Lights

Bright lights against the dull shine of the signal post- red, now green, now yellow holding, aaaand red!  The cool air sneaks around my ankles- Whoosh!  It's cool, fresh as I inhale deeply.  Honk!  Beep!  A step: wanting to be one with the light, as it is reflected-  hardness, brightly, swiftly- I am one with the hardness, bone against flesh, steel against steel, to meet is their desire!  O what joy!  What quiet delight!  As one, and snow gently falls around.  Now red!  And white and green! And STOP.

Intrusive Thoughts Worse (NOT Graphic.)

Last night I had to take extra haldol. It made me spacey/dizzy- walking funny to the bathroom and back. But, in bed I was ok, just spacey. 

Today, I called my pdoc's office. Talked with someone about this- the episodes getting worse- and she said to take 4 mg if I wanted. They are having someone call to check up on me over the weekend.

My Mental Health History Before Bipolar

My first time seeing a mental health professional was at age 16. I don't know if he was a therapist, pdoc or what but I know he had on argile sox! I don't remember what we talked about but in retrospect we had lots I couldve talked about: growing up a child of an alcoholic, or the voices I heard. But instead, he pronounced me a "normal teenager" and sent me on my way. 

I always felt I was different somehow. I was even told as much by teachers and one aunt in particular. 

At 25, when pregnant with my first child, my OB/GYN prescribed Zoloft for depression.

I saw a woman about the adult child of an alcoholic thing- syndrome I guess you'd call it when I was 26 or so. But we didnt get far. 

Some time after this, I saw orange rectangles in the sky. I had my husband come look. He said he saw nothing. But every time I looked outside they were there but they weren't there when I looked back inside.

My second pdoc was when I was pregnant and post partum with my third child at age 29. Despite vivid hallucinations, she refused to look further into my symptoms- including catatonic depressions. 

After my 3rd pregnancy, I saw someone for post partum psychosis. Only I didnt know that this is what its called. This is when I had my first vivid violent hallucinations.

Then about age 32 I saw a therapist that was supposed to help me find my way into my own place instead of living with my mom. I told her my tale and she just said "What do you want ME to do about it??" I got madand Im pretty sure I just left. I had sooo been looking forward to that appointment, too. 

It wasn't really until I was about 33 that my primary doc referred me to a pdoc in general. I dont know what I told her for her to deem that necessary but I do remember being dissociated wandering the neighborhood and of seeing a little girl on a porch just disappear. I also remember riding my bike quickly with headphones on singing along to classical choir music at the top of my lungs.

I was finally diagnosed bipolar NOS. Not sure how long later but they changed it to bipolar 1.

Restraint and Seclusion

Never been restrained for psych purposes.  Been given morphine for pain and that kind of calmed me down.  Seen the rubber room once at the old psych ER - it had padded walls and a chair or two.  Not sure- I wasn't put in it.  Worst I did at the hospital was wandering in circles in the waiting room because I was bored.  The kept having to tell me to sit down and stay away from the door.  I was green banded- makes alarms go off if you go through the doors.  I was taken to the "back" once and put in a small room with an uncomfortable bed and the lights on.  The door had a square window near the top and cross-crossed metal wires going throughout.  The nurses station was right there.  I was so bored I just kept staring at them.  I was fed - a breakfast tray with a tiny box of Frosted Flakes.  I was in there for ages.  There were leather restraint straps on the bed, but I was never put in them. 

Another trip to a different hospital- they had a "commode" in my room and they had to have their eyes on me at all times. I had to "go number 2" in front of everyone in the middle of the room.  They weren't happy about that- and neither was I!  Eventually I was [trigger] so drugged from having taken 30 Benedryl at once, that I sort of passed out.  People were all around me but I was in and out of consciousness. [/trigger].  Ive also had people have to go with me to the bathroom and watch me so I didn't- I was a "fall risk".  No Haldol ever given as an injection. 

My Last Manic Episode - My Theory

Been thinking that my last manic episode- April/May this year- may have been started by my best friend dying on April 2nd. It was a couple weeks later that I started haviing noticable symptoms of mania. From there it just got worse until I contacted my team and was drugged into submission with Seroquel.

Psychology Today: Robin Williams Bipolar

Not Depression But Bipolar- Robin Williams

Yup- we knew it: He was Bipolar!

(Text copied in case link dies.)

Not "Depression": Manic-Depression and Robin Williams

A deadly disease, whether we accept it or not

Posted Aug 13, 2014

Was it “depression” that killed Robin Williams, as most media reports say? Or depression mixed with alcohol and drugs.  But “depression” isn’t a diagnosis or a disease; like fever, it’s a set of symptoms that can happen in various diseases.

The disease was manic-depression, or bipolar illness, as some reportsacknowledge; depression occurred as part of that disease, and, in all likelihood, it led to Williams’ suicide. Alcohol and/or drugs may have precipitated the timing and the exact end, but the disease which afflicted him, over and over with repeated mood episodes, was manic-depression. 

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“Depression” is somewhat acceptable; manic-depression is still mostly taboo. Even mental health clinicians, including many on the PT site, downplay or denigrate it. 

But it exists; it provides great gifts; and it kills. 

The gifts: creativity in mania certainly helps comedians and actors;  the mind runs in a million different directions, and new and funny and smart ideas pour out.  Williams was a walking manic episode in many of his interviews and skits.  Sometimes a person can have mild to moderate manic symptoms all the time, as part of his or her personality, called “hyperthymic” temperament, the opposite of “dysthymic” temperament.  In keeping with the stigma and discrimination against bipolar illness, dysthymia is well-known and part of the DSM nosology; hyperthymia was never included in DSM systems, and is little known among mental health clinicians, much less the larger public.

Many persons with manic-depressive illness have hyperthymic temperament all the time – so they’re creative and productive and funny, and sometimes famous – and then they have repeated depressive episodes, usually lasting weeks to months, usually happening once a year or two – and, in about one in ten persons, leading to suicide.

So Robin Williams’ “depression” should be called what it was:  manic-depression. And we need to start taking this bipolar illness more seriously and respectfully, and acknowledging its existence, and treating it correctly –rather than misnaming it and mistreating it (as happens with “depression”, where antidepressants often worsen the bipolar illness, sometimes leading to suicide), or, worse, simply ignoring it. 

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Tragedy is sad if not preventable, but truly terrible when a cure exists, such as lithium, which is proven to prevent suicide in multiple gold-standard randomized studies.  And, more importantly, it is the ONLY medication proven to prevent suicide in randomized studies. 

The cure exists; the diagnosis can be made. The real tragedy is that we pretend the diagnosis doesn’t exist.  

Williams, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Winehouse - and in the past, Kurt Cobain and others.  

The tragedies will never end –as with all medical tragedies, like the millions of women who died in childbirth for millennia – until scientific and medical professions take a disease seriously. Only then can it be identified - and cures given.  

An Unquiet Mind (By Kay Redfield Jamison)

I just finished it. My impressions: She is a remarkable writer- several $15 dollar words that I had to look up! That's unusual for me. She explained things that were in terms I could understand - maybe because Ive got "it", too? Her insistance of calling it "manic depressive illness"; she even goes on to explain why. To me, "manic depression" describes part of it- but there's so much MORE to it. Bipolar tells you there are at least two opposite ends of the disease but leaves room for all the little inbetween bits- such as delusions, hallucinations, and paranoia.  All in all, I loved the book. I have respect for her journey. Likely,  the best memoir I've read about bipolar. I am left with a feeling of hope and maybe I don't "need" to know what's "worse" than what I've already experienced in my life re bipolar.