Vivid spider friend

Visiiting with my friend today.... Brain.... Tricks.... Real..... <p>

We'd met at Starbucks..  Hhe was sitting across from me telling me a story.  I listened but then his eyes turned completely black and filled with spiders' eyes.  As he spoke, his mouth became black also and filled with bigger black human eyeballs.  My mind was saying to me "This is real this time!"  ... "He's a spider! Run!" The sound of his voice was so loud and garbled as he spoke; it went on and on.  The juxtaposition of sight and sound interwoven made me swoon.  I blinked over and over lookimg down to try to shake this thing.

Sadness

Are You Obsessed With Your Mental Illness?

If you could call my bipolar blog "obsessed" then yes. But I like to think of it as documenting the thoughts that otherwise would pass by unnoticed.

My Evening Prescriptions

Here are my evening prescriptions.

My Morning Prescriptions

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The fat oblong orange one is Trileptal and the round white one beneath it is Rexulti- the two that were raised recently.

Hallelujah Together!

I went to church this morning.  At the very end, we, the choir, surrounded the congregation and sang Handel's Hallelujah Chorus.  The woman next to me was bejeweled with wonder as we sang, looking at me smiling blissfully.  I thought she would cry.  (I was only 3 feet away from her.)  A man had paid $1,000 to hear this piece sung!  I think we sang it well!  This whole thing just made my day- singing it, seeing the joy on this woman's face, hearing the organ support us... All several hundred of us enjoying together.  Hallelujah!

The People

My brain just said to me: "Take your phone in case the people come to get you while youre upstairs." 

I've been thinking I'd heard people in my hallway, room' on the stairs, opening the door... 

Now the people are actually here to get me. I had to decide what order to do things because of these people being here.

Pills vs No Pills

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I had a nice day with my kids. I let my 16 yo drive as he just got his permit yesterday. I had Starbucks with my Starbucks buddy. I was telling this buddy about the symptoms I had when I saw my pdoc last. I said one was that I was short-tempered. I gave the example of ripping a CD out of my youngest's hand because I felt he was taking too long. This partly was because I had to pee but partly my hypomanic- impatience in general. There are other examples I gave but because my memory's like a seive, I can't remember them. One of the responses he gave was that I was my real self before my medication was increased.  Where have we heard that before?  Oh yeah: ME!  When I'm manic wanting to be "the real me!"

It seems to me that psychiatrists and psychologists are at odds. The former like to prescribe (or tweak) drugs and the latter do  not, relying on talk therapy. 

I've gotten to know my bipolar brain pretty well so I know when a med change is probably called for.

Help!

Help! The paranoiacs are after me!!

With Any Drug

A friend of mine said today that I should ask my pdoc to quit my trileptal (not by name but hes a psychologist). He says im too tired on it. Just because I'm tired at all. Because Ive needed naps since starting this new dose (300).

But to me this drug is working wonders. Beats the way a lot of the other drugs I've been on have made me feel. (Lamictal purple face comes to mind. Geodon made me feel like I'd swallowed an atomic bomb. Aripiprazole gave me akithesia- to name a few.)

We all have to choose side effects vs benefits- with any drug not just psych. Why rule out brain drugs?

Going Down - Trileptal (and Rexulti)

Ive been on the hypomanic side lately. My pdoc doubled my trileptal and upped my Rexulti to 4. That started yesterday - the first day of the new doses. I took my morning trileptal around 6:30 and was immediately slowed down. My coffee had an opposite effect. In church choir, facing everyone, my eyes kept closing for a moment. I came home and slept for 3 hours! It had been a beautiful morning downtown by church at Starbucks around 7:00. I'm assuming I get used to this new dose and this side effect goes away.

Hypomania? Visit with pdoc/pnurse

Saw pdoc/NP. We talked about how I've been feeling the last little bit. "My youngest was taking too long picking out sheet music and CDs at a music store so I snatched the CD away with a quickness and stomped my way up to the front counter to pay for it." "I've also been getting up at 5:30 every morning wide awake." "I've been short with people in public too because they dont move quickly enough." She thought my Rexulti and Trileptal needed increased. We'll try that for a week and see.

A lot of trouble - Two States

Wandering around the local (big) grocery store I had just a couple items in my cart- one of the small ones meant for such a truncated trip. The room began to shift- to expand- my ears closed and I stared for indefinitely into space - motionless. The noises of the store went away. Disassociation.

Not to be confused with the times when Ive had sensory overload: the audience gets louder, they won't stop talking, screaming and running around. I can hear each individial voice- each word, each exhale of a crying baby, each footstep ... They all fill up my being and wrap me up at the same time and won't let me go.

Both of these states can get you into a lot of trouble.