Unusual Bipolar / Depression Treatments

I've been "living the bipolar lifestyle" for over a decade now, and due to my general obsession over all things factual, I've done lots and lots and lots of research on bipolar treatments. Lots of research on lots of pharmaceuticals specifically, but I've looked at, and tried others too. I've written about them here from time to time but I decided to put together the top 5 list of bipolar / depression treatments you might not know about for HealthyPlace.

Included is:

1. L-methylfolate: A Burbled Article - L-methylfolate as Antidepressant Enhancing Agent
2. Omega-3: My Burble Article - Diet and Depression / Bipolar
3. Calcium Channel Blockers - Burblicious - Anticonvulsants as Calcium Antagonists in Mood Stabilization
4. Thyroid Hormones - I was on Levoxyl, oddly I didn't write about it.
5. Light Therapy - somehow I can't find anything on this either. Which is weird, because I actually like this one.

It's probably that I just didn't get the chance to write about the last two. Sometimes I really mean to say something but I don't get around to actually doing it. Anyway, you can check out the HealthyPlace article for more.

How long do side-effects last? When will medication work?

A common question bipolars and depressives ask is about the duration of side-effects and delay for effective treatment. These are completely reasonable and understandable questions. unfortunately, the answers aren't great so I created a short video addressing how long side-effects last and how long before treatment works.

Bipolar Disorder and Remission

I'm not sure that remission is something we will all get to enjoy, as bipolars. And the remission we do experience seems to be a very watered-down version of the lives we want, the lives we deserve and certainly the lives we're promised by doctors and treatments. So if remission isn't all it's cracked up to be, what is remission in bipolar disorder?

Depression, Suicide and Phone Calls I Hate

I woman from mental health intake just called. It's a very long story as to why a person as crazy as I has to go through an intake process but I'll simply say that it has to do with changing countries and being assessed by the fucking cunt. Not crazy enough to be worth sticking in a facility but too crazy to bother with helping. It's a problem.

So I've been shunted somewhere else where some other panels of strangers will assess whether I deserve treatment. Lucky fucking me. The woman calls and asks me what my symptoms are right now.

Hmmm. I go from really depressed to horrifically depressed at random intervals for random intervals. Pretty much everything destabilizes me and I'm feeling ever closer to taking my own life. How? Slitting wrists, I think. It seems to be the suicide method du jour.

If I'm not thinking about suicide right now, why am I thinking about cutting my wrists? Because, what can I tell you, it just always seems like the right thing to do. It just feels right. I just want to. I just do.

Do I have the crisis line number? Yes. I do. I have the internet. I have every number. But why would I call? What are they going to say that matters? I am likely considerably more trained in psychology than they are.

Are you self-harming? How often? Well, every few weeks it seems to happen. Just happened two days ago. Nothing remotely lethal. Just harm. Just pain. Just pulpy flesh. These are things I don't need to share with the woman on the phone.

They will call my doctor next week with the result of their assessment. Ah. They don't call me, they only call my doctor. Clearly, I should be cut out of the loop here. It's not as if there's anything relevant here.

I get off the phone and I break apart. I'm trying to suppress reality. I'm trying to ignore how I feel. I'm trying not to kill myself. Talking about it on the phone is just the antithesis of this. I really, really don't want to talk about it. I am really depressed. I am suicidal. Can we just leave the details to the imagination please?

I cry and cry and weep and weep. Those horrible choking sobs that seem to plague my sadness now. Such sadness that those passing outside me doorway can hear. People on the ground below my balcony can hear. The horrible who-just-died kind of sobs. And all I can think of is, I don't want to be here anymore.

See, I'm trying not to think about that. I have some very good, solid reasons not to want to be here anymore. So many. So logical. So bulletproof. That if I start thinking about them I won't stop and I'll know I'm right and I'll know it's the end. I will know that the fucking cunt was right, I'm not worth helping, I'm not going to get better, and (this one is just for me) I'm a failure that should be removed.

See, I'm trying not to think about that.

And it takes all of my effort, all of the time, to not think about that. What are my symptoms? I'm destroyed, lady. That's my symptom.

What Happens When Your Doctor Gives Up On You?

I have had two doctors give up on my bipolar treatment. One almost a decade ago, and one just a couple of months ago. I didn't take the most recent doctor abandonment all that well, as I've mentioned. In fact, if I saw the woman today, I'd still want to call her a cunt. An unfeeling, malpracticing, cold-hearted cunt. It seems I'm still a little upset about it.

But regardless as to my personal feelings about this woman, I feel that a doctor dismissing a patient without referral, medication or care, is unacceptable. It leaves the ill person with few visible options outside of suicide. These doctors are killing people through their own ignorance.

So, what should you do if your doctor gives up on your treatment? (You know, other than call them nasty names online, which I heartily recommend. It's cathartic. HealthyPlace isn't a fan of such things, however.)

A Fundamental Failure of Imagination

Who did you fall in love with? You know, that person you said vows to, or sit on the couch with, or the person whose headboard you bump against. Who is that person?

Or, more specifically, who were they when you fell in love with them.

