Rapid cycling, depression, mania, mixed, it's everything! Blaughhhhh

My eyes are completely burning. I realized I haven’t posted much other than poetry for awhile now so here I am. I have a headache. It’s been a really long day. This may be partially incoherent. I’ve been prefacing a lot of my interactions with people that way lately. Oh well.

So I think it’s safe to say that I have been up for a large portion of the last 6 months. Which is all well and good with me, and in ways is enjoyable. But now, it’s starting to go into this rapid cycling/mixed type stuff, which is not so enjoyable. However, it is reality, so I figured I should document it.

A few months ago my husband and I separated again. Then in January, I started school again. So, there has been a lot of stress and just a lot of demands on me physically and mentally. So that’s just a quick background leading to today.

Stuff is sort of a big jumbled ball right now. One minute I’m bouncing around with the energy of 10 men (ok, women) and the next I’m tired and dazed. For a few days I’ll get very little sleep and be just fine and dandy, and then it switches and I will barely have the energy to get through the day without falling asleep, and on top of that, when I do sleep, it will feel like I could KEEP sleeping for a whole week or more. The constant energy fluctuations are hell on me.

One day I’ll be talking to everyone who crosses my path and listening to everyone’s stories and the next day (literally, the next day) I’ll be sullen and walk into class and not say one word to a soul. I’ll just want to sit and wallow and ruminate. But then hours later, or the next day, I pop up again, and will be laughing and jumping and all of that crazy stuff.

I go from being able to concentrate well in class and “get” the material to being completely distracted, unable to concentrate at all, finding the material confusing and getting bogged down by it, and then stuff just falls through the cracks.

Now the ups I certainly like. But I DON’T like the downs mixed in there. In fact, the fact they are even there at all is kind of starting to make me a bit angry. Also the constant flip/flip/flip like a metronome is starting to wear on me. On top of it, I think I’m starting to notice a few psychotic type things happening and so that is raising a red flag to me. In the past, when I have had longer periods of mania that have psychotic elements, it kind of has the same pattern. Things begin to rise and then I just become more erratic to the point where everything gets confused and meshed together and it becomes hard to distinguish. I visualize it as a ladder, and each day I go up and down the steps and can be at any height at any time not only day to day, but throughout the day as well.

So, lately, I have had the idea of meds on the brain off and on. I really really do not want to take them. So I’m holding out to see if I can manage another couple of months. Once May hits my stress load will lower dramatically because I will be out of school for the summer and I’m sure that will help some.

This wasn’t super detailed because I really just am too tired and headachy to think much. But, wanted to explain a bit of what’s been going on recently. I know my videos have been fluctuating between depressed/rambling/dejected and overly happy/hyper so this was just my quick explanation of recent events.

HIGH, low, UP, down and in between, CrAzY BrAiN!

Oh geez, where do I begin, where do I begin??? My mind is going all over the place right now and so instead of sitting here talking to myself (like I have been doing the last 15 minutes) I decided to post here and get it all out.

I think I pretty much captured what had been going on for awhile in my last post. My counselor thought I was having a mixed episode, and because of my suicidal thoughts, she has been checking up on me every few days by phone until I get in to see her next week. And I tell you, my moods are varying extremely from day to day and minute to minute. It's BAD. I don't know if it is a mixed episode or if now I am just rapid cycling, or maybe was all along? It's so f*^#ing confusing! AGHHHHHHHH!!!!

So a couple weeks ago, I remember going to a baseball game with my family. I was all done up, in a good mood. During the game, something happened that turned my mood somewhat sour. So I'm sitting there, "watching" the game (but not really paying attention) my mind being somewhere else. During this time I overhear my dad talking to a friend of his, the poor man has had a heart transplant and now needs a kidney transplant. I felt so bad for him. My mind got to racing with thoughts of "Why can't I just give him my kidney? I have 2...I don't need both...I could get tested and see if I'm a match...that would be such a great thing to do..." Hours later on the way home I told my husband some of my thoughts of organ donation. He said "You're probably having an episode...you need to wait a month or so and see how you feel then." I kind of thought, yeah, ok, whatever. I knew in my rational brain it made sense but didn't deter me from wanting to do it. I sat around thinking about it all for the next 2 days.

But anyways, back to what I was saying...I'm in one of those moods where I could just talk (type?) forever...hehehe...I have so much to say you see!!! Anyways, yes, so we got home and my mood was turning more and more sour and there was conflict in the house and I said I needed to get out. I went walking and was literally thinking of killing myself. I walked and walked, late at night, weighing the options...1) go home and overdose 2) call a friend and try to talk myself OUT of overdosing 3) tell my husband to take me to the hospital so I DON'T overdose...I didn't know what to do, I was so confused and really wanting to do myself in. So I went home, told my husband he may need to take me to the hospital. It was BAD for it to get to that point that I was telling him this, seriously on the verge of checking myself in. Oh yeah, I was drinking too. He said we would go for a drive, and we did, and afterward I felt a bit better. I knew I would be alright through the night and if I still was suicidal in the morning, I'd go to the ER.

