Bipolar – Page 7 – A Most Unreliable Narrator

i would prefer not to

Auchinleck Manuscript - Reinbroun — Auchinleck Manuscript – Reinbroun. National Library of Scotland. Courtesy of The Commons, Flickr.

Dear Internet,
I did not so much as leap out of bed this morning in so much as I forced myself to acknowledge that yes, morning was indeed here and yes, it was time to get up. I used to go from dead sleep to out of the house in 45 minutes. But then the ankle surgery occurred and I slowed down a bit. Now with the constant energy drain, I’m positively glacial. Dead sleep to leaving the house is not 45 minutes anymore, it now takes close to two hours. This summer gives me loads of flexibility because I’m not tied to any kind of schedule so I can pretty much roll into work whenever I want to.
But when fall comes, that will be a whole different matter.
And by fall, I mean start of classes which is in about three weeks.

Later

I had the good grace to get this entry started this morning, a running commentary through my head as the day progressed. Let us get the work out of the way first before continuing, and see where that takes us.
On the Wednesday front, she started spaghetti legs again this evening and I’ve started her on a dose of Gabapentin to go with her ‘roids. Like before, it just shows up. She remains as alert as ever, which we’re constantly surprised as she’s 13 years old and you’d think there would be some feebleness to her. Oh, no. She’d cut a bitch for pizza crust, let’s make sure we’ve got that correctly. She’s back to chewing on her raw hides again, which she hasn’t touched in years. It was eye brow raising moment of “Que?” when she picked up this habit again, for she just waltzed into the living room, dragged a rawhide with her (mind you, the same one she’s been working on for 3 or so years) and put a big dent in it on afternoon. Now she does this every night.
This morning, I was up and out of the house within 1.5 hour of waking up, so minor victory! My decision to pre-pack my lunch, pick out the day’s outfits, and get my gadgets in gear helped. Ages ago, I learned the lesson of packing for the day the night before so these are not new introductions to the plan, rather just tried and true ones. Also ages ago, I used to eat breakfast at work, so my lunch bag was doing double time, but lately I’ve been eating before leaving, namely as if I don’t have food in my stomach in and around the time I take my pills, then I start to feel awful and get massive cramps. Eating breakfast at work was to “save time,” but now I found eating at home is faster because I don’t have to prepare and pack more food.
I weighed and measured myself, transposing that into Fitbit this morning. I’m unsure when I’ll keep that active – weekly? Daily? Monthly? Something will naturally occur. I also started, again (always again), tracking my food portions but opted to not finish out the day. My caffeine intake consisted of an iced coffee at 2PM and a 8 oz Sugar Free Red Bull in the morning. I consumed 32+ oz of water during the course of the day and this evening, I’ve been double fisting water and blood red orange soda for I am desperate to not be dependent on caffeine. My food choices were healthy, for what it was worth, and my only indulgence were the aforementioned large iced coffee before I headed to see Dr. P.
My session with Dr. P. went really well, as par usual. The chaos inside my brain seems to soothe a bit after I see him. He did suggest that while taking Klonopin at night was a good idea, it has an extremely long half-life, so I should be taking it earlier in the evening. This means if I take it before bed, as I had been for the last week plus, it has not completely cycled by the time I’m up and at ’em, which explains why I’m groggy in the morning. Then add on the lithium which causes low energy and you have yourself a winner. His suggestion is to take the drug at about 7PM or so, so that it would have cycled by the time I get up, which I’m starting tonight.
(With all the med changes and other special needs I need to be aware of, looks like I’m making another IFTTT recipe. I love this service.)
My mood today, in the morning, was fairly focused as I started getting some work done that’s been woefully behind since I’ve been rarely here. I was still feeling tired for the better part of the day, but it came in spurts. One minute I was fine and then a few moments later, I could curl up and sleep with it disappearing again not long after. Since I took the Klonopin late and I didn’t get a full 8 hours of sleep which is usually needed, I’ll assume this is part of the problem. As I have taken the Klonopin earlier this eve as directed by Dr. P., I will now have a control study of sorts.
While I was fairly focused, I was also feeling very pedanticy, meaning I had this urge to correct and illustrate my awesomeness to everyone. Mainly with vendors. Case in point: I emailed a company that solicited us for one of their products. After going over their website with a fine tooth comb, I could not find the answers to my questions. So I emailed the sales rep explaining I could not find the answers on their site and here were my questions. The sales rep turns around and emails me a copy/paste job of their technical support page. So I responded back that I had already read this, as I had pointed out, and if she could not answer my questions, could she haves someone else do it for her?
She’s working on it, she says.
Variations of this happened with several other vendors today. Is it the fact it’s August 1? Do people not read their goddamned email or understand their products? It just got me really irrationally worked up. But I recognize it’s irrational.
Since my original plan was to head to Throbbing Cabin for the weekend after the session today, it was curtailed as TheHusband is coming home on Friday, I was out of sorts after my session with Dr. P. ended at 3PM. I then got this urge to garden or perhaps use our rowing machine for 1/2 hour or so tonight. Or maybe do both! Also, maybe get some writing done and get caught up on paper reading.
No. No. After beating the exercise and gardening demon back to their black holes inside my soul, the night turned into a lot slower. I was able to clean up some server work and get some digital reading done, but no where near what I had anticipated or hoped. And I’m reminding myself this is okay.
In my session with Dr. P. today, I mentioned the following and about a few other things which I’ll write about tomorrow. I said to him that I don’t know if it is the drugs, or the circumstances, or what, but I don’t like this person I’ve become. While I was never a WILD AND CRAZY GIRL, I didn’t have any qualms or issues about being a bit reckless, or doing things outside of my comfort zone. And now, I’m more often than not, trapped by fear. And that has become the most crippling feeling of all.

