For as long as I can remember I’ve been counseled, medicated, and otherwise forced to conform.
I think I was an adult before I was actually medicated, but I’ve run through the gamut since turning 18. My memory isn’t so good, but I’m positive there was Prozac and Paxil when it was thought I just had Depression.
My Bipolar breaking point came in 2002. I’d moved out of state for a job and was all on my own for the first time ever. About 6 months into the job I bottomed out and ended up at a county mental health facility at 2 a.m. From there I started seeing a counselor and taking Effexor XR. Again the therapist suggested I had Depression, but I knew there had to be more to it, so I did research. Internet research, of course.
This is when I stumbled upon Bipolar Disorder. The first time I suggested it to the counselor he said, “when people read about diseases, they tend to think they have them,” as if I were a first year Psychology or Med student. Stupidly, I let him brush aside what I knew had to be true.
Fast forward to March 2003. I had triumphantly quit my out of state job, after my boss had threatened me, and moved back home. Trouble was, I needed my meds and had no way to get them. This time I went to the local MHMR office to receive my Effexor XR and counseling. Within three sessions my counselor said, “has anyone ever told you you may be Bipolar?”. I laughed and told her about my self-diagnosis. She didn’t dismiss me and I felt vindicated.
At this point Topamax was added to my drug regimen. It didn’t take long for the side effects of Topamax to kick in. Topamax made me incredibly violent. As in, someone cut me off in traffic and I followed them for ten miles before realizing what I was doing and going home. I immediately called and told them, they said stop taking the Topamax immediately. I did and I felt far less violent.
Trileptal was the next mood stabilizer that was tried and it was pretty successful. A few months later Wellbutrin was thrown in to counter the side effects of the first two meds. Bad idea. Wellbutrin nearly killed me. My blood pressure was in “stroke range”. The whole time I just thought I’d been super tired. Everything exhausted me because my body was working so hard. Before this my blood pressure had always been a low normal – pretty good for a fat person. This is why, if you’re medicated, you need to make sure you’re checking in with your provider to make sure you’re ok. I immediately stopped Wellbutrin and had to monitor my blood pressure for a couple of weeks and within a week it was back within a normal range.
I continued the Effexor XR/Tripleptal combo until April 15, 2007.
Here’s the thing about medication. Some people need it and must be on it. I was like that for those first few years. Somewhere along the way the meds stopped working, or perhaps worked too well. I became a zombie. I couldn’t leave my house, much less work, I gained considerable weight, I didn’t have feelings or emotions, and I was quickly spiraling down into something very bad. Around January of February of 2007 I started realizing it and began slowly weening myself off of the meds. I’d see how long I could go before the withdrawals were too much to bear, then I’d take another pill. It started as just over 24 hours, then two days, then a few more, until I was able to safely (in my opinion) stop taking them. The last few were on very bad days where I thought I needed extra help.
Within two weeks of stopping meds I was taking the necessary steps to get myself back into college and I had a job. It was a minimum wage, food service job, but considering I hadn’t worked in a few years, I was very pleased.
I’d like to say that was the last time I took medication for my Bipolar, but in 2009 I was having a tough time and sought out some counseling help at school. Of course, all they wanted to do was medicate me, even though I made it clear I wanted no medication. I tried something or other that started with a C took it for about a month and wanted no more of that. All it did was make me incredibly manic for the initial 3-5 days of taking it. Sometimes when I’m manic it’s productive – I don’t sleep and I can get things done. I also start about a billion new projects that never are completed – but at the time I was a full-time student and was working full-time and I just didn’t have time to not sleep!
Aside from that digression I’ve been prescription meds free for nearly six years. Note the *prescription* part of that.
I’ve learned a lot about myself, my disease, and the relationship between us in the last decade. This is a topic I plan to delve deeper into in future posts.
…to be continued
Nomadic Head 