by lillabelle on June 9, 2003, at 3:47:49
In reply to Re: Antidepressants and Mania » lillabelle, posted by katia on June 8, 2003, at 15:29:19
Katia, Ron and others, thanks so much for responding to my posts.
To Katia: I can relate to what you have described extraordinarily well. For more years than I care to count I was the classic 'drama queen'. Like you my relationships were intense, histronic and short. My mother is Irish and has always suffered from a mood disorder which has never been recognized, except by me (it's takes one to know one). So I always used to say, I'm just like my mother wild and firery, read: not boring and dull.
But wild and firery was not fun. I would rage at people and find out later how much I had offended them. I argued with my family. Boyfriends would shake their heads at my moodiness and unpredictibility. I was often told I was 'different'. Men told me they had never met anyone like me before, which I chose to translate as positive when I really knew it meant 'weird'. One boyfriend said I was two people, then he said, make that three. I was always getting into big dramatic fights with boyfriends. I would have fits of irrationality and anger that I could not control. And always, I would try and put it down to my celtic, firery background (yeah, right).
Like so many others out there I associated 'manic depression' with long euphoric highs, sometimes accompanied with voices and grand dilusions, followed by month long crashes often needing hospitalization.
I love to read biographies of people with mood disorers but most of the ones I have read concern bipolar I, so although fascinating i could not relate.
With regards to alchohol, I found that I drank more when i was manic and not when I was depressed as one might assume. (Kay Redfield and others have agreed with this observation.) My first drink brought on a rush of mania, a high I felt compelled to chase. I would go up and up, becoming wilder and wilder. It's not that I drank more than anybody else it's just that it affected me more. I don't think I have ever seen someone act out as crazily on booze as I did. Like you I did and said things I deeply regreted later. The problem was I got to the point were I never remembered anything beyond the first few drinks, but I did not have the mercy of passing out. Like the energizer bunny, I'd keep on going. The classic, 'thing that wouldn't leave the party.'
As for you Katia, I am not a pdoc but like Ron i suspect you may have bipolar2 or possibly bipolar3. Are you extremely impatient in lineups? Do you find long airplane trips make you angry and very agitated? Have you ever suffered from prolonged insomnia interspaced with oversleeping? Do you sometimes find it impossilbe to control rage and anger? Do you throw yourself into projects only to abandon them or go on wild shopping sprees? In the long run i think that you need to be properly dxed with a very good, reputable pdoc.
As for mood stabilizers, everyone has a different reaction. I found the traditional ones:lithium, depakote and tegretol to be too flattening as well as fattening! Really they made me feel zombilike. However they are first line meds for bipolar and millions have had life-changing results with them. The new line stabilizers, gabapentin, lamictal and topamax have mixed results. Topamax in my humble opinion being the worst (at least for me). Like all meds it is a matter of trial and error.
If you find your mood swings are interfering with your life then you really do need to find something to sort that out. Life is too short to be miserable. It's hard to be optomistic when meds don't work but that is the beauty of this board. Somewhere to find others like us. Before I found this site I truly thought there was no one out there like me.
To Ron: Thanks for your advice on insomnia with supplements. I am going to follow that up for sure. Also you wrote in one post, that an extreme reaction of mania to an anti-d can permenantly screw up your brain chemistry. I would agree with that. Before my nardil induced mania experience I had taken some pstims such as ritalin for ADD. My experience was positive and typical. I stopped the rit and went onto nardil and into florid mania. After that I tried the rit again as it had worked in the past. This time the result was disasterous. I was overcome with nervousness and had narcoleptic reactions for the first time in my life. Now I have the same reaction to all pstims which I know i did not have before the nardil. I personally feel the nardil mania altered my brain chemistry.
Peace and love sisters and brothers......lillabelle
poster:lillabelle
thread:102831
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030604/msgs/232556.html