bipolar disorder, depression, and related disorders

[oeisa]

So I've finally accepted that I am in fact bipolar and need to stay on my meds unless I find a way to stay in my room for the rest of my life that pays well. I did a quick search to see if anyone else has brought up this topic, but I only browsed the titles that came up (I'll probably do a more thorough search later when I'm less tired), and nothing seemed to focus specifically on this.

My question/request is this: for those others around here dealing with bipolar disorder and any of the related "abnormal" psych disorders, please share your experiences.

I'm interested in what medications people have tried and how they worked out. I'm on lithium, which works better than zoloft, effexor, and a bunch of other self-destructive self-medicating "remedies" I've tried, but there are still a lot of adjustments I need to make to this particular drug and its side effects before I can stop feeling like there are two of me - one unmedicated "true" me and the medicated "fake" me (the shell, or "me-lite") that lets me get by in the world without alienating too many people or having to hide all the time due to being so supersensitive.

I'm especially interested in others who might be on lithium (or depakote, which I believe is very similar to lithium - but I have more research to do on this particular topic) and how it changed their moods and affected their functionality, and how they adjusted to those changes.

I'll write more about my experiences if this thread actually gets a few responses and it seems there are others interested in discussing this topic.

I have a severe shortage of friends on similar medications (though there seem to be a great many bipolar individuals running around unmedicated and determined to stay that way = mostly bad influences) who I can discuss these things with, and rather than go to a forum of strangers who are ONLY discussing this topic, I'd rather try it here first and see what people who share a great many of my interests and ideas/beliefs have to say.

This community seems much more supportive and intelligent than any others I've come across, and I feel like I can trust far more of the members here than I could anywhere else. After all these months of lurking and observing the way people interact here and getting the feel of quite a few of the members' personalities, I feel safe here and want to "come out of my shell," as much as one can online anyway.

I know there are a great many of people who have come to believe it's "all in your head" due to bad experiences with the corruption in the medical community that leads to many being on unnecessary and/or the wrong drugs, and I ask that those people refrain from posting suggestions (like replacing lithium with meditation or lots of pot-smoking, which I already tried), or any unsolicited suggestions at all. All I want is to hear the stories of others who have been or are in the same type of situation as I am, and if/as the thread goes on, if I (or anyone else) asks specifically for advice, then it will be more than welcome.

Thanks for reading if you made it this far.

[jungjedi]

hey,goodluck with your situation my friend.
im on several medications for schizophrenia and have been told in the past to just smoke more pot or try meditation.i kindof like my meds.they let me sleep when i want to and think more clearly with several side effects.i dont know if i'll keep takeing them.would like to do shrooms but i cant on these meds

[joey_megabucks]

i have been taking depakote for 8 years. without it i am suicidal one day and feel like im on crack the next. bipolar disorder sucks donkey balls. but it is manageable with meds. marijuana can actually interfere with the meds ability to work. just a heads up. good luck

[oeisa]

Thanks for replying. I had given up on this thread and started to feel embarrassed that I even posted it.

I've been on lithium for the past three years, and I'm still having trouble adjusting to the lack of deep emotions. Did you go through any kind of adjustment period like that with depakote? When I was smoking pot all the time, I managed to convince myself that I'd just developed a buddhist-like detachment from the world, but that belief disappeared the first time I quit taking my meds and suddenly remembered what life felt like five years ago. And lately I'm starting to notice all the friendships I just gave up on because I didn't care anymore and how isolated it makes me, and the lithium isn't strong enough to make me not care about that. But then again this could just be PMS and I'll be over it in a week or two.

I'm just lost.

[weed4all]

i was just where you were oeisa. stayed in my house all day and got blazed because i had such a fucked up outlook on what was goin on around me and started to get suicidal. i started taking lamictal everyday though and ive been feeling great. it's a real good medicine, acts as a mood-stabalizer, antidepressant, sleep aid, and theres like 2 more things. anyways, the coolest thing about it is no bad side effects and its like 3 meds in one so it's the olny pill i have to take. btw are bipolar I or II. im pretty sure im I so i dunno if that med would work if your II. but i do suggest you talk to your doc about it if your having troubles with your meds now. the worst thing i did when i was depressed is keep letting time slip away...

[joey_megabucks]

i take lamictal as well. it works synergistically with the depakote. the meds do tend to "dull" deep emotion, but my emotions were way too up and down in the first place. the meds seem to even things out.
the lithium shouldn't make you not care about friendships and whatnot. it is only supposed to help even out your emotions.

[weed4all]

hey joey, my doc told me taking lithium or depakote w/ lamictal can give you skin necrolosis.theres a few other ways that lamictal can cause this but im unsure. just a word of warning. thats the reason i was so scared to take it in the first place. having your skin fall off would realllllllllllllllllly suck.

