The Loss of Self

The difficult part about medication side effects (aside from the side effects themselves, which are usually awful) is that you become so entrenched in feeling bad that you kind of forget what it’s like to feel good. Latuda took away my want and now I can’t remember what it’s like to have it. I’ve only been on the Zyprexa (and off the Latuda) for a few days so I can’t really expect to feel better yet, but the real problem is that I’m unable to feel optimistic, because I simply can’t remember what normal feels like..

What does it feel like to not be aimless? What does it feel like to want to do something? What are urges, again? What is yearning? What does it mean to get excited about something? These are questions that I honestly don’t have an answer for right now. It sounds a little silly, maybe melodramatic, but I honestly can’t remember what it feels like to want something. What a simple, easy thing to remember and for the life of me, I can’t.

Even typing this, I feel like I must be lying. I can’t imagine anyone reading this and believing that I have forgotten one of the most basic elements of existence: desire. But I was pacing around my apartment (I’m prone to pacing, even without the akathisia, because it’s something to do besides sit on the couch and stare at nothing) and trying to run through the list of things I could do to keep me occupied. I had tried watching television and that had fallen flat. I tried to “feel” if I was up to reading a book - I don’t know a better way to say that, but it sounds off.

Do you ever test an idea out in your head, like sipping wine to roll the flavor around in your mouth a bit, see if it’s what you’re in the mood for? That’s usually how I decide if I’m in the mood for an activity: I imagine myself doing it and see what emotions it sparks. Does the idea make me happy? Eager? Bored? Tired? What can I expect if I follow through with the notion of reading a book?

Well, right now, I’m coming up with “uneasy.” That’s what happens when I try to do activities now - I feel uneasy, uncomfortable. Like it’s not something I should be doing, there’s something else I should be doing instead. I could force myself to do one of these activities, like I did with watching television, but I won’t enjoy it because the uneasiness, the “wrongness” will take over and distract me.

Sometimes I can force myself to do something and it feels alright for awhile, usually physical activities. Going for a walk, going for a bike ride, going to yoga. But before long I feel that wrongness creeping in, that unsettled feeling slithers through my body until it consumes me. And then I’m back to trying to figure out what to do - what will while away the hours? Because that’s all I’ve been doing lately - passing time from one day to the next. Waiting until my next sleep, waiting until this is over.

It should be over soon, if this new medication works out. Man, I really hope it doesn’t cause similar symptoms because I’m running out of ways to pass time without actually doing anything. Writing seems to help but I’m worried that when I’m in this state I’m rambling too much, losing my point. What was my point? Right - I don’t remember what it feels like to “want” something.

My mind keeps landing on the things that used to make me happy. Reading is the big one. I used to read non-stop, read for hours on end. I haven’t read a book in ages, well over a month, probably closer to two. For me, that’s a big deal. But the thought of reading doesn’t sit well in my mind, like sour wine in the mouth. I hate not reading, it feels like a large chunk of what makes me “me” is ripped out without the love of reading rattling around inside of me.

I think that’s the really awful part about these side effects - the absence of traits that make up the “self”. I don’t have my usual energy, my usual drive. I don’t have the same desires, the same wants. I don’t have anything in me that still feels like me. It’s like the spark that is “me” got put under a glass and is slowly guttering out, watching my body still struggle along like it houses anything but empty space.

Where am I? Where is my me? Is it going to come back? Does it remember the way? Does my body remember the me to accept it back? Will I feel this way forever as it feels like I will? Or will the side effects eventually wear off, stop smothering my spark and let it flare back into life? Is that possible or is my spark too weak to make it?

This is why people don’t want to be treated for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, this lack of of self. How would you like it if you no longer felt like you? Isn’t that the definition of death? When your body no longer holds the ephemeral “you?” So, it’s like a little death every time you try a medication that damps down who you are. Sure, you can change medications to find something better but that doesn’t stop the little death that already occurred or mean that there won’t be any new little deaths to suffer through.

What I’m saying is, this sucks. In case that hasn’t come across in previous posts, let me say it loud and clear. The journey to treat bipolar disorder is full of suck. It is the land of Suckdom and I would like to leave, please. Except, I can’t because bordering the land of Suckdom on all sides is Bipolar Crazy Town and I don’t exactly want to live there, either. I’d love a plane ticket to Normalville but apparently you only get there after making it all the way through Suckdom and its many valleys and hills, each named for a different antipsychotic. So, I’m stuck traveling and all I can hope for is company along the way - so, thanks, if you’re reading this and traveling with me. Company makes the road seem shorter.

