A new medicine

It is pretty widely known that bipolar disorder comes with a few specific characteristics and situations. One being the battle to find the right med regimen. Most psychiatrists would agree that their chief complaint (regarding BP) is that a person with bipolar disorder starts a med and goes off the med shortly after, sometimes without good reason but almost always AMA (against medical advice). Thus, making it rather difficult to find the right med regimen for the individual.

I do not mean to question the authority of psychiatrists in general, but I do want to make one thing very clear: not all of us with bipolar disorder make these decisions rashly or without reason - some of us have DAMN GOOD reasons to stop taking our meds. I wish that psychiatrists were trained to "listen" to patients as well as psychologists are trained to do. This could prevent a lot of unethical treatment of persons with bipolar disorder and, I assume, other mental disorders.

As for me, I've mentioned previously in my blog that this is the first time to try meds since roughly 2005. In the past, I "forfeited" psychiatric care because the psychologist refused to meet with me for psychotherapy as long as I refused to take the meds the psychiatrist prescribed. NEVER was there a time when the professionals asked me WHY I felt so strongly about the med regimen forced upon me, nor did they try other methods (solely meds and psychotherapy). All that seemed to matter was that I was not med-compliant which somehow translated to be that I was dangerously unstable. I find it very hard to believe that going off meds posed an immediate danger to my psychologist...

I went 7 long years without being medicated, utilizing complementary and alternative means to manage my bipolar disorder and all without the help of a trained professional. It hasn't been easy, but I've had no other options! I do attribute much of my success to the free, peer-led DBSA support group, Possibilities, which I found in 2005. There were no other resources I could find that would help me after North Central turned me away. I walked a very lonely road in my recovery and found opposition at every corner... all because I wanted to go off the meds that were making me want to/attempt to kill myself.

What most people don't know is how I reacted to all of the different meds the doctors tried. I struggled through an anguishing journey of self-loathing and self-mutilation, deep depression and suicidal ideation. Self-medicating with alcohol, which doesn't mix well with drugs, because I didn't understand what was happening to me or why it was happening. Nobody attempted to teach me about my disorder, everyone looked upon me with judgmental eyes. I never made my feelings about that known to the professionals because they would just tell me it's another symptom of bipolar disorder... so why bother? I wasn't encouraged to talk about what I wanted for my recovery, I was only encouraged to talk about what happened in my past - which gave me horrible nightmares and flashbacks that caused so much trauma and further pain. No one tried to help me manage the pain or work through it logically... they just wanted to find out if the medicine was working to make me behave in an acceptable manner. I couldn't function on the meds, I had no self-control. I wasn't living... I was merely surviving... BARELY. I tried to request a new counselor but they wouldn't allow it for one reason or another.

New to bipolar disorder, I sought answers that nobody could give me, and I desperately wanted an end to the "madness" I was feeling. I attempted suicide 8 times that I can remember... I decided to go off the medicine because I became so afraid that I would try to take my own life again. On the meds, I couldn't think for myself, I wasn't in control of my thoughts or behaviors. It felt like someone else had taken over... all I could feel was sadness or numbness, nothing else. I wanted to give myself a chance to THINK and WORK THROUGH my depressive episodes, so I took a chance, I went off meds even though it cost me helpful treatment options and I started to learn coping mechanisms that the psychologists never offered me. I learned cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, stress reduction, relaxation techniques, and other helpful tools for recovery. In college, I took up Psychology as my major and learned about abnormal psych and specific conditions. I researched pathophysiology and neuroscience that links psychology to (mostly Freudian) theories about personality and habituation. I did what most professionals didn't think was possible for me to do - discovered for myself what works and doesn't work in my own recovery.

I have come to a point in my life where I am weary of trying so hard to maintain a sense of balance. I now realize that I am constantly at war in my head, with thoughts of a very negative and even morbid nature, images that haunt me from my past, fear of what could happen, and ideas of death that scare me into wanting to try pharmacotherapy again.

So, I have sought the help of a new doctor and tried a new med regimen recently, which I had to "go off" again because of the recent, severe suicidal ideation (again!). I bet you're not surprised...

I so desperately want to live and I mean I want to LIVE - be an active part of society again, make my own decisions, be independent - like I had been striving to do these last few years. My life may not seem glamorous or desirable to most, but at least I'm working through it and toward a new beginning. I was working toward living independently, having a job, getting out on my own, building a supportive network. What I have built so far isn't much, but it was good enough for me... until recently. Now, I have suddenly lost all sense of purpose and achievement. I have lost all motivation, I have no drive to continue. Since I talked about my apprehensions and concerns in my last post, I won't go into anymore detail.

Last week, I started a new medicine: Amitriptyline. Nasty side effects - irritability, nausea, diarrhea, dizziness, blurred vision. It's supposed to help me sleep but my experience so far is that it doesn't sedate me as much as I'd like, it still takes me 2 or more hours to feel sleepy and I wake up all throughout the night and have difficulty falling back asleep. It's an antidepressant so it should help with some of my other unwanted symptoms of depression, too. We will see... I'm giving it some time to see if it works well, once my body gets used to it. I honestly hope it does work. Stay tuned...