[oeisa]

I've never heard of lamictal, but I'll definitely do some research into it. I dunno if I'm bipolar I or II; I would say II just because I haven't experienced very many manic episodes (at least that I could recognize--it took a long time to realize that being manic wasn't all about being happy and super-energized and feeling like I could do anything in the world, but that it could manifest as a rage-filled depression too), but then again I'm only 24 and it could just be a matter of time before it becomes full-blown type I.

I think the reason my friendships fell apart was a combination of the lithium dulling me to the point where I felt like a ghost of myself and staying high all the time so I wouldn't care as much about it. I just let it all slip away because I've been trying so hard to be unlike my parents (who are both drug addicts, one to pot and alcohol, the other to all kinds of pills) and resistant to taking meds or trying very hard to find the right medication when I would have a breakdown every year or so and go to the doctor because it all got too overwhelming.

Ok, off to research lamictal now. Thanks for all the replies.

[res]

My girlfriend has bipolar, she used to be on lithium which made her feel like a zombie with no emotions at all. She is now stable and taking depakote and lamictal, plus someother medications for other issues. She has done really well on depakote, they tried many other meds that made her feel crappy before finally putting her on depakote. The only down fall to depakote is the fact that it can make you gain weight.

I hope everything works out well for you,
res

[oeisa]

Originally Posted by res

The only down fall to depakote is the fact that it can make you gain weight.

Lithium and pot and sitting on my ass for three years made me gain plenty as well. I've had to force myself to start exercising and for the most part have been doing a pretty decent job of keeping up with it for the past several months (keeping up with my exercise is the main way I keep myself believing that I'm working towards improving my life while everything else stagnates or falls apart).

Next time I see my doctor I plan to talk to him about depakote and lamictal, though if he thinks it's a good idea for me to switch over, it's going to be hell getting off the lithium. If it comes to that, I'll probably have to ban myself from this website so I won't be on here posting every five minutes about every random thought I have. Maybe I can finally get my apartment cleaned up...

[jungjedi]

Originally Posted by oeisa

Lithium and pot and sitting on my ass for three years made me gain plenty as well. I've had to force myself to start exercising and for the most part have been doing a pretty decent job of keeping up with it for the past several months (keeping up with my exercise is the main way I keep myself believing that I'm working towards improving my life while everything else stagnates or falls apart).

Next time I see my doctor I plan to talk to him about depakote and lamictal, though if he thinks it's a good idea for me to switch over, it's going to be hell getting off the lithium. If it comes to that, I'll probably have to ban myself from this website so I won't be on here posting every five minutes about every random thought I have. Maybe I can finally get my apartment cleaned up...

been there.done that.....

[eternalfrost]

a few years back i was semi-diagnosed with mild bipolar/depression. basically i ended up seeing some shrinks and such and they said theres a good chance i had it given my symptoms and history in my family. have been very antisocial since i was a kid and have those days where i cant get out of bed or leave my room and then next week i am jumpin around all over and cant sleep and generally cracked out haha. i get obsessive 'projects' where i maniacally cant think about anything else ad do nothing but read up on it and study and practice it etc for weeks untill i totally kill it and just drop it.

and anyway the few shrink sessions that i had got pretty much noplace. they wanted to then medicate me instead but i hated it and that didnt last long so for the past years i have been dealing with it myself and have been doing very well latly.

i find it really helps to just lay yourself out there to some special people. get out there and make a friendship. it helps me to keep in mind that everyone else is in the same place as me, they are not special i shouldnt be worried about what they think. "I have as much authority as the Pope. I just don’t have as many people who believe it."

life is one big joke and the people who are not happy are the ones who dont get it heh

[drtask]

I have been on Lithium, Depakote, Zoloft, Risperdal, Seroquel, and Zyprexa. In my experiences, Zoloft was a load of b.s.. The Depakote was pretty much non-functional for me as the Seroquel had me totally zombied all the time. The Risperdal was not that harsh in side-effects either. Lithium was the best medication for controlling my mood swings and making the occurance of a mood swing or hallucination less often. All in all, cannabis turned out to be the best treatment for me.

p.s. my diagnosis was bipolar with psychosis, major depressive disorder.

[oeisa]

Originally Posted by eternalfrost

i get obsessive 'projects' where i maniacally cant think about anything else ad do nothing but read up on it and study and practice it etc for weeks untill i totally kill it and just drop it.

that's how I got started with my myco-obsession. fortunately it's so interesting that I always seem to come back to it even if I do get burnt out for a few weeks/months.

and anyway the few shrink sessions that i had got pretty much noplace. they wanted to then medicate me instead but i hated it and that didnt last long so for the past years i have been dealing with it myself and have been doing very well latly.

