The color of rage…

“You know I’ve never written about the really harmful and impactful things that have happened in my life.” I told my girlfriend as she folded and put away her laundry. “I’ve never written about when I tried to stab that girl –  when I got sent to the detention center, or the Abraxas program, or when I was sent to live with my grandparents. I’ve never even written about my rape.”

“I’m not surprised by any of this.” She replied.

I assume I haven’t written about these things because I’m a huge fan of repressing. I remember when I was young, I used to feel everything so intensely. I was sunshine and rage and thrashing inside my head. I let myself feel all the things I try so desperately to avoid these days. I used to feel empty or depressed or angry, I felt the madness of nearly a dozen hospitalizations over 8 years and the burning hatred of a thousand suns. There were days when I couldn’t see through the tears, or through the color of rage staining my world.

None of those feelings were particularly enjoyable. Over time I just slowly allowed myself to let go of the trauma of my youth. Although I must admit it is gone but not forgotten. Everyone is fighting an internal battle. Everyone has their deep dark secrets. I feel like I should really just get over it and move on. I thought I had, but the mere mention of those things long since passed, I fall into a depression, I curl up under the covers and suffer alone in silence.

I have sweet people in my life who care for me, and they want me to get help, they want me to talk about these things. They can see through my facade. They want me to work through it, my fears I guess lie with the fact that I’m terrified to become the pathetic emotive creature of my past again. If I let myself cry, will I ever stop?

 

 

Spring brings it.

So in the spring I got a tiny bit hypo, decided I’d rather it not progress to more than that so went back on a low dose of abilify. (10 mgs). Then a week or so ago I made the mistake of drinking coffee a few times in the same week, so now I’m at 15 mgs. I have two jobs and am trying to get off disability, so it’s worth it to me to try and stay on top of things. I’m part of a study and when I signed up I had to agree that *if* I got symptoms, I would go back on meds, not only that, I like not being crazy. The spring always seems to bring mania, I’m not sure how I thought I’d make it through the spring…. 😦

Either way I’m doing really well, feeling good. 🙂

I’m still around, doing great and yes, still off meds. :)

So it’s been a looooooong time since I posted here.

I just kind of let all that mental health stuff fade into the background because I have been doing so well.

I’m in therapy for some issues surrounding my family, but my bipolar issues have not come up. I’m still off meds and I’m still doing very well. I honestly have shocked myself. ha.

Anyhow, I’m also in a new bipolar study regarding medical risk factors. I’m kind of excited to be doing it because I’ve turned into quite the health nut anyhow.

I’ve gone vegan and started exercising and I’ve lost 43 lbs so far. 31 of it since October 19th.

I do have another blog dealing with weight loss stuff, veganism, recipes, etc, over at http://www.beyondwillpower.blogspot.com if you’d like to check it out.

Anyhow, just wanted to pop in and say no I didn’t freak out and try and off myself cuz I went off meds. I’m doing so well I wanted to try and give other people hope. But like my other blogs said, I would NEVER recommend anyone going off until they had a long period of stability to be able to compare their batshit times to their normal times.

When you can tell the difference, it really helps.

Also, I can’t say enough good things about Interpersonal Social Rhythm Therapy.

🙂

Hope you are all doing well.

Finding a New Way to Deal…

So the day before yesterday was the first day I FELT like I was off meds. I had random anxiety all. night. long. then the next day I woke up and it wasn’t gone, and i hadn’t seen my bf in a week and it was his day off and I had physical therapy for four hours. I didn’t want to go to pt. I cried for 30 minutes, he wanted me to go. augh. He said it’s good for me to go, I didn’t care much, then I asked him to walk me to the bus stop before I realized that was a HUGE Step backwards for me, so I went by myself.

(I used to make him walk me everywhere, sit at my school and wait for me, wait for me at my work, etc) Cuz I couldn’t just DO things. So I figured I didn’t want to go backwards and I”m going to have to find better ways to deal with ‘the crazies’ when they rear their heads. So I left, by myself, sucked it up, and got on with my day. The rest of my day was great.

