Diary of a Bipolar

Thanks to all of you who left comments on the previous post. :)

The day after I stayed up all night I went to bed at 9 pm and woke up at 6:30 am as normal. Then that night I stayed up till 2 am and got up for work at 7 am. I was fine on Friday, so both times I didn't get the normal sleep it didn't affect me much at all.

It seems like every time I get manic, I feel good for a few days, then my body crashes. Yesterday I felt like utter crap. I went to bed Friday around 11 and woke up around 10, got up, made breakfast, and went to school from 2-6. (I will graduate in December with an AAS as a paralegal! Yay!). After school I went to my girlfriend's house till 8:30 or so. I went to bed around 11 and woke up at 9 and I was still tired. I vegetated for a while, made breakfast, ate, and went back to bed around 11 and slept until 2:30 when my daughter woke me up and I had a hell of a time waking up. It was my boyfriend's birthday and I was making dinner for his whole family and let me tell you, I did NOT feel like it. I felt slightly nauseaus and had that jittery anxiety thing going on. I felt nervous for no particular reason. I felt a little better when I was making dinner and throughout, then when I got home around 9 I read for a little while and was tired again by 9:30. I had a hell of a time waking up again around 7:15 and it's now a little past 8:30 and I'm at work and still tired.

For the last week I have done way too much shopping. I haven't paid my health insurance or car insurance which were both due on the 1st. I justified it by knowing that I get social security for my daughter (her dad is dead) this Wednesday and I could pay them by then. This is true, but I still shouldn't have spent all the money I did.

I am currently on Lamictal, 300 mg in the morning and 150 mg at night. It controls my rages WONDERFULLY but obviously it doesn't control the (hypo)mania. I put the hypo in parenthesis because I really don't know how to tell the difference between the two. I am also on a low dose of Zoloft, but I have never had a big problem with depression anyway.

About a year and a half ago I was put on Risperdal and it made me gain like 30 lbs in a month so I went off of it with the psych's permission. I haven't lost that weight and it's a problem because I was overweight to begin with. I've gained 100 lbs since high school - yikes! And I am nearly 50lb heavier than the day I delivered my daughter. He then put me on Geodon but I had a bad reaction to it (think drinking like 10 cups of coffee in an hour) and Abilify which made me nauseaus, so then I was just on the Lamictal. For quite a while I was fine, then started getting manic again and he increased my Lamictal about a month and a half ago, and now I'm not doing so hot. However, the binge eating has essentially stopped. But on the other hand, I've still got song snippets in my head CONSTANTLY.

I still have some Risperdal and the dr. had told me before that if I felt manic I could take it as needed. I like having all the extra energy so I didn't take it until last night when I felt crappy. I've got to stop doing that, because that day of feeling crappy just sucks! I am afraid of going on the Risperdal on a regular basis again because of the weight gain. He was thinking about putting me on Lithium, but decided not to because in the next year or so I plan to get pregnant.

I feel OK today except for being tired. Hopefully I'll be stable again for a good while.

I wonder if it's possible to actually create a manic state?

The other day I stumbled across Ancestry.com and it quickly became an obsession to go as far back as I can with my family tree. That night I chose to stay up late to keep working on it, but in my obsessive frenzy, I never went to sleep! I didn't feel tired at all until about 3 pm the next day. Before I got tired, I was kind of wired up.

Now any other time if I try to stay up late I get tired and fall asleep. But I fully admit I was hyperfocusing on this and obsessed with it.

What do you think?

I haven't taken the Risperdal except that once, but I have increased the Lamictal. I haven't been a bitch, thank God. lol

The freaking song snippets are still playing their endless loop...

I have to admit that in the last week or so I have gone crazy shopping. I didn't realize it till I did a report on Quickbooks to show "expenditures by category." I spent almost $75 on books from half.com and amazon!!! Some for my daughter - she's 11 and they are on the theme of modesty etc. because she wants to dress older than she is. Some for me - mostly bipolar related. lol I don't know why - I've read so many books and internet articles it's crazy.

I've also spent ridiculous amounts of money on groceries that we didn't really have to have, when I should have spent that money to pay my cell phone bill. Oops.

So much for doing so well. I thought that the irritability was a one-day thing, but the last few days I have been sooo irritable I am driving Walter (my boyfriend) and Corinne (my daughter) crazy. Dumb ass things are pissing me off. I snap, but don't fly off the handle, and go off by myself when that happens.

I have not had any more impulses to go off driving or drink or cause damage, thank God. I think a big part of being able to keep that in control is the fact that I got a DWI a little more than a year ago!

I called the dr. and he increased the Lamictal and asked if I still have some Risperdal around, which I do. He said I can take those PRN (as needed) when I'm feeling manic.

Yesterday I was a BITCH. I make dinner over Walter's mom's house on Sundays, and I took the Risperdal around 3 or 4 before we went over. Halfway through dinner I got tired, and after we ate, I laid down and slept for a few hours. When I woke up we went home, and by then I felt like utter crap. I just felt drained of all energy, and I went right back to sleep. I woke up this morning around 4 am to go to the bathroom and stayed up. I had been sleeping since 6:30 the night before! I played around on the internet a bit and did some housework, then came to work. I've been here for 6 hours now and haven't gotten very much done. My attention keeps flitting to other things. Obviously I will take the Risperdal tonight when I'm ready for bed!

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I have been taking the meds like I am supposed to and overall am doing well. The one thing that won't go away is what is called "racing thoughts" - where I CONSTANTLY have a snippet of a song or conversation or something running through my head on a never ending loop. I HATE that. Sometimes I have to figure out where it came from. Earlier it was a song that I don't like. It was on the PA system at Walmart, though I hadn't consciously paid attention to it. The binge eating comes and goes. If I miss just a few doses of the Lamictal I get VERY cranky. The other night I got pissy from some minor things and I wanted to go out and drive aimlessly like a maniac (I chose not to because I had to get up for work the next day), drink alcohol (I didn't because my daughter was home), and throw things around and cause damage (I didn't to avoid pissing off Walter). I slept on the couch because I knew I was going to start a fight over some really dumb shit so I just forced myself to stay in the living room alone. The next day Walter asked me what was wrong (I was 'normal' again by then) and I told him and that was the end of it. So at least I'm able to control it. That's good, right?