Anxiety

Anxiety is so much more than the word can properly express. At least it has an "x" in it. An "x" seems appropriately hard, strange, alien. Because when you're wracked with anxiety, your body feels pretty alien. Your fingers get kind of tingly and your face feels a little numb. It should go without saying that your stomach is trying to tie itself into knots that would impress a sailor. Your skin feels hot but your body feels cold. Your head feels like it's a size too small to hold in your brain.

Breath is hard to come by. You breathe, you suck air into your lungs, but you can't seem to get enough. Your breaths tend to be too shallow, too quick. So you try some deep, cleansing breaths and that helps, a bit, for a moment. And then your heart is beating too loud and too hard and too fast and your breath is shallow and quick again. You feel sharp pains in your bowels and realize anxiety is affecting you just...everywhere.

Normally, anxiety causes my thoughts to race, flitting from idea to idea, barely pausing before whizzing off to the next. On Latuda my thoughts were like something seen through muddy water. Hazy, distant, hard to reach. Rather than flit my mind floundered along, trying to reach an idea and then giving up halfway to swim along towards a closer idea.

Right now, my mind is struggling to come up with words. As anxiety trickles into my throat, constricting it, straining it, my mind is sleepy and dull. Why do we need to come up with words to describe how we feel? We feel it - isn't that enough? Why torture ourselves further with the incessant need for words. Shut up, brain, this is supposed to be helping.

Anxiety over nothing is so much worse than anxiety caused by a reason. When there's a reason you understand it. You can prod and poke at it, like tonguing a sore tooth. It makes the anxiety flare, but it lets you know there's a reason and that, with the proper steps taken, the pain will go away. But anxiety for no cause? There's just this constant haze of angst and a sort of itchy feeling like you're supposed to remember something, do something, be somewhere.

Bipolar disorder also causes delusions of grandeur. Ideas that we're more important than we are, or should be. This tends to feed into the anxiety whenever it shows its ugly head. The idea that I was so smart and had so much promise and I was supposed to be more, oh so much more than I am. The cringing memory of all those classes in college failed because I couldn't make myself keep going. I must have failed a half dozen classes that way, maybe more. Finally, I decided to settle for an associates degree instead of a baccalaureate because I couldn’t take it anymore. I wince every time I think of the lost money on all those failed classes, the lost opportunity to be more.

Don't say I could go back to school because I can't. I'm terrified of school. School ended for me when my anatomy class gave me the worst breakdown I've had to date. I had been doing so well in that class, I was one of the top 5 students out of two 400 student classes. And it was a hard class, renowned at my school and even within the state for being one of the hardest classes. A "C" was a good grade and I had a high "A". But I started getting more and more anxious about my studying. I would have to read and reread paragraphs because I couldn't focus on the words; I was distracted by the worry that I wasn’t doing enough and I would fail the class.

It got to the point where I was staring at my textbook and having flashes of heat overtake my body while my skin felt cold and clammy. I was almost visibly shaking as I tried to force myself to study and I couldn't - I couldn't read a word. My eyes blurred and my mind couldn't focus. The thought of going back to that classroom filled me with so much dread that I screamed. And then I started crying. And I screamed and I cried for about 2 hours, if I remember right. And poor Ryan just laid next to me on the bed as I kicked and flailed and hugged pillows to my face before flinging them away. I couldn't be touched, I couldn't be comforted. I just railed against the injustice of the world while really I was just so terrified of failing.

So I never went back. I was past the withdrawal deadline but it didn't matter because I couldn't do it anymore. The thought of going into that classroom and sitting down, even just to "Christmas tree" the tests and try to get a few points so I could pass the class was too much for me. Even thinking about it now, I'm sick to my stomach thinking of having to face those classes again. Face my professor who thought so highly of me that he kept encouraging me to go to medical school. How could I ever face them again with half measures when I had been one of the best? I feel like I let him down. I let myself down.

The worst part about all of that is even though I was physically incapable of studying, physically incapable of going back to that class, it felt like I could have if I just tried harder. It felt like I could have rallied if I wanted it bad enough. If I wasn't so damn lazy. Except I wasn't lazy with that class - I studied 6 hours a day, every day for that class alone. But because I couldn't finish I felt like it was because of my laziness. Perhaps another throwback to a childhood with a mother who lashed out at her children because she couldn't lash out at her boss; I was often called lazy as a child and it hurt. It hurt because it meant I failed and I didn't want to fail my mother because that made her mad and not love me anymore.

