So much for sanity

[mousme]

L isn't here for the morning. She should be back soon, but things have been sort of crazy since she hasn't been around.

Obviously things have been kind of roller-coaster-y for me since November, for those of you who haven't noticed. :P November will do that to me. So, when the metro tracks start to look tempting, it's time to do something about it. (Yes, I'm being flippant. Deal.) So my meds doc and I decided that maybe we should experiment a little with an SSRI at a low dose and see if we can't trick my brain into not trying to off me during the holidays. Also, fiddling with the dosage of the anticonvulsants, to see if that helps. Whee.

You know, it would be nice to have a birthday go by when I'm not actually feeling suicidal. I don't think I've had one of those in a while, not that you can tell by reading my LJ (I think that might be a good thing, actually).

So, anyway, the point is: meds change. Meds fiddling. Already feeling a bit loopy, and I've had to correct bazillions of typos in this post already.

I figured this post ought to serve as a warning, in case the meds change doesn't work and I end up going completely crazy. It has happened in the past. So, consider yourselves warned.

Then again, I don't think I've been exactly pleasant to be around in the past few months. So, you have my apologies for that as well.

Happy trails, folks!

Comments

[ai731.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the warning, and please consider this official permission to come down and bang on our door if it gets to the point where you need someone to keep you away from sharp objects.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Thank you. The offer is much appreciated.

Medical interventions

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

Why birthdays and holidays? There's nothing particularly physiological about those dates that changes you, so why make a physiological "correction" in yourself when it's not you that's the problem? Why are you chemically bending yourself when you could bend the stressors for your convenience, instead? Why is it that it apparently everyone (including you) feels that it is you who must be managed, and not your circumstances? Just curious. I don't want to sound insensitive, but you make it sound like such a risk to yourself, and I'm wondering if there are any options you haven't considered for changing your stressing circumstances instead of changing you, and risking getting hurt.

Re: Medical interventions

[ai731.livejournal.com]

Apologies in advance for replying on Phnee's behalf.

It's not Birthdays and Holidays in general. It's only the ones than fall between November and February. I.e. Christmas and her birthday. This is because her bipolar disorder has a seasonal aspect, and so she suffers lower lows in winter. So, yes, there is a physiological aspect: the number of hours of daylight, which affects brain chemistry. And so tweaking the meds is an attempt to redress this imbalance.

"Bending the stressors" is a nice idea, but it's not really very realistic. When you're is doing such a delicate mental balancing act to begin with *anything* (from having to shovel the front walk to breaking a coffee cup) can set you off. And yes, I'm speaking from experience.

If money was no object, then, yeah, I could probably arrange my life so that I spent November-March doing only fun things that made me happy and getting exactly the right amounts of sleep, exercise, and sunlight, and then I wouldn't need to take my meds, either. Life, unfortunately, tends not to work out that way.

Re: Medical interventions

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

It is far better to bore out the hole than whittle down the peg. If it is S.A.D. then there are ways to increase one's daily exposure to full-spectrum sunlight that do not involve an expensive change in lattitude.

The problem with chemically tweaking yourself is it reaches a point where it seems to me it would be difficult to decide which was the proper course of action: is it a "natural" negative emotion, which should be dealt with by a change in behavior, or is it a "pathological" negative emotion which can be dealt with by breaking it with a pharmecological mallet?

Re: Medical interventions

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I wish I had time to give this the long and well-thought-out response it deserves. I shall give this the best shot I have. ai731 has already done a pretty good job of it, I must say.

Okay. I understand what you're driving at, and to a certain extent you're right. I work hard to change my circumstances before resorting to medication. I try to maintain a good sleep schedule, I watch what I eat, and in theory I should exercise regularly. I try to go outside a lot to get sunshine during the winter, so that the seasonal aspect of my bipolar disorder doesn't affect me too badly. I watch for known triggers of stress. Etc., ad nauseam.

But there's only so much I can do, and I can't wrap myself in cotton just because my brain chemistry is out of whack.

At a certain point, I have to face the fact that my brain is wired differently, and that it goes crazy on a pretty regular basis unless I do something about it. That usually involves taking pills.

See, most people don't view, say, mopping the floor as an insurmountable task. Sure, they get annoyed once in a while, or they put it off, but they don't put it off for months. Breaking a coffee cup won't make them burst into tears. Getting out of bed in the morning isn't a problem. Going to sleep at night is easy. Facing the day is fine.

What I'm trying to say is that yes, you can alter your circumstances to a certain point, and I have done that. You don't know me well, so I can understand why you would immediately jump to the conclusion that I haven't taken any steps beyond medication to help myself. I haven't talked much about my bipolar disorder lately in my journal, apart from some brief and mostly flippant comments. Perhaps I should change that and discuss it more seriously.

I appreciate your concern, and I do value your opinion. I don't always agree with your viewpoints, but they are always articulate and have a great deal of thought put into them. In this case I think you were perhaps a bit hasty to judge, but that was due to a lack of knowledge of the subject. :)

Re: Medical interventions

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry I took so long to get back to you, but I have been up to my eyebrows too, and I missed this until I got around to downloading my LJ mail.

It's not that I was in a rush to judge (although I will freely plead guilty to that crime frequently enough). It's just that I like you, and don't like to think of people I like feeling that they have to change and blame themselves and bend themselves into pretzels to fit a situation which they could otherwise change. You're right. I don't have lots of information about the context, circumstances and particulars. I definitely don't want to offend, I don't think of you as "crazy" and I hope you get yourself into a better set of circumstances and frame of mind soon. Wish I could share some of the California sun with you.

Re: Medical interventions -- RATS not signed in -- hate it when I do that!

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

Heh heh, that was me making the anonymous reply.