Saturday 26 February 2011

Maybe The Dulled Equilibrium of Lithium Wasn't So Bad

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" .

3 comments:

  1. 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.

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  2. Hi Clive,

    I 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.

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  3. 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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