Posted by Ella Iverson on October 3, 2000, at 14:44:08
In reply to Re: Cyclothymia - Anybody else out there with this??? » Ella Iverson, posted by djr55409 on September 21, 2000, at 20:09:29
i was reluctant to take it because i felt like i would be giving up control, and that's he last thing i needed. i felt scared that i would lose myself in it. that it would drown me out. and i was scared of the side effects. i deal with clients all day and i was afraid of being too spacey or not being able to pour coffee or something because my hands were shaking. i was also afraid that it wouldn't help me with my depression and i would be dealing with this for nothing.
i gave in though :) i am on my second day. no real side effects. i do feel spacey though. i'm a pretty spacey girl anyway so people really haven't noticed :) does it get worse the longer you are on it?
i had already snapped out of my depression on thursday, so i can't really tell whether it's helping yet or not, but it HAS only been two days :) i'll keep you updates.
things i have found on the net vary. what i would recommend is going to infoseek.com because you can do a search within a search (so if you want to know specifics) or the best search engine for things like this is really northernlight.com
the one book that my psychiatrist recommended was "mood swings". i have just picked it up, but haven't read it yet. i'll let you know when i flip through it this week. hope that you are well!
ella
> > i was recently diagnosed with cyclothymia (possibly tetering towards bipolar II because my depressions are a little intense) my psychiatrist REALLY wants to put me on lithium and i am scared to death to take them.
>
> Ella - thanks for the response. Why are you reluctant to take lithium? I took it in small doses and the only side effect I could notice was that I felt a little slower mentally at times...
> I will also say that my highs are not all that high, while my lows can be pretty intense, and I did not really find that lithium helped - but that was my experience and yours may be different.
>
> >i am new like you, so i can't really be much help, i guess. but i have read just about everything on the subject. what has hepled me a little is keeping a mood chart with a diary of al my quirky feelings for the day. it has helped me deal with what to expect and since i cycle pretty frequently i can se how long i have left. you also might realize (as i did) that you actually HAVE periods of "normality" which i didn't notice before. i would say more than anything though: read, read, read! let me know if you need some titles :)
> > ella
>
> What have you read? Most of what I have found deals with Bipolar Disorder and I don't really relate to it - my experiences and symptoms are rather different. There really does not seem to be much on the net either. And I am mostly interested in corresponding with others to find out how cyclothymia manifests itself in their lives and how they experience it and cope with it.
>
> As for the charting and diary - I have about a year's worth of charts that I kept on myself - 4 times per day when I was able to. I looked for factors like the weather, amount of sleep I had, when I went to bed and when I got up, how well I slept, etc. and then charted how much energy I had and what my mood was. It convinced me that my mood was cycling, but did not tie it to anything that I could identify, nor did it allow me to predict my moods and energy levels in advance - my cycles appear to have a rather random appearance and length... although they rarely last more than a few days and sometimes less than a day.
poster:Ella Iverson
thread:601
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20000813/msgs/800.html