Well, she did - I just didn't see it because I was a child and couldn't grasp the enormity of the personal hell my mother suffered every day. Kids aren’t great with understanding complex emotional webs - they see stuff pretty simple. Mom is happy and loves me or mom is angry and hates me. Not a lot of room for in-between there, to a child's eyes. So, when I failed and made mom mad, I made my mom not love me and that is the worst feeling there is. When I failed and made dad yell I made dad not love me and that hurts so bad you can't imagine.

It doesn't matter that as an adult I know now that my parents loved me but had their own issues going on to deal with - it doesn't take away that ingrained dread of failure and the consequences that come with it. Funny thing they don't tell you about therapy: knowing why something happens doesn't make that thing stop happening. It's not some weird magic where you find the reason for a problem and suddenly that problem is gone. It just gives you answers you didn't have before so you can try to work around them. That's why a lot of therapists now don't bother looking for why you feel that way but what to do when you do feel that way.

So when I'm anxious and I'm suffocated by the thought of failing at work I'm supposed to remind myself that it's okay to not be perfect. That my bosses are aware of my treatments and are understanding and I just need to let them know and we'll sort it out. I'm supposed to remember it's not my fault. I'm supposed to remember I'm still a good person and a good worker even if I'm having a bad week.

Unfortunately, when you're crazy it's a little hard to remember that. That's what the therapists are there for - to remind you. And remind you. And remind you. And beat it into your head until you believe it. I haven't been in therapy long enough to believe it. Yet.

And then there was Latuda.

Latuda 20 mg wasn’t enough to help keep my bipolar disorder in check. I was still getting a lot of anxiety and even some depression. However, 20 mg is a low dose for that medication so my psychiatrist upped it to 40 mg (a fairly standard dose). The anxiety was lessened but I was feeling as if I was in a fog. I didn’t feel like me. I felt empty, sort of hollow. I felt like a shell of myself - my body was there but the spark this is “me” felt absent. I had no drive, no desire.

It's hard to describe not having "want." How do you describe the complete absence of motivation? It is apathy in its highest form. I'm not talking about having no energy and being lazy because then you want to stay in bed, you want to veg out on the couch - you still want. I'm talking about not being able to watch television or read a book because I had no desire to follow the stories. I didn't want to lie down, I didn't want to sit up, I didn't want to stand. I didn't want to go for a walk but I didn't want to not go for a walk. I didn't want to go to the beach but I didn't want to not go to the beach.

Poor Ryan kept asking me, "What do you want to do?" And I had to tell him, "I don't know - I don't have 'want' anymore." I lacked desire. For Buddhists, lacking desire is the path to happiness - I call bullshit. Lacking desire means that very little brings me joy. If I don't want to watch television, watching it is not fulfilling. If I don't want to play a video game, forcing myself to play it to pass the time does not make me happy. I even lack the desire for intercourse with my partner, something that is problematic when you're in the early stages of family planning.

Lacking my want means my life feels so empty, so useless. I work 40 hours a week or more and usually I'm doing that work so that when I go home I can unwind, relax, watch a show or read a book and enjoy some time with my partner and my friends. But now, I felt like I existed only to work. My hours after work were not spent enjoying myself, I was not happy to be home. I was not happy at all. I just...existed. I existed with the anxiety that came roaring back from out of the blue. I existed with the stress over money that looms over so many of our lives. I existed with the depression caused by the worry that I might not be able to have children because one of my ovaries doesn't work properly. I seemed to exist with all the negative aspects of life but because I had no desire, no drive, I had nothing to balance it out.

Whatever the Buddhists say, I think desire defines us. What we want, what we strive for are part of what make us who we are. If you want to help others your life is defined by the deeds you do to further that desire. If you want to be healthy, you’ll engage in activities and eat foods that will further your desire. If you want to live a luxurious life, you’ll work hard to get the comforts that will further your desire. Want is everything. We want to to be loved, we want to feel, we want to exist. Lacking want takes all of that away.

The only want I have left to me is the want to not be me. I am tired of being sick. I am tired of being groggy one moment and unbearably anxious the next. I am tired of the side effects of drugs. I am overwhelmed at the sheer number of bipolar medications available - how many will I have to cycle through before I stop feeling like my life is such a chore? It could literally take years. Years of never knowing how I’ll feel from one week to the next. That thought is exhausting to me.

