Bipolar: My Spin on Living With Bipolar Disorder

For most of my life I have had one person or another tell me I should be on medication. Being stubborn (yes, i can admit that these days), I insisted I could manage my brain on my own. After all, my mother had told me for as long as I could remember that I had a very high IQ, so why wouldn't I be able to figure out myself just fine? Right?

Around the age of ten or eleven, my mom, in sheer frustration with my lack of interest in school (this is where the IQ mentioning came in) and the progression of my unmanageability, started me seeing a therapist and taking medication. At the time, the medication was for ADD, not bipolar. I do not recall what the names of the medications were, but I do remember that I did not take any of them for very long. I took myself off of every one not too long after starting them . I can not say it was due to any affects of the medication. Maybe it was. I just know that I did not want to be on medication, so I wasn't.

Around the age of eleven heading towards twelve, I discovered the subculture of drugs (including alcohol). I had spent my entire life feeling different than everyone else, never really fit in. When I found drugs, I found a way to escape that feeling and feel like I belonged for a while. I was instantly hooked. I spent the next 22-23 years self-medicating, with moderate, short-term, limited success. Well, what felt like success to me anyway. I look back now and realize that was pretty much self delusion.

In 2001, I slit my wrist. Not one of those cries for help type slitting. Thankfully, seeing my own blood shoot three feet in the air and pouring down my wrist was enough to terrify me. I stopped the bleeding on my own, dealt with the occasional re-opening of the wound as it healed over the next couple of days, and started my research on what was wrong with me. I did not want to go into the doctor uneducated and victim to being strung along the medication rope as a diagnosis was being developed.

After almost two weeks, I walked into the doctor pretty sure I was bipolar. i talked with my doctor at the time, she administered an evaluation test, and concurred that bipolar seemed to be a sound diagnosis. We began medication. My first medication was Lithium Bicarbonate.

Let me state now that I had not stopped using some of the more natural illegal drugs. Even so, the Lithium seemed to be working to some extent. I no longer felt severely depressed and/or suicidal. After about a month, I went back to the doctor, told her I couldn't sleep because I could not get my head to shut up, and she prescribed an extremely low dose of Seroquel (25 mg at bedtime).

In 2005, after reaching severe unmanageability, going on and off of my medications, and continuing to self medicate with drugs, foods, whatever, I entered a two year outpatient treatment program and started going to twelve-step meetings. After a few months of being clean, I realized the Lithium Bicarbonate wasn't really working right for me. So, off to the doctor I went, and we changed my medication to Topomax, and keep me on the 25mg of Seroquel. 

The Topomax actually worked really great for me. I was pretty even keel, and I didn't feel like I was medicated. Perfect. Then, around a year clean, I decided I was going to try to medicate myself with herbal supplements, the none addictive kinds. Taking medication was starting to feel too much like using drugs to me. I would give you a list of the things that worked for me over the next year and a half, but there are no initials after my name that would qualify me to give that kind of advice, and I feel it would be irresponsible of me to do so.

I did pretty well for the next year and a half, and then, I reached a point where I realized that the way I was taking care of my bipolar was not working very well anymore. So, off the doctor I went, again. New doctor since I had moved during this time. This doctor prescribed the Topomax since it had worked for me before and I had not stopped taking it because of dissatisfaction with its results before. 

After approximately four months back on the Topomax, I realized it was not having the same effect that it had had before. I talked with my doctor and we upped the dosage. Still not right. It was about this time that a generic form of Topomax came out. My insurance would only pay for the generic unless my doctor stated that the generic was not as affective for me. So, generic we went.

The next four months were hell. My husband actually was ready to start damaging people if they did not do something for me. I was depressed beyond means. I lived in pj's. Suicide was an every day, multiple times a day, thought. I had a firm grasp on what the reality of suicide is, and that the thoughts were my brain's way of screaming for help. Being able to separate the suicidal thoughts from the action through the recognition of what it represented ended up counting against me many times (damn IQ). When I could not get the help I needed and tried to work other avenues to get help, because there wasn't the representation of any real fear of suicidal action, there was no help to be given. 

Over the past year, I have been on Lamictal, prescribed by a psychiatrist that insisted it was all I needed even though I was still severely suicidal. The Lamictal has been followed by Trileptal (Trilectal? I get the generic form so I am not sure of the spelling. sorry), with the re-application of Seroquel at a much higher dosage (200mg at bedtime). This mix has been better than the Lamictal, but has recently began to decline in effectiveness. There are nights that I do not sleep, even with the Seroquel (I am allowed to up the dosage to 300mg if needed). So, I am going to have to go back again to the doctor and figure this out once again, which can take forever, especially when you are on state benefits.

But, I am not giving up. I will not stop taking my medications even though they are becoming less effective. Taking the meds is still better than not taking them at all. Much, much better. Some days, writting an essay for one of my college classes is way more difficult than others. There are whole weeks that are extremely difficult to complete. Not taking these classes would leave dead in the water at this point. I am holding on to everything I can to make it to the other side of this. I have to. I care too much about me today to not to. My twelve step meetings are an important part of this for me. I find hope there when I can't anywhere else. This is today. This too shall pass, as long as I keep moving forward and do the work. My health is up to me.