Ignore me, I'm just rambling now

I'm feeling crazy and so what am I doing? That's right, drinking more caffeine. Cause that helps. Now that I have a plan, I can't wait to go upstairs and take the damn Seroquel. According to the website it could give me all sorts of great side effects, but I know the one it will give me: a little peace; sleep. I can't wait to just go to sleep and not wake up till I have to be back at work on Wednesday morning. I have nothing to do till then except go to meetings, but leaving the house might be out of the question for a while. I'm going to have to tell my dad not to worry about me; that I need to hibernate or I'm not going to make it. Course, I'm not phrasing it that way.

Here's a fun little distraction: drugs for bipolar and their side effects.

A call for help

Help.

I have my therapy appointment tomorrow, and the doc appointment for meds on Thursday, but I know I feel crazy NOW, and that even new meds won't make me feel better for a while. I would take the Seroquel, but that is just going to make me a zombie and I have to work. I'm the only person here every morning till Feb when the boss gets back from overseas. There's no one I can call and have cover my shifts, or I would probably check myself into someplace right now. I've never been so close to picking up the phone and calling the white coats; raising the white flag. I'm done. I feel nuts. I'm itching out of my skin.

I don't want to kill myself. I want to hurt myself, though. It always makes me feel better to bleed. It gives me that nice, calm feeling. What else helps? Not being awake, but I don't have that choice. Drinking myself unconscious, but that's not going to help.

I want to call someone, but I don't know who or what they would do. Everyone I know is at work, and I can't leave work yet. And what would they do? Sit with me? I'm no fun right now, and I don't need a babysitter, yet. Could I call Emily? Why? So she can sit halfway across the States and worry about me? No. Adam. No. I don't want to lean on him too much. Diane? She's nuts, and she'd leave work to come hang out with me, but she's got a 3 year-old to manage. That's unfair. Though yesterday she asked me to hang out with her more. "I'm lonely, too," she said.

I have nothing to give right now. I'm a total mess. Should I call the doc and ask for an emergency appointment today? Maybe when I get off work I'll just go to the club and go to continuous meetings. They have them from 2pm -8:30pm tonight. I could just stay there and drink coffee. Then, I'm not alone or near knives, and I can bum smokes if it gets ridiculous.

The big question is: do I tell my dad? The man lives with me for Christ's sake, but I don't think he has a clue just how bad things are. No. No need to worry him.

I'm going to go upstairs when I get off at 1 and take the Seroquel. I won't be going to a meeting (cause it makes me too drowzy to drive) but at least I'll sleep.

A mixed state?

"...mixed states is a condition during which symptoms of mania or hypomania and symptoms of depression occur simultaneously. During a mixed episode, the person may experience the impulsiveness, insomnia, irritability, and flight of ideas that can be present in a manic episode as well as suicidal thoughts, guilt, feelings of hopelessness, and changes in appetite that are common during depressive episodes."

Getting closer... I think this is as close to describing how I feel right now as it's going to get. The insomnia one night, then super-somnia the next; the not eating for 2 days then eating constantly, hungry or not; the irratability; the weepiness; the decision to go back to school (remember 2 weeks ago?); the definite feelings of guilt, worthlessness, and suicide.

I think we're looking at a nice mixed state, here, which is just lovely. Depressives with energy are most likely to kill themselves, especially girls, it seems. They always say people just out of the hospital are at more risk because they're more likely in that mixed state.

Can you tell yet? I'm worried?

Signs of mania

If you have three or more of the mania symptoms below most of the day -- nearly every day -- for one week or longer, you may be having a manic episode of bipolar disorder:

Excessive happiness, hopefulness, and excitement
Sudden changes from being joyful to being irritable, angry, and hostile
Restlessness, increased energy, and less need for sleep
Rapid talk, talkativeness
Distractibility
Racing thoughts
High sex drive
Tendency to make grand and unattainable plans
Tendency to show poor judgment, such as deciding to quit a job
Inflated self-esteem or grandiosity -- unrealistic beliefs in one's ability, intelligence, and powers; may be delusional
Increased reckless behaviors (such as lavish spending sprees, impulsive sexual indiscretions, abuse of alcohol or drugs, or ill-advised business decisions)

Yeah, let's just go with "nope" as a general answer to this one. I'm definitely not manic right now.

Is it depression?