I suppose the one bright light to this side effect of Latuda is that I wasn’t even able to lie to my therapist. She said I didn’t seem like me, that I didn’t have my normal “energy” that identifies me. She was frustrated because I’m doing all the things that are supposed to help these types of symptoms (blogging, yoga, walks, talking with Ryan and various friends and family) and yet I’m still having issues. She was sure the medication was causing it and was vexed that there was nothing she could do for me until I saw my psychiatrist the next day and he could switch me off of it.

He did end up switching my medication. This time it’s Zyprexa. He mused about the possibility of putting me back on Abilify at a lower dosage and a medication that should ward off the akathisia but I was terrified of that notion. Even the idea that the akathisia could come back was enough to fill me with dread. Luckily, he read that on my face and offered the Zyprexa. His only hesitation with the Zyprexa was that it has a higher potential for weight gain but I’d rather be fat than this weird foggy version of myself.

There are other medications he’d love to try out with me because they work so well but they cannot be taken during pregnancy or they decrease fertility. Side note: probably try not to get diagnosed as bipolar right before you decide you want to start a family. Makes everything so much more difficult. Some might suggest I wait, put off having a family until my medications settle down but I just can’t. Once you decide you’re ready for children that’s kind of all you think about. Having to wait another year or even two before I can have a baby is unthinkable. Especially because there’s no telling what pregnancy will do to my body’s chemistry and for all I know I could have to go through the medication trial process all over again.

So, Zyprexa for now. Watching my weight, trying to keep the house free of unhealthy snacks and keep a close eye on the amount of food going into my body. Maybe I’ll have the willpower to avoid weight gain but then again, these medications have shown me that the side effects of anti-psychotics aren’t something to be brushed off lightly. Still, I’d rather be fat than be unhappy.

The Fine Line

The akathisia faded more slowly than I would have liked. Even stopping the Abilify immediately I had to take mirtazapine 15 mg once a day (okay, for those first two days of having the mirtazapine and the akathisia was still as bad as ever, I was taking about four of those suckers a day). My appointment was Wednesday and by Saturday it was mostly gone and pretty much entirely gone by Monday. I was now on Latuda 20 mg. The anxiety was breaking through now that I wasn't on a full dose of bipolar medication but I could deal with some anxiety as long as that terrible akathisia was gone. Just a little set back - tried a medication and it didn't work but now we've got Latuda and that should be much better.

I'm at work and I'm feeling good. My bosses know about my diagnosis because it seemed prudent to tell them, what with me needing a psychiatrist AND therapist appointment every week. Hard to schedule those during off hours of work, especially because I can't see the psychiatrist and the therapist on the same day for insurance reasons. So, if I'm going to need to leave a little early from work twice a week, my boss should probably know why.

Good thing I told them because when I was going through the akathisia hell my work had suffered and they'd notice. Rather than thinking I was just shirking my workload, they talked to me, checked in to see how I was handling the meds. I told them I’d had a really bad week, and my boss asked me to tell her,honestly, if my job was too stressful for me. She wasn't asking because she wanted to fire me (she couldn't, legally, since she knew about the bipolar thing) but because she cares about me (it's a small company so I have weird things to get used to, like bosses that care) and wanted to know if I was open to trying a new, less stressful role in the company. I told her I was and we made a tentative plan for how things could go (once they find a replacement for my current position) and then I left the meeting.

I went straight home and cried harder than I have since my dog died a year and a half ago. I was so sure I was going to lose my job because when you're suffering depression caused by not-fully-treated bipolar disorder, your mind doesn't think about things like legalities. Just the knowledge that they might WANT to fire me - me, who has always been a star employee! - was enough to make the pain so bad I couldn't breath.

I wanted to die.  As a kid, there were a lot of times I wanted to die. There were times I begged the god I still believed in to give me the courage to end it because I hated living so much. As an adult, there were times I didn't want to be alive but many fewer times I actually wanted to die. There's a difference between not wanting to be alive and wanting, actively, to die. Not wanting to be alive is passive. It's an ache in a soul that is exhausted by the day-to-day stresses and wants to be free of them. It's wanting to be free, however that happens, of your daily life. It's something that could also be answered by running away to Tahiti or living in the mountains.