x0x0,
Lisa (Day #8)

This day in Lisa-Universe in: 2012, 2011, 2003, 2003

Exposition Universelle

Paris Exposition: map, Paris, France, 1900. Courtesy of The Commons, Flickr.
Dear Internet,
I’ve been writing this in my head for days and yet here I am circling the aggressive blinking cursor with trepidation. It begins back when Dr. H upped my lithium dose to 1500mg a day (Two pills in the morning, one in the mid afternoon, last two at night). He soothes that things will change within a week once the drug metabolizes.
And he’s right, it does.
The world clicks into focus a bit better and I do not feel the crushing tiredness that plagued me through most of June. But perhaps it is too soon to tell or it is too late to tell. For the relief is short lived and I’m back to finding myself at a cross-roads, again, with what I need to do.
Or what I want to do.
At my most recent appointment with Dr. H., one where it had been sometime since we had seen each other due to schedule conflicts, my lithium levels were still in the therapeutic range. But all of the symptoms I recounted then in our session in June still exist., the biggest culprit is lethargy.
Lethargy, in any form or from anywhere, is a cruel bitch of a mistress. In my head, I am writing short stories! I am getting projects done! I am curing cancer! In reality, I feel so drained and physiologically exhausted I find myself taking short cuts to save time such as stop washing my hair daily, stop wearing make-up, and pushing off as much as I can to another day.
It’s a relief when daily chores are done because I can curl up in my bedroom and do nothing until I fall asleep, usually to some Britishism. I’m not reading, still. I’ve touched nothing in terms of projects or hobbies.
The days I am home alone in Grand Rapids, when TheHusband is up at Throbbing Cabin, I don’t cook dinner, I graze. I am exhausted walking six blocks to get hot dogs. There are five bag of treats of some sort on the counter, the fridge is full of easy to eat food like hummus and pre-made salads. I have lots and lots of liquids on hand, because sometimes I can’t even be bothered to eat, but I can be bothered to drink.
I medicate my tiredness with Sugar Free Red Bull, starting in the morning and then administrating as needed through the course of the day. Sometimes there is coffee, other times, Coke. Before I could not drink caffeine past early afternoon hour, as a rule, because it would amp me to all hours of the night. Now, I can’t seem to live without it.
There are times I’ve been so exhausted I’ve taken 3-4 hour naps and then still went to bed at a decent hour and slept for at least 8 hours. Then woke up as if I had barely slept at all.
Dr. H’s argument to me is that I’m not taking my Klonopin at night, as I should, to help me fall asleep and sleep deeply and as such, it’s fucking with the rest of my day. Is there some truth to this? Maybe. I’m running out of drugged options here and I’m grasping at straws. I want to have some semblance of life, not a shell of a life viewed through opaque windows.
So here’s the deal: Dr. H. AND Dr. P. have asked me, for months if I’m truthful, to track my moods and experiences, at least daily summary of what’s going on to better serve me and thus them. I haven’t been doing that. My reconstruction at my sessions are faulty at best, which makes for sketchy advice. I am an unreliable narrator.
I have decided, then, after this last session with Dr. H. that I needed to make a change. I needed to change – not me waiting for change, but I needed to change. For months I’ve been darkly hinting like a punk Cassandra that a big THING was going to happen. So maybe part of my lethargy is the waiting for a THING that can finally kickstart into gear.
I miss so much from a life that is just beginning to bloom. So I need to change and I need to figure out how to make these changes to make a real impact and not superficial. It needs to count.
Dr. H. said a week of taking Klonopin at bedtime should help shake out the symptoms from the lithium. It hasn’t. But as I don’t have a clear, written record of what is and is not working, I don’t feel as if I have the evidence to show that it’s not working. Oh, I feel mellow, but my tiredness and energy levels are still in the gutter.
So I’m going to start slow and I’m going to start week by week. The first week, starting with this entry, is to write every day, even if it is only 250 words, how I feel that day. It doesn’t have to a treatise on the condition of modern man, but it does need to be a record of what I’m doing. I may include how much I sleep. What I ate. What I saw.
Each week, I’ll add in something new. I want to start rowing again, to take a yoga class, to swim in a pool. I want to put my Fitbit to work for me instead of just acting like a post-modern adornment on my wrist. I want to cook. And adventure. And a million other things. Friends that are bipolar say exercise helps them immensely, writing helps immensely, talk therapy helps immensely. Remember a decade ago when you were used as a chemist experiment and for a year you felt miserable?
Slow. One thing. At a time. A week.
Then the choice will be easy to make.
x0x0,
Lisa (Day #7)