My guess is that the person you fell in love with is different than the person beside you. They were younger, more beautiful, and didn't have hair in inappropriate places. They were thinner, stretchmark-free, and spent more time trying to impress you.

But that's OK. The person beside you now is more comfortable and worn in. They know your rhythms and you know theirs. They know you like pancakes on Sunday mornings and you know that they always people they do the crossword, but they never even crack the paper. You know where they like to be licked. They know your spots too. You traded young lust for salt-and-pepper love. I hear it's not such a bad trade.

But the choking spot for me is the beginning bit. It's the person that everyone falls in love with. It's the person who makes you crave and crawl and spin and salivate. It's the person so charming and amazing and beautiful that you can't help but tell your friends about them. It's the person you're elated to have on your arm and make eyes with everywhere you go.

Every love is this person. Obviously we all embellish a little, as does our memory. But still. The person we fell in love with is pretty great. That's why we fell in love with them in the first place.

I, am not, great. I'm OK. I'm decent in some environments. But I'm not great. No one in their right mind is going to fall in love with an overweight, scarred, 32-year-old, wrong-minded person.

See, whatever "soft" skills I lay on top of that package, it just never makes it up to great. I've passed my window of great. I can see it in the imperfections on my face.

I can make people laugh, I can make people smile, I can make people cry, I can make people think. I give great head, I devour in a kiss, and I make a good cookies. I own shoes only made to lay down in, a white silk robe, and collars, cuffs and implements for all.

But none of it fixes the disfigurement of brain and body. I know that.

And I'm so scared that the philosophers are right, and we are what we love. And what loves us. And I can't imagine being, anything.

Depression Hurts More After Remission

Depression hurts. And not in that commercial-sappy-walk-in-fog kind of way. More like in wrist-slitting-wish-I-were-dead kind of way. But I find that over time depressive pain develops a rhythm. You get used to the suffering. Day in and day out the same. Or close to the same. Wake up, ow. Lunch, ow. Go to bed, ow. Not pleasant but perhaps reassuring simply in its predictability.

And then there is a break. A thankful, unbelievable break. And maybe it lasts an hour. Or a day. Or a week. Maybe if you're lucky, even longer. Remission. It's a beautiful work. But alas, such things never last. And then you're slammed back into the muddy darkness of pain once again. And is it just me, or does depression hurt more after remission then when it's consistent?

Are You Bipolar?

When you think of bipolar, do you consider yourself to be a bipolar or do you think of yourself as someone who has bipolar? IE. Bipolars have mood swings, or people who suffer from bipolar disorder have mood swings.

Personally, I say I'm bipolar all the time. I don't have a problem with it. I know some people do though, so on Breaking Bipolar there's Are You Bipolar, Or Do You Have Bipolar Disorder?

(Yes, I'm behind in my posting. Sorry. Blame it on the ridiculous heat last week.)

Do Others Want You to Deny You Are Bipolar?

It's pretty common to deny you have bipolar disorder, before, and even during diagnosis.None of us wants to be sick, and none of us wants to be crazy-sick. And it can take us a long time to come to terms with what we have to live with.

But sometimes worse is the fact that those around us want to deny, or want us to deny, our bipolar. They want us not to talk about it, or to "control the symptoms" or they just don't treat it like a disease at all.

So earlier this week I wrote a piece at Breaking Bipolar about Bipolar and Denial. (Hint, I'm not for it.)

Getting Off Pristiq - Or Not

A couple of posts ago I talked about getting off of Pristiq. I just thought you might like to know I was unsuccessful at getting off the final amount of Pristiq. I stopped taking the final pill while increasing the Welbutrin and fell entirely apart. I became a swamp of tears and echos of choking sobs.

Yeah, so I gave up on that and just took the Pristiq again. Ah...failure. Failure getting on, failure getting off, and failing to get better. Sheesh. That's quite a lineup.

Drugs are bad. Just say no. Or ow. Or please god stop.

Or that might be me.

Word of the Day

It's amazing when I find a word I don't know. It's almost as if I don't know them all.

ec·dys·i·ast
(ěk-dĭz'ē-āst', -əst)  

n. A striptease artist.
[From ecdysis .] 

Word Origin

ecdysiast

H.L. Mencken's invented proper word for "strip-tease artist," 1940, from Gk. ekdysis  "a stripping or casting off" (used scientifically with ref. to serpents shedding skin or crustacea molting), from ekdyein  "to put off" (contrasted with endyo  "to put on"), from ex-  + dyo  "sink, plunge, enter."

But here is the creepy part:

strip·per definition

Pronunciation:  /ˈstrip-ər/
Function: n
:  a surgical instrument used for removal of a vein  

Seriously. Ew. I don't think I'll ever be able to look at peelers the same way ever again. 

(From Dictionary.com.) 

How can I still be sick?

If you're like me, and I know some of you, unfortunately are, you have tried every medication, therapy, treatment both alternative and not only to find yourself somewhere near the beginning: you're just not better. The taxonomy suggests, and even you may come to believe, that you have failed. "I failed that treatment." Doctors say it, we say it. We failed. Again. Over and painfully over. Somersaults on a rock bed. So, at HealthyPlace I've written an article about If I've done everything right, why am I still sick?.