Wanting to die, really wanting death is a different beast. Wanting to die is pain so sharp it makes it hard to breathe and you can't see an end. You can't escape it, there's no running and hiding, it will be with you forever, you just know it. You will always carry this struggle and damn it, it's not worth it. You hurt in the very fiber of your being, in the ethereal "you" and you just don't understand why you're supposed to have to put up with this when you could just stop. With just a few pills you could stop forever and it'd be so peaceful. If you're an atheist, like me, you don't believe in an afterlife, you believe in oblivion. And when the pain is crushing down all around you, that's all you want is sweet, blissful, uncaring oblivion.

You don't care if people think you're a coward because you're dead. You don't care if people think you took the easy way out because you know it's the easy way out and that's why you want it. You don't care about all the future happinesses that might come along because from your end of the world, those potential joys are more a cruel joke than a silver lining. You don't care that it's mean to the people you love because if the people you loved knew how much you hurt, really knew, could really feel it, they'd never ask you to keep going. And even if they did ask, you wouldn't care because you're tired and you're heart sick and you're just so very, very done.

Suddenly, death isn't some scary monster to avoid but a loving friend you can't wait to embrace. Sharp knives aren't something to avoid due to their danger but something to be coveted by your mind for all the lovely potential they hold for release. Cars rushing by on the street aren't something you jump to avoid but something you unconsciously lean towards, your mind eager to meet that endless sleep with one quick, final step. Pills that you counted carefully before you took them so you didn't make yourself sick, pills that you maybe avoided because you didn't like taking strong medicines unless necessary - those pills become as precious and treasured as raw diamonds. Those sweet, round and oblong little gems that will send you to a sleep that will never end.

And then...then someone tugs you. You try to resist but someone, something, starts tugging you back away from these thoughts of blessed suicide. You remember a face. A friend. A relative. A lover. A reason. In a moment of doubt, you think of them and how much it would hurt them and that thought hurts worse than the internal anguish. You slowly pull back from those delicious dreams of nothing because you realize that if there's anything you can possibly hold on to in this cold, dismal universe, it's that friend, that relative, that lover.

For me, it was Ryan. I'd like to lie for the sake of my friends and family and say it was some of them, but this is the unfiltered walk through my disease so I won't lie. I'd like to say it was just love and love alone, but even that could have been overcome if I hadn't been so worried about him. Ryan doesn't make friends easily. He doesn't love easily. He has no close friends. I honestly believed (and still do) that if I died in such a way, he would never forgive himself and would never love again. Without me, I worry he would lose touch with the world altogether and be forced to suffer in misery alone. While his family is wonderful and would try to be there for him, I think he would push them away because I think me killing myself would break him. And I can't break the thing that's most precious to me, even in my agony.

I don't worry for my sister or my best friend. They are gregarious individuals with no lack of support to help them in their time of need. They would be devastated, true. But they would not be broken. I could be okay with devastating them. And my various other close friends and family would be so very sad, but they would survive. I could be okay with making them sad. They could cry at the funeral together, maybe even become closer together, and they would move on.

But Ryan? Ryan who has been the answer to every childhood prayer? Ryan who has shown me love I dreamt of when watching romantic comedies and reading my novels filled with love to shake the foundations of the galaxy? Ryan, who can say the simplest thing to make me smile and feel so alive? Ryan, who is so vulnerable and so fragile emotionally? My Ryan? Break my Ryan? No. No, I can't do that.

So, I clawed and I scrabbled and I inched my way away from that waiting embrace of death and heaved my way to life and living. And here I remain, often teetering on that precipice between wanting life and wanting death. But when things are bad I try to remember those family and friends I before so cavalierly dismissed and wonder, “Could I really do that? Could I really cause them that kind of pain?”

There’s also the question that has kept me alive time and again when suicide beckons: What will I miss? I won’t get to see Danielle on Broadway. I won’t get to see Brandy start a non-profit organization that sweeps the globe. I won’t see my niece and nephew grow up to be the incredibly amazing people they’re already promising to be. I won’t see Alyssa gain her confidence. I won’t see Jimmy come to the realization that he is loved. I won’t see Roger find his true love and have, just, way too many chubby little babies. I won’t see baby Xander grow up to tower over his mother and yet still quail if she gives him her “you’re so busted” glare.

I won’t see my own children, yet to be. I won’t get to teach them, nurture them, love them. I won’t get to impart everything I’ve learned. I won’t get to watch Ryan be a father. I won’t get to meet the things I will love most in this world.

So, I tend to hang around on this side of the edge, tethered here by those faces that call to me. Little do they realize that every kind word they share, every joke we crack, every hug or smile makes their tether to me that much stronger and keeps me on the side of life that much more firmly.