This day in Lisa-Universe in: 2012, 2011, 2003, 2003

holding up a corner of the sky

Dear Internet,
The other day I was on the toilet, reading National Geographic as you do, when I had a panic attack.
Let me repeat this:
I’m on the toilet.
Taking a dump.
Reading National Geographic.
Having a panic attack.
I was more surprised rather than panicked about what was happening, and thankfully the attack came and went fairly quickly. This little episode seems to sum up what’s been going on with my brain as of late, which is to say, an even more chaotic mess.
A few weeks ago I was scheduled to see my medicating doctor for my monthly visit and a few days before the appointment, I had irrational fight with a friend online. The fight was not serious by any context, but I was able to step back and see what is going on before it DID get serious. But the fact the fight happened at all was a huge wake-up call. A few days before that, TheHusband made an off hand comment I had been acting “weird,” but he didn’t really qualify it other than he didn’t think things were going well with me and he was concerned.
During the session with my medicating therapist, when I relayed all of this to him, it sounded like the lithium was not working as well as he had hoped. I agreed. He upped me another 300mg, for a total of 1500mg to be split over the course of the day (morning, afternoon, night).
A week and half later, I find myself sitting in the shadows of a room steaming over god knows what.
I got some relief on the first few days after the dosage was upped, but since then I’ve been super lethargic and now overly anxious. The lethargy is destroying much of my productivity because I have zero motivation and will and it’s a struggle to stay awake. I’m bordering on always being on panic mode. That feeling gets intensified when all of these fixes for ffor my brain chaos stop working and the cycle seemingly always repeats itself.
I can’t get any relief and I feel like I am going crazy on fixing my crazy.
Tomorrow I am calling my medicating doctor to get off of Lithium. I’m not sure what has changed with my body chemistry in the last month but I thought the lithium was at least a cure-all for my bipolar and instead, it’s now destroying me. He’s made suggestions of putting me on Depakote to work with the lithium but so far I’ve read or heard nothing but terrible reviews. I’m at the point right now, six months after starting it, that I have not seen enough evidence to continue taking it.

The quasi-fight TheHusband and I are having is about space. Some couples fight about money, some couples fight about temperature control, TheHusband and I fight about space. The fact we have too much of it, it seems.
Throbbing Manor, including the finished bits of the basement, is 3200 sqft. According to my European friends, I live in a goddamned mansion. According to the American contingent, we live in a nice place. We know it is too big, and we also know how we use space doesn’t mesh with the flow of the house. Yes, the house is nice.Yes, we live in a desirable neighborhood. But this house isn’t us. We don’t use the space that is here, instead we hang out in only a few of the many rooms. Because we’re not hanging out in many of the rooms, wer’re not buying any furniture, household goods, or wall art to finish the rooms off. We’ve lived here for 2.5 years and people have asked me for updated pictures and I’m embarrassed to say there aren’t any.
The sunroom (or solarium) has been one of those rooms where we go back and forth on what to do with it. First it was indoor/outdoor furniture to turn it into a cozy reading/hang out area, then it was double it up with plants, then it was get a drafting desk so TheHusband could draw and paint, and I could calligraphy.
In the nearly two years we’ve been having this discussion, we’ve bought three large plants, of which one is nearly dead and we’ve commissioned the handcrafted table that goes over the absurdly long radiator. In the winter, during the holiday times, if we’re feeling like putting a tree up, it goes in here. But any of the aforementioned items I’ve mentioned we were considering on purchasing – we haven’t purchased. The indoor/outdoor furniture is never right for his taste, we can’t find a drafting desk to meet his needs, and so forth and so on. Finally, I decided to take a stand and turn the space into a writing area.
And this is where the argument starts.
TheHusband states I’m taking over space by putting my stamp everywhere (duh, I live here. I should be able to do that anyway!) and I now have essentially two offices. Then he’s pissed because we had to move one of his plants (a lime tree) to another space in the room, but the damn tree is dying anyway. A 6′ lateral move is not going to hasten its death!
Secondly, getting to know myself as intimately as I have in the last six months, in order to cope with my ADHD drug free, I need solitude space of no interruption. This means TheHusband. He says I should just close the door to my office on the second floor, but it isn’t the same. Sitting here in solarium has a different vibe then siting upstairs. The view is better. I’m away from external noise that comes from the other side of the house. The chair is not as comfy so the likelihood of me fucking off while doing work is less likely. And most importantly, I’m close to my books.
The final big reason is we decided to turn the bedroom into a gadget free zone once we get to the point where we move the bedroom TV up to the cabin, forcing us to watch TV in the Rumpus Room. I’m started that process early by moving my laptop out of the room and into the solarium. At least here I can work with minimal interruption.
I told TheHusband if he buys a drafting desk, we buy the indoor/outdoor furniture, or any of the other things we talked about doing to this room, I’ll gladly move this desk back upstairs and live will continue on as normal. My desktop, TheHusband’s old laptop that is wire bound now, is slowly dying so the move may be sooner than I think.
Pro tip: Marriage is overrated.
x0x0x,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe in:

Wolf who fills himself with all who die and will swallow the heavenly bodies

Dear Internet,
Sometimes there are no words to express what is going on in my head, so I’ve made the executive decision to use animated gifs instead.
David Tennant Crying in the Rain
The last few weeks have been a shit hole of catastrophe in my brain.
When I started back to work after my lay up, Dr. H. was of the mind that since Concerta only seemed to work some time, I needed to try something else to find something that worked all the time. The following Monday, I went up to two Adderall XR in the morning, with no effect. Spoke with Dr. H. that evening and he moved me back to Concerta 36mg. Tuesday was fine. Wednesday, I was an idiot and accidentally took double my Concerta dosage in the morning, so instead of 36mg, I was high as a kite on 72mg. I immediately dosed myself with Klonopin to keep me more even and brought the bottle with me to work.
By mid-day Wednesday, I was quietly having a meltdown in my office. I was reading something about something and got so intensely frustrated, I wanted to start punching holes in the brick walls. I kept myself together by duct tape and string. Thursday, my dosage was normal but I was so tired, I broke my no-caffeine rule and drank a Coke that evening to just get over the hump. Friday was much the same as Thursday. Saturday, I was heading to MSU as a panelist at the MSU Comics Forum.
Even after taking my regular dosage and my lithium early on Saturday morning, I could not function. I had to drink a Coke to keep awake to drive to Lansing and by the time our panel came up, I was manic in my head. Kristin and I were supposed to head to Gizzard City for dinner but I felt so whacked out, I didn’t know if I could make the 1/2 hour drive to the restaurant eat, and then drive home. So I bailed and drove home on a wing and a prayer.
Sunday was glorious. I felt like my body had finally been reset. Monday, I spoke to Dr. H. and he was concerned about Concerta’s effects during the week so we’re going to try Adderall XR again except this time, we’re going to split the dose: half in early morning, second half later part of the morning. Makes sense. I’m on spring break, let’s give it a try.
Didn’t work.
Not only did the Adderall XR do nothing for me, but it turned me into this moody, depressed, state of an animal. I didn’t want to leave the house, I didn’t want to hang out with friends, I didn’t want to do things with my husband. I just wanted to wallow in bed and watch terrible TV. So the long ago set plans to do something on spring break week were all mostly broken. When I was feeling up to doing something, it was mostly writing and working on my cadre of websites. Except, there were massive problems on my host providers end and my website couldn’t stabilized all fucking week. 504 and 502 errors all over the place. Which wasn’t super helpful when this happened:
amandapalmerRT
TheHusband wanted me to stop taking the Adderall XR and I refused. I had to see if I could finally metabolize the drug AND I had a phone appointment with Dr. H. on Friday (yesterday). I’ll be fine.
Except, I wasn’t.
During my phone consult on Friday evening, I was nearly hysterical. Dr. H. had no idea why this was happening because chemically, Adderall XR isn’t supposed to effect serotonin levels. But obviously something was happening because it was fucking mess in my brain.
Here is how it is supposed to work:
I take Lithium (1200 mg, half in the morning, half at night) as a mood stabilizer. With my mood stabilized (and I get blood drawn to check my Lithium levels every couple of weeks), the ADHD drugs work better. If I feel too amped up or I can’t sleep, I take Klonopin as needed. When the ADHD drugs don’t feel like they are working, then we ramp up the Lithium. Except now I’m at the therapeutic levels of Lithium (known via the blood tests) so I can’t amp that up, so we have to work on the ADHD drugs.
Or go on anti-depressants for more stabilization to make the ADHD drugs work better.
Which I’m rejecting.
A decade or so ago, I was seeing a medicating therapist when I lived in DC area, who decided to cycle me through almost all known (to her) permutations of various SSRIs/Anti-$whatevers in her drug book. So if X combination did not work, then, we’ll try something else! Then try something else! Then try something else!
The hitch in this giddy up is I metabolize drugs fairly quickly. For SSRIs, if it takes 14-21 days before the drug stabilizes on me, it could take as little as 7. Rather than up/down the dosage, she just changed me to something else. I was cycled through so much, over the course of six months, my life fell apart. Granted, the relationship I was in then was already on the rocks, but everything else that may have been okay such as job, professional and personal relationships were all hit hard by this. It was fucking terrible and a fucking nightmare
The other hitch is I’m one of the rare cases of people who get suicidal thoughts on anti-depressants. I’ve been on varying doses of:

Wellabutrin
Effexor
Celexa
Prozac
Paxil
Zoloft

XR or not, doesn’t matter. On or off Lithium, doesn’t matter. I start taking an anti-depressant, I want to kill myself.
When I went off the drugs a decade ago, I swore I would do whatever was necessary to stay OFF the drugs. Change diet, living, jobs, whatever, I’d do it. But DBT and yoga can only do so much; I recognized I needed to be more proactive in my mental health. But this last few weeks has shown me glimpses of what that life was like a decade ago, and it is NOT one I want to repeat. I have too much at stake to lose all of it due to my fucking terrible brain chemistry.
There was no fucking way I was going back on an anti-depressant.
So there I am, nearly hysterical on the phone with Dr. H, very emphatically without a goddamned moving an inch to my voice, that I will not get on anti-depressants. We agreed to keep me on the 1200mg of Lithium and go back to the Concerta 36mg, since I can tolerate that and it works somewhat. The rest is up for discussion when I see him in a few weeks.
My hysteria got worse when I got off the phone and was talking to TheHusband about the whole phone call ordeal, then my mood shifted in to self-protective mode where I did not want to be touched, stroked, talked to, or anything. I remember wrapping my arms around myself while TheHusband tried to sooth me during this depressive spike. I cried. A lot.
After I made the decision in October to start seeing Dr. P. again, he collated in later sessions the depression I was experiencing was more than likely stemming from the untreated ADHD which was creating a vicious circle of frustration and all the life changes that had happened in the last few years and were not dealt with. So, more normal life stuff rather than chemical.
This is how I knew what happened this week was different, even despite the chemical incredulousness of it, the mood shift down this week was caused by Adderall XR. This WAS chemical, and it was crippling, and it was debilitating. How fast I shifted during the day, before the phone, while on the phone, and then after the call was huge.
Today, I started the morning with half of my Lithium dose (the remaining dose will be later) and Concerta. I’m still feeling prickly, my eyes ache as if I had been crying for hours (though I haven’t), and I am still in my pajamas. But for the first time in a few weeks, that I feel okay.
And this is how I absolutely do know, it will be sunny one day.
x0x0,
lisa

