im afraid to sleep at night!

[JasonFMX]

I can respect your opinion because I can clearly see that your not like some idiots who spout off with zero research or experience.......

however ...


your just going to have to take my word and the words of the people that have a mental illness, that its not just something you turn on and off. like how people say being gay is a choice and they can turn it off. its nonsense, I'm telling you. I didn't beleive I was bipolar because I didnt exhibit all the signs and I didnt want to take all that medication for most like ever. And I was taking it praying it changed nothing, hoping my problems were all in my mind. But wouldn't you know it, almost like clock work 4 days later it was like an enormous weight was lifted from me. And depakote is noncontrolled so its not like I was high or something.

to comment on people that are on meds that still have problems. i shouldnt have to tell you that first of all people dont always do what they are suppose to. alot of people on meds quit taking them becuase of the side effects, or they feel better so they think they dont need them anymore. this happens ALL the time. whats even more classic is for some reason people on meds drink, some quite heavily. I cant imagine doing something more stupid, but they do it. And on the surface you can look at that and say "well he's on meds and they dont help him" (like how you mentioned the VA Tech Student). And thats why I called you ignorant before, your just seeing the surface, your not looking deeply into individual situations, thats where all the real key info is. That kid probably stopped taking his meds, or he wasn't on an antipsychotic. Or was on an antidepressant without a mood stabilizer or something. Or maybe was abusing other drugs to make himself worse like cocain or meth. How do you know ? So how can you say, or use him for an example for that matter ? That is also ignorant.

Another problem is sometimes psychiatrists treating a patient is almost like a Vet treating an animal. They can't always tell them whats wrong and sometimes small key info is crucial. Or they see a family doctor for Psych problems. And alot of times they perscribe the wrong meds, this also happens ALL the time. One of the most misdiagnosed things is people having BP II and they get diagnosed depression with only antidepressants and no mood stabilizer. which is about one of the worst things you can do. Unfortunately this happened to my wife, it made her worse. Then she got some more proper meds and it hellped her alot but not totally. I figured this was as good as its going to get. She got a new psychiatrist and he was really good and took in as much info as he good and gave her new meds and I'm telling you...... her moods changed like night and day. It was simply amazing. Like someone doing a magic trick right in front of you. It put me in awe what the right meds can do. The only downside to that combo was she was tired, gained weight, and had high cholesterol. The doc just changed her meds again and so far 5 Lbs is gone, she has more energy. No more mid day naps, and the cholesterol is yet to be tested but I'm crossing my fingers. Thers a whole world of this going on out there that you don't know about and so many people are judging it with inadequette info.

Couple other things to keep in mind. Say I had an instrument in your brain that changed chemical imbalances and I started messing with seritonin, and you for no reason about 5 times a day just sat down and cried. Walked with your head down... even tried cutting your wrists. But you had no knowledge of me implanting this device. Then you hear people talking about you about how you need to straighten yourself up, like its as simple as ironing your shirt. Like its your fault your this way. If you want to be happy then act happy...........yeah right. Our thoughts are ours, but unfortunately alot of our thoughts and feelings and actions are controlled by the chemical secretions in our brains. I've also seen this in more people than just my wife and I. Maybe a dozen or so. Its so sad to see someone in a trance talking to dead air space in a room like someones there. You can't tell me thats made up.

If you never have to have it proven to you then I actually consider you lucky. So even though I don't like it, be thankful your looking in on us from the outside. because the inside is no place to be. But if you do experience it, youll understand every single word all of us said like watching a puzzle just magically come together.

[JasonFMX]

just as a side note myself. I'm not saying any of this out of anger nor do I have anything against you personaly... I am just trying to help you understand what its like.

Like how some people suffer from chronic pain and no one can find anything wrong with them ? and they are trying to convince their family or doctor there is. Its kinda the same way with alot of people from society. Alot of people feel embarassed. I dont feel ashamed at all. Feeling ashamed is nothing compared to having all the symptoms i did before.

[Jennita]

Ok, I get you and of course you should not be ashamed of anything, who would say that? I am curious, did you ever drink, smoke or take drugs in your youth? Did you go without sleep, or food at any time? The thing about our chemical balance is that it depends alot on what we intake. Our traumas/moods can sometimes cause us to do bad things to ourselves out of some sort of perceived punishment, not caring, or a way to escape for example.

What I'm getting at is that food itself, the amino acids, actually create our serotonin, dopamine, etc. Yes, look it up, amino acids from food are what turns into the various chemicals we need so badly. Strange you never hear one doctor mention this actual scientific fact. Drugs do not create them. This is not something usually shared with a patient.

Now alcohol, drugs and other chemicals we ingest or inhale also can alter our receptors, which are what "catch" and use the chemicals created by our food ingestion. The alterations can create lack of homeostatis which then the brain must instinctivly fight, which leads to drug tolerance, tolerance withdrawals, and other woes.