Therapy

I lie to my therapist. I don't mean to, but it just...happens. They're not big lies, nothing fancy or grand. It's little stuff. "How has your week been?" she'll ask. My mind immediately answers, "Terrible. Awful. I hate this so much and I want to give up already." My mouth answers instead, "Oh, you know, not too bad." What?! Mouth, what are you saying? We were miserable all week. Our entire existence was a funk of nothingness for 7 days, tell her it was the absolute worst!

"Started yoga, so that's helping a little." Mouth, I should slap you. "I've had a few bad spells but I think things are getting better." You traitor. You're not my mouth anymore, I'm disowning you. You're the stranger that lives on my face and lies.

Except, I can't blame my mouth. Not really. Really, it's that part of me that wants so badly to please people that I see in positions of power over me - teachers, bosses, etc. Not that a therapist is supposed to be in a position of power over me per se, but she is an esteemed person. She has degrees and licenses. Plus, if you met her, she's just the sweetest, nicest person. I don't want to let her down. She wants to help me so bad, you can just tell. You can tell she is doing this job because she sees people in pain and she wants to help. Who am I to let her down?

Plus, no one likes a Negative Nancy. It's hard to respond to someone telling you about focusing on the positive and being mindful of the present instead of worrying about the past or future with something like, "Yeah, well, there doesn't seem to be a lot of positive in my life and my present sucks so focusing on it doesn't help me." Yeesh, I shudder just to think of it - that person doesn't want help. They just want to wallow in their pity.

So I nod along. Of course I'm going to stay positive. Of course I'm going to stop worrying about how this is affecting my work because it's not me that's messing up at work, it's the bipolar disorder and the meds that are messing up at work. Of course I understand the difference. Of course I'm going to stop feeling hot shame burst over my head and course down my body when I even think of work and how I'm failing and failing is unacceptable. Of course I'm going to focus on the positive aspects of my life. Of course I'm going to stop worrying that I'm barren until it's been awhile and I give my body a chance to work. Of course I'm going to stop being terrified that I can't conceive and I'll never have children. Of course I'm feeling optimistic for the future. Of course I'm not concerned that I'll be a terrible mother and make my children wish they were never born. Of course I trust that we'll figure out the drugs before then. Of course I trust that we'll figure out the drugs soon. Of course.

And I do believe it. For a minute. For 45 of them, actually. Maybe even for a few minutes after I leave the office. But as I step into the elevator I start to forget the "of courses". I start to remember how bad I feel and I start to curse myself for being unable to talk it through with the therapist. Next time, I think, next time I'll be honest. Next time I'll tell her the truth. And I really do mean to, I swear. Until she comes into the waiting room to get me with that bright smile on her face and says, "Hi! Come on back!"

I think it comes from not really being able to believe that therapy can help. What can someone say that can counteract what chemicals are doing to my body? I know my fears are irrational. I know my depression is unfounded. That doesn't stop it, though. I can hear all of the rational logic in the world but when the depression hits, it won't matter.

And I can't tell her I think of suicide. I feel such a failure having to admit that. It's like I failed psychiatry and therapy all in one. Yeah, I know it's a byproduct of bipolar disorder. I know that certain medications can make those thoughts worse and I'm supposed to immediately tell my doctor about them. I know that. I'm not stupid. I'm just ashamed. And scared. I don't want her to look at me differently. I don't want to be committed for suicidal thoughts. I don't want people to know about my stupid, self-pitying, overly-dramatic thoughts on suicide. It's embarrassing. Gods above, it's like being back in 5th grade and being terrified people would find out I wet the bed. It is just not something you want broadcasted to the world.

Plus, my therapist thinks I'm doing so much better. I can't have her find out I've been lying. She'll be so disappointed in me if she knows I'm a liar. Did I mention I don't like disappointing people? I like to be the star pupil. I like to be the employee of the month. I like to be the best psych patient they've ever seen. I feel ashamed every time a medication doesn't work out, mad at my body for not cooperating. Okay, so maybe I've got some issues to work out with pleasing people - that's what happens when you grew up with parents who were emotionally damaged in their own ways and didn't always know how to show their love. Maybe I should talk to my therapist about that…

Side Effects

I started on Abilify. It was the drug least likely to make me gain weight and my psychiatrist told me he likes to give the drugs least likely to cause detrimental effects and work from there. I started on a very low dose: 2.5 mg every day. I also was to stop my Zoloft. I was not looking forward to that because, from experience, I knew that stopping Zoloft cold turkey caused unpleasant effects.

