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.