In other words, drug chemicals themselves can theoretically cause chemical imbalances.

I guess I'm just mentioning this because there is a reason sometimes when things go amuck in the brain, sometimes very basic things but the psychiatric community never intended to do anything to heal, but rather control. And I guess that's ok to a point, you know, but now it's out of hand...they critique everyone even 3 year olds' behaviors to the point that one step out of line and wha-la you've got mental illness at friggin 3 years old and thus begins a lifetime of potentially harmful drugs.

So though I feel for your situation and glad you are getting some relief for now, I have a bone to pick in general with the psychiatric institutions and drug co's on the way they manipulate certain theories and present them as factual.

And I suppose I don't know some of what you describe, you are right, looking from the "outside". However, I actually was "inside" for awhile. Yes, a prescribed, unabused codeine induced withdrawal syndrome caused me so much trouble I ended up on benzodiazepines,(never abused) which a became dependant and tolerant to to the point of having alot of BPII symptoms!

I spent a few days in a facility, I was on a downhill slide at the time. I was even diagnoised with obsessive compulsive by a psych I saw (for spending alot of time on the internet researching for some answers to my problems, no joke)

When I realized the root of the problem or what started it, I weaned off my remaining Ativan and went through benzodiazepine protracted withdrawal syndrome for a few years. Boy was that was hellish. One doctor I went to for a cold heard the story and insisted I get back on meds or would never improve. I respectfully declined. However now, I'm perfectly fine now and got my natural sleep back(which was all but lost before).

I know I don't have the ultimate answers here and don't know/understand your personal ordeal, but I have had some of my own so although I have that bone to pick with the psychiatric community(they caused me alot of pain I won't forget too soon), I can completely sympathize with your pain and hope whatever you do it does end up good for yourself and your wife.

Meanwhile, I'll keep picking at that bone along with others like me and who knows, maybe someday the demand for better treatments that don't always involve drugs might be developed more aggressively and less overdiagnosis of especially toddlers and children might be the norm.

[JasonFMX]

Yeah, I understand better your point.

I'm not really sure how to respond to your post. I see what your saying but I still very much side with my own opinion because I know the situations of myself, my wife, family, friends, and strangers in facilities. And to quote our very very busy psychiatrist who is pretty much forced to see more patients than he should due to supply and demand in our area. "its amazing what the right medication can do" and I said "you took the words out of my mouth". Becuase like I said, I've seen it personally. Its like having a bad running engine thats needs a rebuild. Put the right parts in it and the thing is a whole new machine. I remember this one guy in a facility once, he was extremely mischievous. I mean he was the basic equivilent of giving a 5 year old a 4 pack of redbull. Just doing anything to be bad and hyper. He was even acting out with mild threats, like telling people he was going to take them over their knee and so forth. He caused alot of the staff and patients alot of greif and a behavoiral health facility is the last place that needs stress. They changed his meds and he was completely normal. It was unreal.


To comment on natural remedies as sleep and eating. Again, neither one of us knows everything and never will. But you say doctors dont comment on eating and sleeping proper. My psych doctor stresses this very much as well as do alot of the articles I have read. Like for instance, if your deprived of just say 2 solid hours of sleep each night for 2 weeks it would be perfectly normal to exhibit mild signs of many bilogical mental illnesses. So, if you already have the illness, being deprived of sleep will make it MUCH worse. Same goes for eating properly and so forth.

To comment on how people abuse their bodies. That can split off two ways as I see it. one way is ... ok yeah, the guy did coke and meth and burnt out his adrenaline... its gone. He knows he did damage to his body, hes clean, he screwed up. But now he has ADD. He deserves a second chance and deserves proper medical treatment. he can't have a stimulant because he abused them so hes prescribed straterra. The other way it can split off is they did temporary damage and they use the drugs to get themselves straightened out and once back on track they get taken off the drugs. This also happens in alot of cases. Like people who suffer from PTSD will take a certain drug until therapy eases their mind...maybe over a few years then they come off of it mentally healthy again. Both ways I would say they need and deserve the benefits of these drugs.


As for me. I have never done any illeagal drugs ever.. no not even marijuana. I never drank until well after turning 22 and it was only a drink of two on the weekend. And I had my last drink when I was 24. So I drank socially/lightly for about a year and a half. Like most kids I tried smoking when I was in my early teens but in total I probably smoked the equivilent of 2 packs....if that. Most people living in LA breathing the air are worse off than that. Abusing sleep is h ard to answer because of my mania... i would stay up for a long time then sleep a long time.. so conclude from that what you will. I also kept in pretty good shape my whole life. during my physical tests after I joined the marines I could do more pullups than anyone. When i was in high school I could run faster than anyone in the whole school, as well as with pullups. Distance running and pullups I certainly did well but no records broken there or anything. And also I would liek to ad, theres a history of mental illness in my family. Some got treatment and some didnt. And alot of them showed the same symptoms as I did.