Officially Off Meds

Okay so I”m officially off my meds since saturday. I still feel fine. Waiting for the other shoe to drop!

I AM being careful and making some good decisions though I think. I was offered a trip to Boston with a friend, but travel can be overstimulating/a trigger for mania for me, and my bf wouldn’t be there in case I freaked out, so we decided it might not be best for me to go right now. I think it’ll be a bunch of small decisions like that, that help keep me as stable as I can be.

“Why are you so hyper?”

Heya everyone, I’ve been SO busy recently, no time to blog.

Anyhow, I’m here now though. I’m going down to 5 mgs starting today. I’ve been at 10 the last week, and STILL doing good. I’ve gone from being pleasantly surprised to mildly shocked. I really didn’t expect it to go this way.

One of my friends was like “Why are you so hyper?” The other day, but I think I was just in a really great mood, I was out with her and another friend and we were having and AWESOME fun time. 🙂 I calmed down and all was fine.

Anyhow, that’s all I really have to report right now!

I’d like to do more than survive, I’d like to rub it in your face!

So I’m more than halfway through the week at 15 mgs and still going strong.

I feel kind of like people are waiting for me to crack just so they can say “I told you so!”

I should be off entirely within’ the next 3 weeks. It’s so …..I dunno. I feel weird. I guess I should, it’s been 11 years. I feel more motivated, have more energy, I”m reading again<Oh how I miss reading!>

I want to be amazing.

🙂

Saw the pdoc today…

I just want to say to everyone who was so worried about me going off my meds without my docs help/approval: His reaction was laughable. He seemed not too concerned, other than saying I Shouldn’t, of course, it’s his job to push pills, he also told me that AP’s don’t shrink your frontal lobe, that they basically don’t do anything negative at all. He said, ‘as far as he knew” that they didn’t and he’d “never heard such a thing.” I told him I read several articles and/or studies on the subject, he seemed to think I was ridiculous. He gave me zero advice about coming off, didn’t recommend a dosage schedule or anything, just said “go slow.”

Awesome.

People saying “crazy” things…

Why is it that now that my friends KNOW that I”m coming off my meds, they see weird behaviors that aren’t there, that they never would have imagined up before? Today, my bf, whom I LIVE WITH said that one of my friends (who he works with) asked him if I were okay, yes, mentally, because of an exchange we had over text with him and facebook with a friend.

Here is the scenario:

Me: (on facebook) hey, blah asked me to hang out with him and blah, but I Dont’ think blah likes me very much so I said no (said to blah’s boytoy)

boytoy: Oh, he said he was busy….anger anger. he was too busy to hang out with ME. blarghy blarghy, whatever.

me: *quickly blah to let him know that I slipped up and told boytoy that blah was hanging with another boy.* my bad!

blah: It’s ok I’ll talk to him later

–END SCENE–
and SOMEHOW out of THAT he got that something must be wrong. Listen people, my bf, he’s a worrier, he’s on prozac for excessive worry, and I’m sure he’s PLENTY worried enough without my friends going up to him and saying they are worried about me because of X inconsequential thing that happened. So CHILL OUT will you? I live with him, he’s going to notice that something is wrong way before anyone else will.

argh.

I need a change…

So, I got my insurance back, and I’ve made an appt to see my pdoc this coming Friday. I’m not going to tell him I’m off my meds straight away, first I’ll ask him some questions about the long term effects of them, see how honest he is with me, and if he’s less than honest, I’ll probably find a new doc or just stop going altogether. I have enough drugs to last me the rest of my downward titration anyhow. I’ll probably just ask for a script of zyprexa for ‘as needed moments’ (no more than one week) and be on my way.

I’m going to talk to him about maybe doing IPSRT again, just as a refresher–or perhaps *gulp* going back into therapy. I really feel like after being in therapy for SO DAMN LONG there isn’t much they can tell me that I don’t know, and after my last appt that proved true enough. But, maybe I’ll give it a shot anyhow. I’m sure once I start to crack I might just need someone to talk things out with…We shall see!

Today is day 4 on 20 mgs and I’m still doing great.