I took lithium for a long time. I took it regularly with notable exceptions. I finally had to be taken off lithium for medical reasons. It was then I noticed how dulling lithium had been. I was initially pleased to be off it. The theory was that Quetiapine and Carbamazepine would do a good enough job. If I look back, my life on lithium was much more stable and productive. I don't think that the new regime is doing a good job. My mood is anything but stable and I frequently suffered from general anxiety. I don't recall anxiety being a problem when I took Lithium.
I recently had a long period of something akin to hypomania. I would call it a mild hypomania, if any such thing exists. For all intents and purposes, it was hypomania. I talked about hoping to find some new "self". It was intoxicating to be productive and to think clearly. It is frustrating to think it was just a "mood swing".
I wrote well thought out blogs that declared I was not delusional. I think I was deluding myself. I have now "crashed" from the apparent hypomania. I am not sure how I feel. If I had to put a label on it, I would probably call it "depression". I would gladly take the equilibrium given by lithium. It enabled me to get on with my life.
I hope my thoughts help to express the contrasts of bipolar disorder and the frustrations that they cause. Writing a blog when I was in that pseudo hypomania was easy. I didn't have to think about it. Writing this blog has been really hard work.
What I really want is peace of mind. I want my mood to reflect reality and not be reliant on some chemical imbalance. I am curious to know what "normality" would be for me, but "Maybe The Dulled Equilibrium of Lithium Wasn't So Bad" .
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I am proud of you to see that you are human over there. Don't forget the most important part of the illness is that you are only human even with the illness.
ReplyDeleteHi Clive,
ReplyDeleteI know when my mood takes a swing, I find it hard to blog. I have kind of trained myself to just blurt it all out when I get down. It's my only form of therapy really.
And as for Lithium, I was on it and had to be taken off as it swung my blood sugar to high and contributed to my getting Diabetes. Wasn't happy about that one little bit.
It's interesting how you describe depression. Maybe because I got used to the depressed mood I thought of it as normality and COULD see that I "took pleasure in things" just not very much and blah blah blah those irritating DSM IV diagnostic criteria did nothing to help me recognize I was "ill" when I got seriously depressed I blamed "spiritual crisis". Maybe I go against type or maybe I'd just been depressed for too long but when I really got manic I fucking KNEW I wan't right it was so obvious. Getting lost in clangs, feeling like I was in a tornado, roaring instead of speaking all that shit is just not the normal me so I spotted it straight away I'm just REALLY PISSED OFF it took so fucking long after I gave up hiding it and came out ~ only to be treated like some psychiatric hypochondriac ~ for the drs to realize I really WAS bipolar and not just that: bipolar schizoaffective. Next time I'm in the mood I might actually bring a wet fish into that clinic, to slap some of those drs round the face ...
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