For the next week I was dizzy and nauseous a lot which is pretty standard when quitting an SSRI without titrating (that means slowly lowering or increasing your dose) slowly down to nothing. I tried to suck it up without complaining by telling myself "It's just a week or two and then it's over.  I'm on the new meds and I'm on the road to being healthy."

Well, the dizziness and nausea did only last about two weeks. By then, I was up to 5 mg on the Abilify every night and I believe it was around then we added Trazodone 50 mg at night to help me sleep. See, before then, I was living on about 2 hours of sleep every night, with the occasional break of 5 hours every third night or so.

Trazodone was a super fun experience, if you find being so physically sleepy you can't keep your eyes open but your mind still doesn't shut off so you're lying there, wide awake, for hours and hours without being able to do anything to entertain you because you're too tired to open your eyes, "fun". Trazodone lasted all of three or four nights before I decided I'd rather just be awake and reading than go through that hell. Luckily, my psych appointments are currently every week, so the next week brought Seroquel 50mg in Trazodone’s place.

Seroquel is usually used as an anti-psychotic but that's not why I was taking it. I needed it because Seroquel makes you sleepy. So, my psychiatrist put me on Seroquel 50 mg at night to help me sleep, and it worked. I was so grateful I could have cried the first night I slept 8 hours. After over 2 weeks of my terrible sleeping schedule (where 5 hours twice a week was a rare joy), I was so happy to be sleeping normal amounts again.

The Abilify was now up to 10mg a day and I was feeling great. I was sleeping (seriously, I can't truly explain what a big deal that was) and the anxiety was going away. The irrational anger that would flare up in a heartbeat over the most minor infraction hadn't shown up in over a week. The depression that left me unable to move or even speak clearly was in hiding. I had some nervous energy, had a hard time focusing on any one thing for too long, but I was sure I was already well on my way to meeting my expected goal of being healthy and normal after a month.

Then the restlessness got worse. I had trouble sitting so I took to pacing around my living room while I waited for my work computer to load programs. My attention span shrunk to the point where I couldn't even watch television or read - I'd find myself fidgeting after just a few minutes and feeling the need to get up and grab a glass of water, then maybe file my nails for a bit, then maybe pick up that bag off the floor I've been meaning to put away and hadn’t gotten around to. And you know, I've been meaning to clear off the coffee table - let me put all this stuff away. And the cat needs to be brushed, I should brush the cat. And I should...I should...well, I'm not sure, but I should keep moving.

Is there something to clean? Is there something to organize? Something to tidy? Something to keep me busy, something to keep my hands moving, my body moving, my brain not thinking  because when my brain gets to thinking it remembers it hasn't sat down in a long time but NO! I can't sit down. I have to keep moving, always moving. I have work to do! Pay attention to the work, damn it! But no, I can't stay still - just rush through this so we can move again. Have to keep moving. If I sit, it hurts in my back - all through my back it prickles and it stings and it itches. I can't stand still, that hurts, too. Can't lie down, can't get comfortable. Can't take a nap because I'm just tossing and turning and moving and trying so desperately to just calm down but nothing is working why won't it just STOP?

Then I'm screaming and throwing pillows off the bed, throwing knick knacks off the window sill. I'm screaming and now I'm crying, I'm sobbing because why won't it just stop? Why can't I just for one minute, just one damn minute, why can't I just stop? Every hour is an agony of nothing to do but pace, pace, pace. Time to eat? Oh thank the gods, make that last for as long as we can. But no, can't drag it out because I can't stay still. Sweet, merciful Zeus why can't I stand still long enough to just eat? I'm screaming at my partner, my poor Ryan, demanding he make it stop - make my body just STOP.

My therapist thinks I have a misdiagnosis because my symptoms sound more like someone with ADHD and a severe anxiety disorder, but I have my psychiatrist appointment in just two days. I can wait just two days. I can somehow make it through this minute, this awful, agonizing, terrible minute. Hey! I did it! I made it through and now I just have to make it through this minute, this god forsaken, lonely, despairing minute. And I did it - I can...I can...I CAN'T. I can't make it through this anymore, oh gods it won't stop, why won't it stop, I can't, I can't, I CAN’T.