But in the morning, I didn't feel suicidal. I was depressed but not as bad. That evening we all went 4wheeling and I was pondering it all and thinking, "Why was I suicidal? How stupid." It seemed absolutely ridiculous to me.

So since then I have been having a hell of a time! Trying to stay on some kind of stable path, but I dunno what to expect from day to day. I alternate, depressed, happy, depressed, happy, depressed, super happy, depressed, irritated, and so on and so on and so on...

One day last weekend we went out river boating and I remember sitting there being almost outside my body, it was so strange. I again was thinking morbid thoughts, of how I was a broken, defective person, how all was futile because nothing would ever change, how I knew I was destined to die by my own hand before the time I reach 40 years old, and I was DAMN SURE of it all. I didn't talk to my family and didn't engage them. I just sat there, not noticing anything around me.

Then I go back up again...and I come down again...

Then a couple days ago I was back to working on projects...I cleaned my house and I mean SCOURED it. I cleaned and washed my washing machine and dryer for God's sake. I washed my blinds. Stuff I NEVER do (well, let's face it, I hardly clean anything besides the dishes on a regular basis). I spent ALL DAY cleaning from the time I got up til about 3:30 PM. And it still wasn't completely finished but I had other things to do. Took the kids for a bike ride, made dinner, played outside in the sun with them. Then I made a scrapbook, and was up later drinking and working on it. I did get it finished though :)

And yesterday I felt so good, so happy, I was all done up, wearing some of my new clothes that I drunkenly/manically spent all that money on, styled up my hair (that I just paid $200 to have trimmed and highlighted) and went to town to run errands with my girls. Let me tell you, I was in my own f@#^ing world!!! I pushed the cart around with my brain going all over, splintering out in a million directions. I don't think I even noticed where I was pushing it. Luckily I only needed 1 thing in there and I got it and got out. I was so distracted (by what? I couldn't tell you) I was completely driving on autopilot, I don't think I was even looking at the road. It's a good thing I have driven that road a million times or I would have wrecked. I vaguely remember staring out at dots on the horizon, or following the edge of the trees with my eyes. I felt really batty. So we stopped one more place and went home. Then last night I was watching a movie and in some scenes I felt so overcome with intense emotion...I mean, it wasn't even a good movie, it was a terrible movie! But I remember a scene of the blue sky reducing me to tears, I just couldn't bear the beauty of it. And I gasped and held myself tight and floated away. I started thinking of just running away somewhere, me and my husband taking a random trip, just going, going, gone...

And tonight I've been sitting here for the past 2 hours looking up vacation information. What the heck am I doing?!?! We're going on vacation in 2 months. But I want to go NOW dammit, NOW! I looked through the Carnival Cruise site (we went on a cruise before and had a good time) and I'm like, it would be so easy, just book it and next week we could be on a plane and whisking away to some white sand beach, ahhhh, it would be wonderful...(now, this isn't the first time something like this happened...years ago before I was diagnosed, I did the same thing with my friend, I needed to GET AWAY and would have gone immediately had she not needed to save up cash, but we did go - not as soon as I wanted - but it was an awesome, albeit very impulsive, trip...) anyhow I digress again, I feel so excited at the prospect of going on this damn cruise, hahahaha. I know we don't have the money to go especially after my husband and I collectively blew through $3000 more than usual on our credit card last month....ahhhh f@#$.

So yeah that's where I am...I don't think it helps that I am drinking every night or every other night. I find myself waking up having memory lapses and not remembering parts of conversations, emails, movies, things I did the night before. The worst thing is it happens even when I don't drink! Even on sober days I wake up feeling like there are pieces missing and I don't know why or where they went. I find that this entire last month or month and a half is a jumble, because I am finding it hard to put things in chronological order. There are pieces of this and that, and what? who? when did I do that? What did I do? I don't know...hmmm...well...it must have been this! It sucks. I don't know if it's all my fault or only partially my fault.

I have been taking my meds though. LOW dose, 2.5 mg of Zyprexa. Needless to say I will probably have to increase. I see my psychiatrist tomorrow. Well, hmmm, it should be an interesting visit :P

Oh yeah and I just noticed, IT'S FRIDAY THE 13TH!!!!

*NOTE: It's 2 years later, and I have since been diagnosed with borderline in addition to bipolar. I can clearly see the BPD symptoms interspersed with the manic symptoms I was having reading this back. The happiness, impulsiveness, distraction = bipolar. The confusion, dissociation, suicidal ideation = BPD (or, I should say, bipolar and BPD as they are currently known/classified). Should be interesting to see a couple years from now, how much more I will have learned and come to understand about all these various mental states I experience.

Crazy manic episodes - no way I'm going back to the hospital!