Mental Illness, Shame, and The Art of Asking

Dear Internet,
I have complicated relationship with Amanda Fucking Palmer.
While there are some things that I’m critical of in regards to AFP, I am incredibly mindful that a lot of conversations happening now are because of her. Changes in how music is viewed/played; how relationships are shifting beween art, artists, and viewers; how we challenge not just our own perceptions but perceptions of the world at large even just by living our lives as how we define our lives to be, not by another’s definition. In addition, she lives her life fearlessly, which is incredibly inspiring.
AFP was invited to speak at TED this year and below is her talk, The Art of Asking:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=xMj_P_6H69g%26w%3D640%26h%3D360
AFP’s salient points on discussing crowd sourcing, risk taking, or even challenging common public notions and beliefs. But at this talk’s core, as she states, is the relationship between the artist and the viewer. That very intimate relationship that is only owned between those two people.
Yesterday, I was part of a panel at MSU Comics Forum where we gave a presentation on Golden Age: Comics and Graphic Novel Resources in Libraries. Our schtick is to present on this topic at non-library conferences because we knew it was important for artists, writers, creators, educators, and comic book lovers to be aware of what/how libraries are doing with comics and graphic novels. Within the library world, it is a given. Outside the library world, not so much.
While prepping for my talk, I was debating on whether or not to mention I was bipolar and relate that to graphic novels available on the topic. If part of my argument is graphic novels should be in libraries is because they help broach difficult topics, is this not a difficult topic and ergo a perfect example? The other question that would be asked is what kind of obligation do I have in mentioning I am bipolar to anyone about anything? Why does the onus fall on me?
This debate went on in my head up until I took the podium.
When the slide came up I had earmarked to mention being bipolar, I found myself just saying it as naturally if you please:
“I’m bipolar. I’ve had several friends who’ve read Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me and say to me, ‘Okay. I understand what you’re going through. It was eye opening.’ And this is perfectly illustrates how graphic novels and comics can help broach difficult topics.”
Several heads in the audience nodded with agreement.
In the space of a few minutes, I had negotiated in my head the trust relationship between myself and the audience. I gave myself permission to be candid. The floor did not open up and swallow me nor did fire come reigning down the heavens.
While I was feeling manic up until that moment, and then the world shifted into focus. When my 15 minutes was done, I felt my body relax for the first time in weeks.
Before watching AFP’s talk last night, I had not realized the mental negotiations taking place in my head about having a mental illness were about exchanges in trust with whomever. Oh, not you Internet, but with those in contact of my daily life, who don’t follow me across the social sphere or read this blog. There is a price tag on honesty, and on revealing, one that was too high in the past to contemplate, and one that is constantly always under scrutinizing but is becoming easier to negotiate.
AFP rationalized it is not about taking a risk, rather it is trust. Shame comes in when those not part of the negotiation attempt to criticize it. I am currying trust with my readership by telling them about my crazy, but someone who doesn’t read my blog, or know me, starts to make judgements on the already established link between me and my readership, they are installing shame on the affair. Anything different is open to criticism and this needs to change.
My name is Lisa and I am bipolar.
It needs to be said, it has to be said, I will continue to say it.
xoxo,
Lisa

Better living through chemistry, round two: Sunday

Dear Interent,
8:12AM: Took 10mg of Adderall XR
9:24AM: Still waiting for something to happen. Take my morning lithium dose. Ask Kate, who is also on Adderall, how long it takes to kick in.
9:42AM: Low grade headache, still haven’t had breakfast yet, TheHusband has brought me a caffeine free Coke.
11:13AM: I’ve researched buying Nintendo 3DS’s and Manic Panic hair color; I’ve checked my bank balance, chatted with friends on Twitter and IM, but I can’t singularly concentrate on completing a a longer task. I have not had breakfast at this time. And I still have the low grade headache.
13:36: TheHusband had started taxes, food has been consumed. I’ve taken Tylenol to combat the headache but it keeps popping up and saying, “Hey.”
15:38: Called Dr. H. Waiting to hear back. TheHusband and I get frisky in the basement when we begin laundry cycles. Libido not completely squashed by all the drugs. Yay!
17:04: TheHusband and I have been going back and forth on our taxes today. Bottom line is that we can’t write off $10K in my student loan interest or my nearly $8K in medical expenses because we’re slightly over the threshold. Time to get an accountant.
17:16: Dr. H. calls back and says to up the Adderall to 20mg tomorrow. I’m to call tomorrow afternoon. Dr. P. returned my text and my appointment has been successfully moved to 12P tomorrow.
20:25: TheHusband made dinner (third night we’ve had some variation of Mexican food) and he’s now on an after hours call due to network troubles.
x0x0,
Lisa