In your case, I'm sorry to hear you were misdiagnosed and treated. That sucks becuase I know all about it too...and for pretty serious stuff too. But what you have to remember is, you were self aware and smart enough to put all the pieces of the puzzle together enough to figure out you didnt really have a mental illness, the doctors unintentionally induced a similar facsimilie of one. So once you figured that out you got yourself off your medication and did all sorts of healthy activities to purge your body of the toxins and get your body functioning as it should. And that worked becuase your not really mentally ill. Alot of people with mental illness are also intelligent, sometimes the most intelligent people are mentally ill or weird in some other way lol. but anyway.... they too can piece together they have a problem and try to purge themself of it. But guess what ?.... they cant becuase theres nothing to get rid of. If they try to go to sleep at 10PM to get a sleep schedule going and your nervoous system is still burning red hot becuase your BP 1 ......your not going to sleep. If your depressed and you go expose yourself to sunshine and exercising to release endorphines and surround yourslef with life such as flowers and puppy dogs and engage in your favorite hobby..... you can do it all you want but its not going to release those endorphines or raise those seritonin levels because according to your DNA, which are like little factories and the nucleous is like the forman whos looking at the DNA which is like a quota list.... its saying "hey.... we're good guys, keep it up" (or whatever else is physically blocking your brains ability to produce the proper chemicals, such as prior drug abuse causing permanant damage) While your body and mind as a whole feels like going into the corner and cutting your wrists. When taking the proper medication in proper dosage and following a general healthy schedule it corrects all of that and you feel as your suppose to and it opens a whole new world to you. If you want to get super technical about not knowing about how this all works EXACTLY and being able to prove I guess your right, but look at it like this. You don't have to know anything about a car to know that when it runs out of gas it stops moving and if you put more gas into it it will move again to figure out that the car is somehow converting the gasoline into forward motion. (or whatever other type of analogy you want to use, but your not stupid I'm sure you get the point).

[deskette]

okay so i havent checked this thread for a while... and i am just now like catching up with the conversation going on between you two (jennita & jasonFMX) and i have some of my own opinions...

i agree with a lof of Jennita is saying about drs just handing out these meds. i think that if people are bi-polar, or whatever else and they are trying new meds, they NEED to be watched under supervision until they know which med is right for them. there are a lot more people being diagnosed with all these disorders and its rediculous. JasonFMX i am adhd and i know how it is to be the insider and yes adderall helped me but i think personally.. the person themself is the one that makes it either bad or good. i havent taken my meds for like about a week (i am the one that made this thread, so if you go back and read what i said you'll see why)... and i am doing just fine. yeah there are things i dont want to do, and yeah i procrastinate and yeah i find myself dazing and not knowing what im doing but its okay. people get like that and if we eat the right things, and put effort into whats going on around us. i dont even know if adderall and other types of them drugs is what makes us function, i kind of think it just makes it easier. if everybody took adderall then everybody in the world would be smart. its not necessarily NEEDING the drug, it just makes life easier. while some people have a hard time getting through their day, and dont take adderall. so is that fair?

i personally think that the people with this "disorder" are the ones that make out how bad it really is. and ALSO i think that a person that is bi-polar doesnt need to be on adderall. but if you became bi-polar while taking adderall then thats where your problem started. people take meds like adderall and get these mental problems and think they just have more problems, but really its was the adderall itself causing these other issues.
if thats not your case, and you were bi-polar first then you shouldnt even be taking adderall or any controlled substance. they are all narcotics and UNSAFE because people tend to abuse them.

so anyway i see where you are coming from JasonMFX but you also cant blame it that Jennita is just an outsider because i am an insider coming to the outside. i think its the worst thing ever that people in this world have to run properly by taking meds. "your not normal unless your taking meds.." thats the dumbest thing i have ever heard because if you are a mentally ill person then you need to be in a home where people take care of you. not pretend that your normal so you can walk out in the streets, and one day forget to take your meds and be harmful to other people. no. that is not right.

not trying to offend anybody here, i know that everybody is different. i just think its lame that people have to function off of meds. only you can fix your problems, meds can temporaily fix them SO someday you have to learn how to cope and rearrange your life.

adderall did help me, and many other people. but the side affects are not worth it. i rather be this person that doesnt think about everything 100 times before i do it, then turn into a psycho mental patient. and thats how it would have happened. people take adderall, have these symptoms and dont realize its the med that makes them UNnormal.

anyways... now im just ramlbing. im sorry if i offended anybody. dont sit there and say i dont know what im talking about though because im coming from both sides. everybody has their opinion and this is mine.

again, sorry if anybody is offended.