I’m going to try to post a few videos to update what’s been going on with me. I’m starting to like video blogging more than regular blogging, just for the sole fact that it’s more “real.” Anyways, for those who don’t want to watch the vids, I’ve been all over the place. My psychiatrist thinks I’m rapid cycling which is kinda what I have thought all along. She thinks I’m having a manic episode that has been coming on for awhile and is basically coming to a head now to the point of near hospitalization (greaaaaat). She told me today she wanted to switch my meds, preferably in the hospital setting. She said “You probably wouldn’t have to stay more than a few days.” Haha! Oh man. Last time it was 5 days. It would probably be the same this time. I told her there was no way I was going to the hospital unless someone tied me up and physically forced me to go. So she agreed to let me try to keep managing as an outpatient, with close monitoring. Both my counselor and my psychiatrist are checking with me daily to make sure I don’t completely float off  into space. My meds are getting switched up quite a bit so hopefully that doesn’t throw me off completely, god knows I’m already unbalanced. Ha.

Recollections, personalities & rapid cycling

I’m feeling pretty alert considering I didn’t go to bed until about 3:30. I didn’t mean to stay up that late but I had to write in my journal. I’ve really been slacking the last few years. I tend to just write about tangible stuff…what we’ve been doing, how the girls are, what so-and-so is up to. I haven’t written about my thoughts or feelings much in a long long time, which is mainly why I kept journaling all those years. So I need to start writing in it more regularly than every 2 or 3 weeks. It really helps me to purge things, much like I hope to do with this blog. It’s weird because I never really realized it until I started counseling that I really don’t talk to people about my feelings at all. I have a few close friends and of course my family and my husband. But I really don’t talk to any of them about those really crazy, deep things. I don’t really know why. In some ways it is easier to talk to strangers about it, because they don’t know me and a certain level of anonymity helps one be able to share. But talking to someone very close about it is extremely difficult. Partly because they don’t understand and partly because…I dunno…The only person I ever really did talk about those things with was my first boyfriend, a relationship that continued for 5 years and started when I was a teenager. It wasn’t just that he listened to things but he understood on some innate level how I felt and what I was going through, with everything. We were extremely close. Even when I’d say things like “I hate my life” or “I want to kill myself” he never judged me or made me feel like a weakling, or less of a person. He always had a way of making me feel loved and wanted and secure. In a way he has been the standard that I have held everything else up against, sort of trying to recreate that feeling with others. But I have learned every relationship, whether romantic, friendly, or family, is always different, the nuances and dynamics of it, and there will never be any two that are alike. So I’ve learned I need to appreciate people for who they are and accept their strengths and weaknesses, much as I want to be accepted with all my own flaws.

So anyway I dunno what is up with me today. I’ve been reading a little on other people’s blogs and it kinda makes me feel worse, because it seems so many people are doing so much better than I am. They’re writing about all this great stuff that’s happening and here I am, complaining and trying to figure out all my issues. I just really don’t know what the heck is going on with me from day to day. Although bipolar isn’t “multiple personalities”, in ways sometimes it does feel that way. There is the sexy me, the depressed me, the childish me, the preppy me. They all exist simultaneously in most people, and in my “normal” state I would say for the most part that’s true. But it’s also true that a lot of the time, one part of me comes to the forefront and overtakes everything else while the rest regresses. In many ways this makes me feel like I don’t know who I am, that there are all these distinct, individual parts of me that do not combine, they are contradictory and cannot make a harmonious whole.

I feel different from day to day and I’m not sure what the reason for that is. There are two possiblities, one is that I’m rapid cycling, or even ultradian cycling, which is a form of bipolar where a person’s mood fluctuates extremely within either weeks, days, or even within the same day. Another possibility is that it’s mood lability, which, for the most part just means extreme mood swings. It sounds like the same thing but from what I understand, professionals believe that rapid cycling is a definite part of bipolar disorder while mood lability can at times occur in anyone. I’m starting to think that I’m rapid cycling, because obviously I have bipolar so my extreme mood swings wouldn’t fall under the “regular” category. I need to talk to my counselor and psychiatrist about this. From what I understand, rapid cycling bipolar is a difficult form to treat and may be genetically different from “traditional” bipolar. Supposedly even bipolar I and bipolar II may not be caused by the same thing and therefore not treated the same (bipolar I is “classic” bipolar which includes full mania and psychosis, bipolar II includes only hypomanic episodes). There’s a lot of research being done about bipolar now and in ways it’s helpful but it also sometimes raises more questions than it answers.

So today I am just feeling, again, all over the place. I was in a very good mood this morning which just progressed from there, I was feeling hypomanic after that, running and dancing around with my kids, having random conversations with people in the store, in the park, even across a parking lot, being flirty, etc. I was really giddy and sort of talking to myself all loudly and happily. Then a few hours ago I just started feeling blah and sort of depressed. It was almost like instantaneous change. Now I just feel quiet, maybe even a little sad and sullen. I don’t feel like doing much of anything, just hiding out from everyone for the rest of the night.

I am so tired of all of this. This constant switch is wreaking havoc on my life. I want some sort of stability, I want to know that I have some sort of control over myself, which I don’t and I feel very angry and at the same time helpless. I really feel like I’m destined to just spiral down until eventually I am completely loony and locked in some asylum or I just wind up killing myself. I feel like I have no idea what’s happening or where I’m going or even who the fuck I am.