Better living through chemistry, round two: Saturday

Dear Internet,
It was a little over two months ago I started taking my ADD/ADHD medications or as my friend Liz calls them, legal meth. I live blogged the first weekend diligently, and the experience convinced Dr. H. Ritalin was not the drug for me. Additionally, I needed medicinal help with my bipolar so the legal meth of any flavor could work properly. I was then started on to lithium and switched over to Concerta.
Ritalin is short acting and could be taken over the course of the day to keep the strength up. Concerta 36mg, on the other hand, is longer lasting but it needs to be taken before 9AM in order to allow me to sleep at night. On the weekends, if I woke up too late, I would take one 5mg of Ritalin instead of Concerta to get me over the hump I needed to get tasks done in a timely manner.
In the beginning of the Lithium/Concerta combo, it was fucking glorious. I was productive, I was focused, the quirks about my personality I always attributed as just my personality, turned out were actual symptoms of both diseases and were tempered with the drugs. That small period from end of December to early January was a golden age. Sure, there were some kinks in the process like no caffeine as it made me feel like I snorted 10 lines of speed even if I had caffeine in small doses and my anxiety would sometimes get out of control, but who cares? I was feeling really fucking good and I was productive.
Work started back up on January 9 and things were hopping. I could complete tasks, organize myself better, I wasn’t short with co-workers, and if a difficult situation arose, I could handle it with aplomb. Everything was awesome.
During the initial period of Lithium/Concerta, I was super productive with my writing because it was all done during the day when the Concerta was peaking, ergo it makes sense I was super productive at work because the Concerta would be peaking during those same prime hours.
Then, the downside.
When I came home from work, however, I didn’t want to do shit. No matter what time I got home, once the pants came off, at most I could handle was reading on the Interent or watching TV. Anything other than that was either too taxing, too long, or required absolute concentration from me which I couldn’t give. This also allowed
I kept up the Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes because that was an easy thing to do. Open a post, format, set the post date, and save the draft. Anytime I found something that fell into a CCC post, I just had to open up that week’s post and add it. Friday nights, I would verify everything was in order before it posted on Saturday and be done with it. Very little work was involved on my part.
I returned to work on January 9th. January 16 was my monthly follow up with my orthopedic doctor, who decided I needed to have surgery two weeks hence to explore the still open wound to find out why it was not closing after seven months. During that two week period, I was a frenzy of productivity at work but at some point the Concerta stopped working as effectively, so lithium was upped. The general idea is the more my mood stabilizes, the better the legal meth works.
Other signs started to illuminate the drug wasn’t working such as I was getting easily irritable and short with people again. My productivity at at work was beginning to slow down considerably and my former bad habits started to appear. I was staying later and later in the belief I had to do the work NOW and not that it could wait until the following day. This obviously effected my home life.
Dr. H. and I were in contact either via phone or appointment during all of this. If I was metabolizing the 36mg to the point of non-effectiveness, then it was time to up the dosage to 54mg and see what happens. The catch is with the 54mg dose, I’d need to take it at 6-7AM. He thought my recovery period would be good time to experiment with the 54mg to see how I do.
A week before my surgery, all extraneous medications were stripped from my regime except for Concerta and Lithium. On the day of my surgery, January 29th, I did not take my morning doses of either drug and when I came home that evening (it was outpatient surgery), I only took my evening dose of lithium. I stayed off of Concerta for the rest of the week because I didn’t want to interfere with my antibiotics and my pain meds (sweet, sweet Vicodin). I decided the second week to stay off the legal meth as well and gloried about in the ability to drink caffeine. I spoke with Dr. H. via phone on February 8 and he upped my lithium to 1200mg and I was to start back on the Concerta the following the week.
During that week, Concerta and anxiety wrecked my sleeping. Some days I would get up early enough to take 36mg, and others it was a Ritalin kind of day. Every day was always in flux.
I went back to work on February 20th and started the morning with 36mg of Concerta, my morning lithium dose, and half a Klonopin. While this combination worked well mood wise, not so much for the focusing and concentration part. At least, not as well as I had hoped. I had still not taken the Concerta 54mg because I was afraid if I did, I’d never get to sleep.
After a month of all over the place mentally and being laid up physically, I finally got to see Dr. H on Friday to go over my therapies and talk more about what was going on. The ramped up anxiety, the heightened ability to not sleep even when sleeping aids were produced, were driving me crazy. I knew as I was on/off drugs for the better part of the last month had much to do with the problems since there was no consistency, but even attempting at consistency became problematic.
So we try another experiment, this time starting with the Concerta 54mg.
I woke up on Saturday at 6:30A to take Concerta 54mg, and then napped for a bit. At 8AM I became wide eyed and bushy tailed and started writing this post. I had a hair appointment at 10AM that would end up lasting five hours. I spoke with Dr. H. in the afternoon and he suggested I try Adderall on Sunday depending how the rest of the day went.
TheHusband and I rearranged some afternoon plans to get my Adderall script filled. Dinner was had. Shopping was done. We were home by 19:00.
The way I explained it to Dr. H. earlier was Concerta 54mg was giving me alertness for several hours, then it ebbed for a few hours, then picked up again, so when I spoke to him at about 15:30, I felt pretty together. But by 18:00, I was crashing pretty hard and falling asleep at the dinner table. I was not expecting the crashing or how hard I would much so that I needed to drink a can of Coke just to keep going for a few hours before falling asleep around midnight.
I started this post early Saturday morning and finishing it late Sunday night. Perfectly illustrating even a simple task can become highly complex when the drugs don’t work.
x0x0,
Lisa

Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes: February 16, 2013

Johann Georg Hainz's Cabinet of Curiosities, circa 1666. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons — Johann Georg Hainz’s Cabinet of Curiosities, circa 1666. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

