Posted by sar on October 14, 2001, at 20:31:38
In reply to Re: mixed state or lack of discipline? » sar, posted by Wendy B. on October 12, 2001, at 21:21:19
> Sar,
>
> are you in denial? i ain't no doctor but:
>> we talked about hormones already this week. some suggested depo-prov others suggested 'the pill.' i think this is the hormonal connection, if i read noa's comment right. you were having suicidal pms, that's a hormonal problem. you need to ask about this, we established this a few days ago.
sorry if i get repetitive or forgetful. my full name is Sar Klonopinhead and i sometimes have the memory of a whiskeydrunk senior citizen...
> sar, i respect your desire to go with the smallest gun, neurontin. it needs to be upped, period, if that's what you want to stay on. maybe the prozac should come down, if possible.
well, my appt is on the 16th, i'll see what the pdoc says. this is one of the city's best pdocs, and i live in a big city.> this part, though, kills me --
>
> > re: bipolarity...it's all up in the air. i've never experienced mania, but before i was medicated (around this time last year) all i could do was lie in bed and cry, and then at night i'd jump up at get dressed up and drink a whole lot and lure someone back to my room...i drove my car as fast as it would go, i drank wine and went to a range to shoot pistols and shotguns...only somatic things mattered, i was sick of books and conversations, i just felt like screaming crying shouting laughing eating drinking fucking, those were the only important things...i had a loan from my parents to pay off some bills but i thought it would be better used on sexy clothes and bar tabs (but i was also going through a break-up, i might pin alot of this behavior on that).
>
> if this wasn't a perfect description of manic or at least heavy hypomanic behavior, i don't know what is. sorry to be blunt. i think you're blocking something when you say you've never been there. you have been manic. please consider carefully what you're inviting if you don't own up to your symptoms:
> racing around, ruining yourself with booze (it's a very common co-morbid symptom), screwing impulsively and without protection, shooting guns. then being admitted to a hospital for a suicide attempt, where they said you should be on depakote. getting caught driving dwi. getting sentenced for it. paying a fine. being on parole for *years.* (i.e. 'trouble wth the law'). in short, everything you could have done to get just a hair's breath from your own death, overdose, HIV, or killing others in the accident, etc.
Wendy, please don't ever apologize for being blunt, i cain't stand it when ppl beat around the bush! anyway, i know that that sounds like mania, but all during that time, i was *deeply* depressed, moreso than i've been in my entire life...none of it ever felt good, i just felt mad (both crazy and angry) and the whole drinking/driving/screwing/gun-shooting was a form of release. i do realize that my description contains many manic symptoms...that's why i'm in a quandry. in addition, all of this started right after a break-up with my first love (with whom i'd been, for all practical purposes, living with for years) and 2 semesters before i was scheduled to graduate college (with a liberal arts degree and absolutely no career aspirations...i think in grade 5 i wished to be an astronaut, but i haven't given any of that "working for a living" ballyhoo much thot since...). my drinking increased greatly...it seems alcohol brings out the crazees in me...all that driving/shooting/screwing was all done under the influence.> remember the thread months back, where a guy you knew did himself in overdosing on H? or was it accidental overdose? you thought this guy's method was 'classy,' you admired him. we had a pretty long, extended conversation about suicide, that's when we first became friends. i respected you and liked you, and still do, very much. talking about suicide is itself a symptom of bipolar illness. flirting with death...
it was morphine he OD'd on...last i heard, it was ruled an "accidental overdose," the kid did love drugs quite a bit, but how many physically healthy 24 year-olds leave a will, as he did? i'm sorry to be getting off topic here, it's just that i do remember that thread very well and i liked that you were kind of gently fighting with me to live.> > finally when all of my friends hated me and i was broke i tried to kill myself and then i moved home.
>
>
> ok, a suicide attempt. another symptom, the big kahuna. that's why they wanted you on depakote.
life is so weird...my lawyer told me that 1 in 8 people have been charged with DWI. i know two big handfuls of suicides/failed suicides...what does that mean? it almost doesn't seem like a big kahuna. i know i'm weird, but i think the will to survive battles the wish to die in almost any rational human mind...> i dunno, but it makes it clear to me, at least, that the diagnosis the hospital gave you is confirmed. it runs in families, and your family history of the illness is there, it's plain. your parents abused you terribly. your dad's family was treated with ECT, that tells us they had at least unipolar depression. drinking on your mother's side is a co-morbid symptom, so score another two points there. you cannot stop drinking, another few points.
yes, unipolar depression is *rampant* in my family. 80 years ago in the south they called it melancholy.> > i think i'll up my dose of neurontin before trying anything more serious...because i don't think i'm BP I, i've never felt like i was on top of the world
>
> the symptoms aren't *only* feeling like uber-super-woman... there are many more.