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, symptoms of depression may include the following:

difficulty concentrating, remembering details, and making decisions
fatigue and decreased energy
feelings of guilt, worthlessness, and/or helplessness
feelings of hopelessness and/or pessimism
insomnia, early-morning wakefulness, or excessive sleeping
irritability, restlessness
loss of interest in activities or hobbies once pleasurable, including sex
overeating or appetite loss
persistent aches or pains, headaches, cramps, or digestive problems that do not ease even with treatment
persistent sad, anxious, or "empty" feelings
thoughts of suicide, suicide attempts

Let's see. On the regular list, I've got insomnia (sometimes), irratability (most likely caffeine induced), overeating (most likely boredom induced), and the occasional thought of suicide. From what I know of depression, I'm also weepy, paranoid, and don't enjoy things. I'm also still getting up for work every day, showing up to meetings, calling people, and going out with new people. I have a sex drive, and I'm able to shower and eat. I'm going with "not depression."

To medicate or not to medicate?

Bear with me, here.

Ok. So, I was diagnosed with a serious, life-threatening, long-term, incurable illness at 15. It's called bipolar disorder. How did they know? Because I was a pretty horribly depressed, weird, kind of violent, and crazy teenager whose mother was bipolar. And so they put me on litium. But what if I was just a regular teenager whose life was falling apart and so acted out? What if it wasn't mental illness? What if it was just... life? And now, 16 years later, what if all those drugs caused a mental illness?

Have I been off drugs for a period of time before? Yes. How'd it go? Not so hot. I was off drugs in college for a while (a year or more? I can't remember) and was a crying mess most of the time. But, I was also working 2 jobs, playing a sport, and taking 15 credits a semester. Anyone would be a crying mess. It was stressful. I was also constantly rescuing my mom from the streets or hospitals. It wasn't a good time for me, overall.

So now I'm off drugs again, not by my choice, but such is life. But I do have a choice of whether to get back on them or not. Of course, I'm 30, unemployed, living at home, and most of my close friends are 3,000 miles away, so it's not exactly a stable mental health environment for experimentation. Anyone would be a crying mess.

But maybe I'll stay off of them. I can't afford them. No matter what he gives me it's going to be a financial burden, and my number one peeve is financial instability. Sure, I feel like I'm going to freak out, but that could be because my body is just getting used to not being on drugs. It's used to the free and easy source of stabilizing chemicals. Like any addict coming down, you get a little weird for a while.

I don't know. I hate being dependant on them, but I'm so used to it that it's ok. I hate paying for them, but I've just been conditioned to keep doing it. Now that there's this break... I know, I know. I've been freaking out lately. But is it mental illness or life? Let's discuss.

The debate rages on

You know how I wonder all the time about meds, but now there's a debate raging in the academic world.

"Why do we, as a society, believe that these drugs fix chemical imbalances?” Why do we believe new drugs are better than older ones?"

There's a new book about meds from Robert Whitaker called "Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Durgs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America." It's pretty controversial right now, and I haven't read it yet, but from this article one person said: "Whitaker’s message seemed clear and convincing: psychiatric drugs do seem to have a purpose for specific cases, but the current practice of 'long-term treatment' may have consequences that do significant harm to the patient."

You always hear about the good that meds do, but in the mental health community (i.e., those of us who take the drugs) you hear a lot about the side effects, too. My favorite site, Crazymeds.us, has a lot of information on all the weird side effects you will and won't get that have been reported from psychiatric medications. And many of them are doozies. There are flesh-eating rashes and kidney failure, blood toxicity and all sorts of sexual problems.

I wonder all the time what 16 years of medicating my illness has done to my body. How do those internal organs look? Has it made my body stop producing it's own helpful chemicals because it knows it can rely on pharma? Will I ever be able to have children or is my body so toxic that they'll end up having no serotonin for themselves? Science doesn't know. In the decades since psychiatric medications took hold, they still don't know how they work, why they work, or what they're really doing to the body. Sure makes me a little paranoid.

So are they doing more harm than good? Does taking a medication for life make the illness a long-term problem? Could we just take meds for acute episodes instead of constantly? One day maybe we'll know. I know I would donate my body to science if weren't an organ donor, first (if they'll take me). I want to know these answers. I want to know if it's worth saturating my body with chemicals in the name of "normalcy." And what is normal? I suppose not feeling like this is normal.