During the Renaissance, cabinet of curiosities came into fashion as a collection of objects that would often defy classification. As a precursor to the modern museum, the cabinet referred to room(s), not actual furniture, of things that piqued the owners interest and would be collected and displayed in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes is my 21st century interpretation of that idea.
Dear Internet,
Another week of lots of television watching, and less of doing much else. Dr. H. pulled me off of Concerta last week, upped my lithium and thus a week of drug experimentation went by. Of course, as I was temporarily off the legal meth, I took that as invitation to drink as much caffeine as humanly possible. Which gave me all the speed of the legal meth but none of the focus and concentration. When I look back at my browser later in the day, I would have no idea what the devil I was doing to get me there. Porn? No, but close. My mind is all over the place, and when I did one thing, I would have to do something else at the same time.
No reading, no writing, no letter writing, nothing was done this week.
I worked from home for a bit this week, but like personal work projects, I was all over the place and unable to really complete anything.
For the follow-up call a week later, Dr. H. said I should go back on Concerta gain, so today we start at on 36mg dose. Hopefully this means less sounding like I snorted massive amounts of drugs when I’m writing these posts.

Listening

Cabin Pressure

Reading

Watching

Also weekly watching: Mr. Selfridge, Banshee, Portlandia, Top Gear UK, House of Lies, Elementary, Spartacus, The Americans, Archer, and Project Runway

Macdubhsith

Dear Internet,
For the last couple of days I’ve been on a big digital cleaning kick, partially because I needed something fairly mindless to do as to not think about a few future Kalendae Januariae posts I had started writing. One is on attaining a healthy body and the other on obtaining a healthy soul. I struggle with how much I want to discuss, how much I want to reveal, and how much even just thinking these things is giving me false fear and shame for things I have yet to publish. While I shouldn’t give any fucks about what the world cares about weight or body image, it does and therefore I end up feeling cagey about discussing it. The same goes for anything spiritual, for if you talk openly about how you truly feel, a lot of dynamics shift in relationships because of the splintering of beliefs.
Also, people tend to be assholes.
In a couple of small digital communities I’ve helped build in the last year, one of the main themes I strongly advocated was for safe space. This had to be a place you can dump out your soul and you will not be judged, blamed, or threatened for how you feel. Trying to maintain that kind of safety in an open space, such this blog, is much, much harder. And it’s funny for I have no problems discussing ANYTHING except when it comes to body image and spirit. Sometimes the wounds of abuse are much shallower than I lead you to believe for it takes but the wrong slight word to bruise me these days.
So instead I wander aimlessly around the internwebs, reading about my Scottish forefathers and mothers.
A problem with this mindlessness it doesn’t really push the fear away to a safer distance, it instead bottles it in another place to be accessed at another time when I’m least suspecting it. Fear and shame are so integral to our lives, on so many levels, I sometimes want to punch the bubble that seems to be keeping me trapped here in this place. Write everything, write nothing, look like this, don’t look like this, be this kind of professional, don’t be this kind of professional: the conflicting messages are driving me insane! Sometimes even the Zen minimalists piss me off for they are like here, have a few easy steps to let everything go, and then you will be free. And oh, have a cookie (if it’s whole food, gluten, dairy, sugar, and egg free).
Friday I call Dr. H. to give him my update on how lithium and Concerta have been working and see if he needs to adjust my meds. Tonight, over dinner, I grilled TheHusband on how I was with this new combination. “Insufferable as always,” he says. On further reflection, he said I was significantly less moody. I have also seen that in myself as well, I’m not getting all riled up as easily anymore when people irritate the fuck out of me. Rather, I remove myself from the situation in some fashion, whether it is unfollowing, unfriending, or just choosing to not respond when a comment is directed at me.
Lithium has a tendency to make people feel warm. Lucky me: I’m still freezing all the time. My hands are so cold, I’m knitting a pair of fingerless mittens in the next few days. I layer like the dickens, and started wearing long pants and socks to bed. My right hand feels like ice is flowing through it even though when TheHusband touches me he feels warmth.
The Concerta/lithium is supposed to do two things: Stabilize my mood and then get me focused. As I’ve been off caffeine for nearly three weeks now (?!?!), in theory since lithium acts as a downer, I should be falling asleep earlier. This is not happening. One day last week, I made the mistake of Concerta after 11AM, did not go to bed until nearly 5AM and woke up at nearly noon the next day. I skipped that day’s dose and righted my body, somewhat, but I still cannot seem to get to sleep before midnight. Even now, TheHusband and I have been getting up at 6AM and working out, and I’ve been taking my Concerta when I wake up so in theory, I still shouldn’t feel like I’m on fire and yet I do.
My sexual libido is also still lacking.
Sometimes I feel like this huge disconnect in my life is because I see the world as it is being perceived and when I hold it up to my own, as it doesn’t match that image, my life than is not enough. Or it’s a sham. Or it’s falling apart. If my husband and I are not out hob nobbing it every night, does that mean we’re not living life? If I’m not out donating everything I own to every worthy cause, does that mean I’m incredibly selfish? If I’m not consoling everyone who comes to me with a sob story, or is in pain, or hurt, does that mean I’m a terrible person? Where and when does it end?
The question I then need to ask is: Is it me or is it the drugs?
x0x0,
Lisa

Lithos

Dear Internet,

I’m so happy ’cause today
I found my friends,
They’re in my head
Lithium by Nirvana