>
>
> >or had special powers or things to do for the worldi thought that the symptoms couldn't be drug-induced and had to last, what a week or 2 at a time, at least? i did all that stuff for many months but at the same time i was so horribly sad. drinking and shopping and dating made me feel better...as they would *anyone*...but i couldn't stop at one glass of wine, or to stores that i could afford, or at a kiss.
> >i had a tiny hypomanic episode coming off effexor, but it lasted less than a day.
>
> can you say what that felt like to you, how was it different from the behavior you describe above?
well, i took effexor for a month, and a day or so after my last dose i couldn't sleep very well, but i woke up very early (7 instead of noon) feeling wonderful, incredible, the air smelled and felt *great* and i felt like i was 5 years old and it was christmas, just absolutely content and energetic. i wrote a letter, took a long drive, paced about the house--and then the laughter started. first lots of giggles. then i got into some sort of ridiculous argument with my bro and i ended up rolling around on the floor laughing hysterically pounding my hands and fists like a cartoon character. later i took another restless drive and figured my life out, like where i would live and what i would do after graduation, i'd learn how to play the guitar etc etc....finally at around 4 or 5 in the evening i calmed down.> > often in high school i'd have the feeling that i just needed to leave right then, sometimes smoking a coupla cigs in the restroom temporarily did the trick, but other times i'd just ride the city bus home in the middle of the day.
>
> sounds like what happened the other day when you got sick at work.
yes...i suppose that's an anxiety attack, but it doesn't feel like anxiety. for me anxiety is shakiness, fearfulness, tense muscles...and the other day at work i just felt pissed off, teeth clenched slamming the phone down, *had* to get out out out...strong enough to quit with no worries, then dissolved into tears when my manager asked if i was okay...i cried in his arms for awhile...> >the truancy officers hauled me and my parents in. (rules rules...bleh...)
> maybe you can't accept the diagnosis because it pegs you, puts you in a box. that's how i felt when i was diagnosed, i was knocked over with the news. i cried and carried on. friends on Psychobabble told me to relax, the diagnosis isn't a fate, you can get better, etc. now i just see it as a box the dr checks on my records (the DSM code), so the insurance knows what to pay and what not to pay, so i can get meds...
>
> but later, the dx helped me understand myself better, helped me interpret past behaviors, and relationships with friends and family members. some were not so pleasant to dredge up. i felt horribly guilty about things i had done, etc. i realized my absent father must have passed it on to me, his behavior was drunk and messy and irresponsible.right, i know what you mean about acceptance, facing the light...my first diagnosis, about 5 years ago, was social anxiety disorder, which blew my mind when i read it in the medical record, i hadn't known such a disorder existed, but when i read about it i found that it described me perfectly. that's what i used to post most about on PB and PSB...then i started prozac and the anxiety melted away, i think god sent it down to hell, and now i could probably speak to an auditorium about my old social problems (which i used to find terribly embarrassing). i wondered after a bit if the social anxiety caused the depression, now that i don't have much social anxiety i can say that there's something else there, like i still feel depressed at heart but there's something else...bipolar, borderline, "adjustment disorder," who knows? i think it will take a few more years to know...
> accepting the dx is like knowing when to call a spade a spade.
>
> (for susan too, with her dictionary handy:) from there, it's just a short step to knowing when to call a spade a f___ing shovel.
heh heh...i know. i've considered myself depressed from age 12. i hesitate with the bipolar dx because i'm so much less sure of it. i'd actually *prefer* bipolarity to unipolar depression, bipolarity has a certain kind of *kick* and *verve,* i think my spade is "mentally ill," in exactly what way i don't know, but i can't wait to find out...> i'll stop now. let me know if there's anything i can do to help, my thoughts are with you...
>
> W.
keep posting, challenging and helping all of us...go make me a sandwich... :) ....ommm...thats about it...thanks Wendy, i so appreciate your vigilance and respect your point of view.love,
sar
poster:sar
thread:12411
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20011006/msgs/12551.html