So what does "doing very well" mean exactly? Do you still experience the up and down mood swings and have just learned to cope with them better than before, or have they faded away mostly? I keep wanting to go off my meds and just try to power through it until I (hopefully) someday can somehow.. be okay, I guess.

But the research I've read says that bipolar disorder causes an actual physical deterioration of the brain (more than 'normal' people experience) and lithium (and maybe some of the other drugs; I don't remember exactly) helps to slow or stop that process. And that it will only get worse as I get older so I might as well stay on the drugs now and hope I can learn to deal with the side-effects and manage to make something decent of my life.

i find it really helps to just lay yourself out there to some special people. get out there and make a friendship.

That's what I've been slowly trying to do. Talking to people online this way is almost as hard for me as out there in the 'real world' but I'm trying both.

It helps to hear from so many here about their experiences.

[oeisa]

Originally Posted by drtask

I have been on Lithium, Depakote, Zoloft, Risperdal, Seroquel, and Zyprexa. In my experiences, Zoloft was a load of b.s.. The Depakote was pretty much non-functional for me as the Seroquel had me totally zombied all the time. The Risperdal was not that harsh in side-effects either. Lithium was the best medication for controlling my mood swings and making the occurance of a mood swing or hallucination less often. All in all, cannabis turned out to be the best treatment for me.

p.s. my diagnosis was bipolar with psychosis, major depressive disorder.

Zoloft made me a zombie. Effexor made me so paranoid that I was afraid to drive because I was convinced I would hallucinate a green light and drive into an intersection and die, and made me feel like I was floating outside my body for a few hours after taking it. I think it was also the drug that started my persistent suspicion that I've already died and this is just some awful afterlife that will never end or change.

I've been abstaining from pot for three months now, trying to see how the lithium works on me without its influence, and so far it doesn't seem to have helped much at all. My memory is still crap (which I recently learned can be a side-effect of the lithium). The pot seemed to make me more spiritually-inclined where I would meditate on the different beliefs I've developed over the years nearly everyday.. and now, not so much.

I quit because it was making me too paranoid and anxious at a point when my life was in complete flux and it wasn't helping me to relax anymore.

I still can't decide if it's been a good decision for me to quit or not. And I'm sure that smoking pot is not something my doctor is going to EVER recommend. But it's hard for me to imagine never smoking again and never seeing things in that special way that pot seems to light up the world. It brought so much meaning back to the things I experienced (that lithium seemed to have taken away). I just wish it would have let me remember more of it after it wore off.

Could you please elaborate on why it turned out to be the best treatment for you?

[eternalfrost]

last year i started working at a university which i think helped alot to get myself out there and around like-minded people. at first the large setting with thousands of people was terifing but now its really starting to show me how rediculus those fears are. being in a situation where you can meet people and now matter how insanely bad you 'fuck it up' you can always just drop away and there be 7999 others around and you never have to see that person again. gives you confidence, and if you really think about it thats the way the whole world is, no need to get all hung up on interactions with people, whats the worst that can happen.

also for the past 6 months i havent watched tv at all haha. it realy helps immensely i have to say. you really dont realize how much time you totally waste watching stuff you dont even really want to. just go for a walk, read a book, draw something...whatever anything. at first id find myself thinking 'damn ive been doing //insert activity// for a long ass time' then check my watch and see its been like 20 minuites haha not even a full episode of something. and how many times have you are not even be able to rember what it was you just spent the last half hour watching just after you flip the channel. get out there and use that head of yours

lately ive been really getting into eastern world views, taoism and buddhism ideas. has really made me a much more balanced person, not that plastic smile plastered to my face like before but just at peace and genuinely happy. id suggest picking up a copy of the tao te ching, tao of pooh, or anything by allen watts as good starting places.

[smc252]

Originally Posted by oeisa

Thanks for replying. I had given up on this thread and started to feel embarrassed that I even posted it.

I've been on lithium for the past three years, and I'm still having trouble adjusting to the lack of deep emotions. Did you go through any kind of adjustment period like that with depakote? When I was smoking pot all the time, I managed to convince myself that I'd just developed a buddhist-like detachment from the world, but that belief disappeared the first time I quit taking my meds and suddenly remembered what life felt like five years ago. And lately I'm starting to notice all the friendships I just gave up on because I didn't care anymore and how isolated it makes me, and the lithium isn't strong enough to make me not care about that. But then again this could just be PMS and I'll be over it in a week or two.

I'm just lost.

I just came off lithium last month, and I was on it 4yrs. I tried others first but all the SSRI's did was hyped me up and I hated that feeling. It helped me for a while, but I've been depressed a lot lately. A hormonal imbalance (or shift, esp with estradiol) can mimic/flare-up bipolar disorder, and most docs don't check this.

Lithium is also a salt, which can affect your adrenals (specifically aldosterone) and more likely your thyroid. They can also effect your mood if something is off. Nothing to worry about, I'd just get a check on em next time they look at lithium levels.