Friday I had my follow up with Dr. H., my medicating doc, and I was hoping he’d say, “Yep, Concerta isn’t working, let’s put you on X and try that instead” and let me go on my merry little way. Didn’t happen. Of course, because that would be far too easy. So, now, then what do we do?
I spent the better part of an hour going over every drug that has entered my system or that I had left in the last couple of months (OTC or prescribed), and went through my entire 1.5 weeks on Ritalin + Concerta experience. Noting to him every little new “thing” triggered by either drug or was put to rest by either drug. I’m thankful that I wrote as much as I did while tracking my mania/The Sads, but I didn’t write enough because he asked me a lot of questions I could not easily answer nor were there any hints in my blog when I checked while at his office. I think it’s important to be a public voice for this drug experience, but sometimes it’s hard to keep track of what I’m doing and how I’m doing or do it in a matter that is more coherent. Maybe it doesn’t have to be?
TheHusband pointed out maybe if I wrote more stream of consciousness (which I did a lot of when I was in my ’20s), it would be easier. I think he has a point. While I plan on keeping up with writing about this publicly, I need to be more diligent on my note taking privately. I bought DayOne for my Mac, iPad, and iPhone ages ago and used it pretty heavily after for the first month or so and then tapered off. It was interesting how much came out when I was writing only for me – though to be fair, when I write here, I also am writing just for me. But writing in a matter that is more private, I suppose, frees up a lot of internal censorship that I unconsciously use on myself. The only glitch I had using DayOne was when I was on computer (like work) that is not MacOS variant based. My solution to that was either bring in my Air (which I’ve been doing more of) or use Evernote and create a folder tag for DayOne writings to transpose later.
So, more writing about this experience. Duly noted.
As I said a few weeks ago, the accepted diagnosis is ADHD with Bipolar with bits of Borderline Personality Disorder thrown in for good measure, which coincides with the diagnosis back in 2005. When I was living in Northern Virginia (NoVa) from 1999-2002, I was seeing a therapist there who cycled me through a lot of drugs: anti-depressants, anti-anxiety, anti-psychotics (alternative for the anti-anxiety) for Bipolar and definitely anxiety. I was on, then off, then on, and then off so many drugs that I felt like my brain would just explode. I swore then no matter what the fuck happened, I was NOT putting myself on any of that medicinal merry-go-round again. I’d learn to live, cope, and exist with my current brain chemistry as it is because I could not take that kind of mental anguish again.
So when Dr. H. said he was putting me on lithium today, I burst into tears in his office.
With the exception of Klonopin in the last ten years, I’ve been mainly drug free. I was hell bent on going holistic on the vapors of my brain, but that apparently hasn’t been working and so, where we are.
This where the helplessness started to become so overwhelming that I nearly bolted from his office. I came to him, as a recommendation from Dr. P. to get the drugs for ADHD and monitor them, and now he’s putting me on this medicinal go around for the bipolar, which is apparently triggered by the ADHD? The way Dr. H explains it is that if Ritalin AND Concerta are triggering mania, depression, and other traits of the bipolar, those need to be addressed first before Concerta (or any related drug) can really be effective for me. I’m unlucky in that not only do I tend to metabolize drugs more quickly than other humans, and I also tend to pick up the rare side effects from the drugs. They can’t plaster me with a catch-all drug to cure X because that triggers these other things that have now sprung up.
Dr. H. gets my hesitancy about this, but he feels pretty confident we can find that sweet spot where everything plays nicely and I can feel some sense of normalcy. But it will be tricky, which means I have to be more diligent on keeping track of my moods and everything else in between.
This isn’t the first time I was on lithium, as I was on it during the first chemical-go-around when I was living on NoVa and I remember that sweet spot for like 3 days when I was on lithium and something else where everything was fucking awesome. The world seemed brighter, the colors were deeper, food tasted sublime, and I did not feel like a scatterbrained idiot. Here’s to hoping that we can get there again.
ProTip: Don’t ever read forums, regardless of the reliability of the website, about drugs, drug interactions, or their side effects. Because you’re going to end up self-diagnosing yourself with consumption or the vapors, and never want to leave your house again.
TheHusband, who rejects “white man medicine”¹ for most everything gets that in order to make his Pookie Bear better, she’s got to swallow the poison. We’ve been big supporters of whole foods lifestyle for a long time, and while we tend to fall off the wagon here or there, for the most part, for fat people, we are pretty fucking healthy fat people. But we know we can do a lot better, so before this drug shenanigans came into play, we planned to kickstart our healthy eating and exercise again. To be more whole, mentally AND physically just reinforces the idea that we really need to get behind this and stick with it. The goal is that with a better balanced diet, more exercise (as I am more mobile now), and seeing Dr. P. every week and Dr. H. monthly, things will (hopefully) start to get better.
Kale smoothies, here we come. Rah. Rah. Rah.
But darkly, in the shadows lurking, I also know, as it is with any kind of drug that is taken for the brain, there is almost always a dark side before the dawn. That is the risk you have to take.
My regime is 600mg of Lithium (1 300mg tablet taken twice daily), 36mg of Concerta, and my usual assortment of multivitamins and supplements. Because of the Concerta, I’m off caffeine (and have been for 11 days as of this writing). because of Lithium, I cannot take NSAIDs (aspirin, ibuprofen, etc) and I should watch my salt intake. Dr. H. also wants me to refrain from alcohol while I’m on lithium, which means I can’t dip into the Absinthe my brother got me for Christmas.
I’m also allergic to dairy, so there is also that to add into the do not haves.
It’s a good thing I like water.
x0x0,
Lisa

1. He’s Native American.

Tag: Bipolar