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Lemondahlia
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Joined: 8 Feb 2015
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08 Feb 2015, 3:55 am

I'm not looking for a diagnosis here, just some help figuring out how to describe this craziness to my doctor. I feel like an absolute loon just typing this.
My diagnoses are Bipolar 1, OCD, and PTSD
The first is shaky. I think it's just the best they could come up with. I'm more monopolar, up. I haven't been classically depressed since my teenage years. I am 37 now.
Basically, I had been on atypical antipsychotics for 10 years (diagnosed when I was 27) and I thought they worked great. I thought my intellectual decline was due to age, as I was unable to absorb or integrate new information nearly as well as I used to. After a psychotic episode last October, I was switched to Tegretol, and recently added Lithium. I have always been on Luvox since my diagnosis. After the switch, my brainpower returned fairly quickly. I can absorb and assimilate new information at the breakneck speed I used to, I have delved into social activism and academia again and get great satisfaction from my intelligence like I used to.
But things started to get weird. The mild issues I had with overstimulation are now overwhelming. Not just intellectual overstimulation but sensory as well. After a few hours of being around people or investing myself in a good book or movie, I need to go into a dark room for hours and be left the hell alone, in the quiet and dark. If not I eventually get very agitated and can be a bit mean, if pushed further, I cease to be able to pay attention to or make proper sense of my surroundings. This has turned me from someone who is moderately low-functioning all the time to someone who is high-functioning about 1/3 of the time and not functioning the rest of the time, and I have lost a lot of things I enjoy. Music used to be a refuge for me, now it is either impossible to listen to or it greatly decreases my functional time. I have 2 significant others, and sometimes I cannot bear to be affectionate or even to tolerate small physical touch.
In addition to the overload issues, I have begun to develop shapes and mental images that are tied to concepts. For instance when my daughter is talking to me, her subjects will create shapes in my mind, almost like I can actually see them superimposed on my surroundings. This is really weird and disturbing.
I am not social by any means, but I want the option of going out into the world without being afraid I will get too overloaded, or having to turn around because I'm starting to get agitated.
The last part is the agitation. Sometimes it doesn't go away. Sometimes it lasts weeks. It's not just my mood that is raw, my mind and body feel like they're hosting a frayed electrical cable inside, constantly buzzing with static, sparking, burning and shocking me. I hate it more than I can describe. It comes and goes, builds, sometimes stays, sometimes goes away. I have learned that if I feel good, I need to suck up every bit of life available to me, really revel in it, because the frayed wire will turn back on, and I will need to remember that good times happen in order to make it to when it goes away. Every time it happens, I think," I cannot live like this another day." I can't figure out what makes the really long episodes happen. I really do need someone's help. I would just like to know how to describe this to my doctor without giving her the impression that I'm out of my mind. Any ideas?



Erlyrisa
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Joined: 27 Feb 2007
Age: 113
Gender: Male
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08 Feb 2015, 5:10 am

You can't.
If you went with that to a psychiatrist, all you will get is something for anxiety, and a splash of schizophrenia.

PS: I am in the exact same crap you're in.
Nothing can be done about it (it's been 3yrs approx now).

If a voice or two also end up butting in, that's when you know it's getting worse, and you join the Bettyford clinic.

In my younger years, I had my hobby to occupy me, but then I switched hobbies for something a tad more extravagant (Beyond String Theory). This was not a help. I presume that you are some-sort of professional that values intelligence/working mind. Losing the ability to pursue your passion is the worst part. You do have to remind yourself though, that there are people much worse off than you (eg. imagine having no arms, and wishing you were a tennis champion). I think the both of us have it easy...thankfully I have no children to look after so do-not need to be a bread winner, which means I am able to pursue MY passion, and not what ethics dictates.

If you are in some way monetarily strapped, I would try to hold on: AND remind myself that I am actually pretty lucky to-be working. If it is possible to take a long siesta, or switch jobs entirely (and don't blame me for the advice), then I would go for it. It is what I am trying todo however sacrificial it is. ie. I have a HOPE that is very very distant in time - even though I feel like I am about to die. It is a technique I learnt from the babie boomer generation: whinge publicly, and also wish publicly - WHILE, making sure to promote that everyone else's wishes and whinging are just childish. ie. Learn to be your pyschiatrist...everyone around you is a child except for you.

The darkroom experience...masturbation!
Music...the emotional stuff.

I explain our predicament, in the sence that we are experiencing what it is like to be a high strung female, while having a robotisation procedure being done to your brain. If you are after a new set of pills, I would reccomend going light, and maybe doing some dietary intake changes aswell, with alot more exercise.

A note about exercise: Although an athlete feels great doing it in the morning and continue-ing throughout the day, a non athlete would do better to run themselves ragged before bed (or exchange athletic ability for copulation).


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