And this is where having a loving life partner and a best friend come in. This is where you have someone to sit with you as you rage and weep and PACE, always pace. This is where it's so important to have someone to remind you this has to end sometime and they'll help you, they promise they'll help you. And they try, sometimes they even succeed. Tell me a story about your day and that will eat up 15 whole minutes - tell me another story and another, please, to keep the minutes moving.

And then it's my psychiatrist appointment and before I can tell him the half of my symptoms he nods knowingly. "Akathisia," he says. "It can be a side effect of Abilify. We'll stop that immediately."

I wanted to cry. I wasn't crazy, it was just a symptom and now it would go away.

A Beginning...

My name is Dani. I'm in the very early stages of treatment for bipolar disorder. Just got diagnosed a little over a month ago. And I'm already learning that so much of what I thought about being bipolar or being mentally ill is just...so wrong. And maybe you're wrong, too. Maybe I can help you. That's one of the reasons I'm doing this, to help people understand what it's like to not only be bipolar but to be treated for that disorder. It also helps me to understand what I'm going through by typing it all out - therapeutic and all that.

I'm not going to start with a giant introduction. I think that's too much for a first post. I can't catch you up on my entire life in the first post because not only is that boring for you, it's too much for me to handle on my current meds.

I warn you, the "unfiltered" part of the title means I won't be pulling punches to appeal to any sense of right or wrong, should or should not. There will be coarse language, there will be stuff that is maybe hard to read. It's my unadulterated journey through getting treated for bipolar disorder. Also, this blog in general will have its ups and downs in writing because depending on my medication I have varying levels of energy and enthusiasm. That's another reason you're not getting my whole life story in this post. On my current medication, Latuda, I have very little ambition or drive. I lack "want." People keep asking me what I "want" and I have no answer. But more on that in just a bit - first, a brief backstory just so you're not lost.

I'm 28 (will be 29 in 5 days). I've suffered from depression of varying degrees for a long time but the anxiety didn’t become an issue until about 3 years ago. Since I was 22, I was treated for depression with an SSRI called Zoloft and it helped out a lot. But about 5 years ago I started to experience anxiety on a level I never had in my life and my Zoloft was increased. It helped for a couple of years and then the anxiety was back. I tried a couple of different psychiatrists and they all played with some idea of Zoloft + anti-anxiety meds (not benzos). The combination I was on the longest was Zoloft 100mg daily and Buspar 15mg twice daily. It seemed to work and so I didn't question my psychiatrists.

I did see psychologists. I didn't feel I "needed" to because I felt my problem was chemical and not something I could "talk out". But I wanted to try everything. I learned a few useful tricks for dealing with anxiety but mostly, it was uneventful.

Around April my anxiety really started to take a turn for the worst. Whereas before I would get occasional breakthrough anxiety I was now getting full blow anxiety attacks on an almost daily basis. Around the end of May, beginning of June I started to get very depressed again. The smallest thing would send me into a spiral of depression that would affect my entire body. I would get these irrational fits of anger that flared up in an instant and could last a minute or an hour depending on what fed them. During those fits of insane rage I would do things I am not proud of but felt like I couldn’t stop myself doing: screaming obscenities at Ryan, throwing my cat across a room, insulting my roommates, etc. In short, I felt like I had no control over my own body - I was this prisoner who watched as terrible things happened because of my crazy brain.

Sometime this past July I decided to try a new psychiatrist. He didn't ask what meds I was on or what was wrong currently. He wanted to go right to the beginning, pretending I had never seen a psychiatrist before. He wanted to know when my symptoms started, how bad they were, if I had certain other symptoms.

He barraged me with questions for twenty minutes and then he stopped and said, "Okay, I want you to know I know what's wrong with you. I want you to know I'm very sure of this diagnosis - I'm not just telling you this to give you an answer and send you on your way. As sure as I can possibly, reasonably be, I am sure of what I'm going to tell you. And before I tell you, I want you to know it's not that big a deal. It's not something you're going to want to hear, but I promise you we can make it better. You're bipolar."

"You're bipolar." Funny how those words should have sent me reeling but...I wasn't surprised. It made sense. I was barely even phased. "Okay, I'm bipolar," I thought. "Just time to switch to bipolar meds and I'll have this all cleared up."

The doctor said it would take 1-2 years to work out a medication regime and I had to be patient during that time. I inwardly scoffed. "Two years? I'll have this sorted in a month." I was used to antidepressants. I was used to drugs with very few side effects that either worked or they didn't. No half measures. I was an idiot, and this blog should help reveal why.