well my first post...
Here goes I was diagnonised bi-polar w/pschotic features,14 years ago. I have been hospitalized over 15 times. And i am still not even on the right track,yet. I don't know why but, for some reason, I try to play doctor everytime I go to the doctor! I tell him whatever I can think of to get the results I want at the time. I can't really tell reality from fiction anymore. What are the lies and what is the truth? I have a very difficult time staying on the meds. I feel very hopeless one minute and the next I don't even know if I have a problem. All I know is that I keep falling apart! Well my actual question is how do I let the doctors help me when I can not explain what is wrong with me? The doc started me on Depakote last week. I have another appointment in 2 weeks. Does anyone know what i am even talking about?
14 years and still as crazy as ever. Is there any hope for me?
Hope to hear from someone
Thanks for taking the time to read this post
Tamela

Hi Tamela,

Welcome and hopefully, someone can help you to understand that being Bi-Polar isn’t a one-symptom problem that can be “cured” with one medication. It can take years to get your meds right but it can also be that you are one of the people that meds don’t help. BUT, you must try to get a handle on it otherwise, you can defeat yourself, which I think that you already know.

One of the great things that we do is manipulate people to get what we think we need. Most of the time, it isn’t what we need at all. That’s because we go from very low to very high in a nano-second! I call my highs & lows manic episodes and I always know (now) when I am in one.

I couldn’t take the meds but I did learn how to control myself. I still have problems but with some “new” thinking, I usually can control my thinking and help myself through it. I do have times that I have to take meds but it is not all the time for me. I know people that have to take them all the time and do well on them. The key for them is that they had to learn that they had to take the meds in order to function.

Don’t think that the doctors know it all. Make sure that you have a doctor that specializing in Bi-Polar treatment. Otherwise, you are at the mercy of whatever your symptoms are….and they can get confusing.

That’s my help. Hope it leads others to jump in because I know that what works for me won’t necessarily work for everyone. Don’t give up, don’t hurt yourself, don’t despair. Someone can help you – even if that ends of being yourself. (YOU WROTE HERE, didn’t you?)

bconn

Thank you Bconn,
i am hopeful that you have started the ball rolling for more replies. I am cycling very fast today. Ifeel so out of control. Do any of you feel knots and swimming feelings in your body when this happens especially in your stomach? I used to be educated with my disorder. But as time goes by i have no room for information to be stored it is all racing thoughts and feelings of panic that i will never be functionable again. after 14 years and not knowing how to get true help from the doctor is there any hope for me? sorry for the rambling just desparate for some peace of mind.
Thank you again for your words of encouragement. Hope to hear from you again.
Tamela

Hi Tamela,
I’m glad that you are still here….I did feel out of control but not so much with knots and swimming feelings. Mine was like a blackness with a never-ending depth of thick, sticky darkness that was actually pliable. Hmmm… maybe like swimming in a mucky polluted mud. Does that make sense? Probably not but most of this bi-polar stuff doesn’t make a lot of sense, especially in the beginning.

You are certainly right about having no more room for info because you are so filled with it right now. I think that is part of the problem. We have so much information stored that we don’t know how to sort it out or what the hell to do with it. So we turn in inward and it just keeps clogging up out minds. That racing feeling of panic is just another part of trying to sort things out rationally. Makes us irrational, I think.

How can I help you to slow down enough to be able to process something? Anything? If you can find a starting point, try to stick with it and see it to an end. The end doesn’t have to finish it, it just has to put it in a place that you have dealt with it to your satisfaction. Like a boxed cake. It sits in your cupboard, unmade, it’s not finished but it is in it’s place. Understand? You can finish it later when you want to….

You can live with this because you have (maybe not the way you know that you want too) for 14 years. Now is the time to start trying to live with it in a way that you can at the very least, cope with it. Don’t give in. I and so many others are here with you.

Brenda

Hi Tamela:

Hi Tamela:
wow you and i sound a lot alike. I usually tell the doctors when i go in to see them that i already know what's wrong. I think i do that because they are such quacks and don't know what they are even doing. Are you on any type of medication? And please don't tell me paxil.
hugs