I too, feel distant from my friends, and never do anything with them. The lithium was helping me, but not in that aspect. I smoke pot to help me when I feel lethargic and depressed, but only 1 or 2 hits. Any more just makes me feel worse. It helps to have people to talk to, like on here...you can think things out and see that hope does exist. Don't be afraid to ask the doc for different meds, or a dosage adjustmets. Where are your lithium levels at now?

Go to the gym and get a workout you ENJOY doing, it GREATLY helped my depression. Or even swim in the pool, then relax in the hot-tub. Kept me in a better mood all week going 3 times a week for 45minutes and I looked forward to it, for once. I actually MISS it when I don't go!

-Steve

[joey_megabucks]

i've been on the combo of depakote and lamictal for 5+ years. no necralosis yet. thanks for the warning though!

[oeisa]

Originally Posted by smc252

I just came off lithium last month, and I was on it 4yrs.

Are you trying a new medication or just giving up on lithium?

It helped me for a while, but I've been depressed a lot lately. A hormonal imbalance (or shift, esp with estradiol) can mimic/flare-up bipolar disorder, and most docs don't check this.

Lithium is also a salt, which can affect your adrenals (specifically aldosterone) and more likely your thyroid. They can also effect your mood if something is off. Nothing to worry about, I'd just get a check on em next time they look at lithium levels.

The thing about my doctor is that he has yet to do a blood test, mainly because I told him I can't afford to pay the price he charges for them, but also because I usually only take 600mg a day, and 900mg when I expect to have to deal with the public (retail job) the next day. My mom finds ways to get much cheaper blood tests through other labs, though, so I should be getting my thyroid and other stuff checked soon enough. I don't think she's found any lab to check lithium levels yet, though.

I too, feel distant from my friends, and never do anything with them. The lithium was helping me, but not in that aspect. I smoke pot to help me when I feel lethargic and depressed, but only 1 or 2 hits. Any more just makes me feel worse. It helps to have people to talk to, like on here...you can think things out and see that hope does exist.

Lately what I'm most sick of is my own ego, my SELF and the patterns I'm stuck in. Contemplating taking a trip (of the psychedelic variety), but I'm afraid it might just open up things I'm not ready to deal with. I quit school, though I plan to go back (but not for at least a year), and my job would be great (not counting the customers) if I could actually work enough to keep myself busy, but that's not going to happen thanks to factors outside my influence (and pretty much everyone I know is certain I'd hate and ultimately not be very good at being a waitress, which seems to be the only job open around here), and I'm lonely and want to spend time with people but there's no one who has time for me, and those that do don't really "get" me anyway, so there's always that distance that makes being around them worse than being alone. So I come here 20 times a day and randomly post in much the same way I randomly, but rarely, comment in "real" conversations, and this thread is my "occasional emotional explosion attributed to PMS"..

and I wait.

Go to the gym and get a workout you ENJOY doing, it GREATLY helped my depression. Or even swim in the pool, then relax in the hot-tub. Kept me in a better mood all week going 3 times a week for 45minutes and I looked forward to it, for once. I actually MISS it when I don't go!

I used to walk out in the country in the middle of the night (this was before medication and before I started doing drugs of any kind), which made me feel best, but then I moved to the city for school and my only option now is a treadmill. I can't even listen to music while walking anymore because I can't relate/empathize with any of it (which I blame lithium for, because of how I suddenly couldn't get enough music and exercise when I decided to go off my meds for those few weeks months ago), so I've been watching episodes of TV shows that run 45 minutes (without commercials), lately THE SHIELD, probably BUFFY when I run out of shield episodes. It's not as enjoyable as it could be, but then again most things in my life aren't, and it does help, so I keep it up.


I just don't know what I'm waiting for.

[vitae1234]

In general, I'm very against "pill Y for mental condition Z" methodology, but since you don't want advice of that nature, I'll leave it at that and relate my own experience (albeit minor) as you requested.


For years, I hated winter and could be placed in the "seasonal affective disorder" pool. Insomnia at times, excessive sleep at others, general depression and lack of appropriate emotion.

Spring would arrive and I'd be fine again.

It hasn't crept up on me in a few years, and I attribute that to nothing more than a different outlook. Going outside dressed for the cold rather than staying in the house. Keeping the house *warm* rather than constantly being cold. Getting enough bright light during the day, even if it is artificial.

I guess my point is that you can control your environment to a large degree, and that might have more impact than you'd first think.

[oeisa]

I found this page where many patients on Lamictal, as well as a variety of other drugs, rated its effectiveness and reported the side-effects they noticed and how well it worked for them, for those others who replied to this thread about it who might be interested.

http://www.askapatient.com/viewratin...&name=LAMICTAL