Bipolar Cocktail

Do any of you guys with bipolar get sick a lot? I get colds, viruses, and infections all the time! I spend tons of time taking antibiotics, pain pills, decongestants, more pain pills :) HAHA, - meds. for stress. Everyone is always saying, "Are you seriously sick again?" I get respiratory infections constantly, ear infections and some times I just feel like shit and can't stay awake for four or five days. Stress is a million times worst for me and if anyone even sniffles around me, I catch a cold that willl last them two days and make two weeks. I even ended up sick for a month with pneumonia. I have always known that I get sick because of all the mental issues I have and all the meds. that I have taken. Finally, some researchers did some research and found that bipolar disorder doubles the risk for early death from things like strokes, diabetes, heart and also respiratory diseases. Isn't that just crazy. We're bipolar so everything is twice as bad on us then it is for so-called "normal" people. I really think that shit sucks, but I knew it, I was for sure that is why I spend half of my life sick as shit.

I FINALLY got into these DBT (Dialectic Behavioral Training) classes that everyone has said are going to be the best thing for me. It's a two hour class and it is the most boring class I have ever taken. Even the notary public class I took was more interesting than DBT. You basically just talk about these skills, like how not to let your anger get the best of you, how to say No with out stomping the shit out of somebody, how to be assertive, not bitchy. I'm hoping it'll get better. I'm not going to quit, I figure I'll give it a few more classes to see if it gets better. If not, I'm gonna try to switch to a different class that my therapist teaches. I just don't fell like I have anything in common with the people in this class. There was only two of them but - supposably there is three other people that didn't show up. This class is suppose to be for people with borderline personality disorder, but if I'm borderline then why were they so different from me? Maybe it's cause of all the other stuff I have but I don't know. There are three main sections of this training: mindful awareness, distress tolerance, and acceptance. I'm not even sure which section we're suppose to be working on because we talked about all three of them. Now, I was told by my therapist that you can spend years in these classes but the guy teaching it said that it takes about a year to finish all three sections. They then say that you can just take it all over again! WHAT! Why the hell would I finish this year long class and then take it all over again? I'm not sure that I'm all that happy about this.

Because, after telling my doctor that I can't take Abilify, he decided I should try again! It gives me super madd crazy akethisia! Akathisia, or acathisia, is a syndrome characterized by unpleasant sensations of "inner" restlessness that manifests itself with an inability to sit still or remain motionless. It may range in intensity from a mild sense of disquiet or anxiety (which may be easily overlooked) to a total inability to sit still, accompanied by overwhelming anxiety, malaise, and severe dysphoria (manifesting as an almost indescribable sense of terror and doom). I hate this feeling! I've paced all over my house all day long, went to my mamas house three times, and cleaned my house AGAIN! It's like restless leg syndrome over your whole entire body and it seriously hurts if you stay still. It's hard to go to sleep, especially when it has me all paranoid and scared and I've been seeing and hearing things too. Tomorrow I'm going to try to get an appointment with my doctor AGAIN. Oh, I almost forgot, my eyes are so blurry I can't see shit. I had to go to the drug store and buy a pair of glasses. I start DBT classes on Tuesday so hopefully I'll feel better by then if I quit taking the Abilify. I went to bed but I kept seeing stuff so I decided to get the hell out of there and came into the living room where I could turn all of the lights on and watch TV. I'm goingto try to go back to sleep now, but I'll write again very soon. Oh, I forgot about my theory I came up with a few days ago. I'll tell you guys that tommorrow.

Okay, so I know that it has been a while since I posted anything but I've been crazy, madd sick for the past few weeks with this terrible flu bug that is going around. I'm still a little sick now but I feel a lot better than I did for the past two weeks. So don't think that I've quit the blog, I'm just trying to get over being sick. I did make myself get up and go to see my psychiatrist on Monday. I called in sick for my therapy appointment for the past two weeks cause I didn't think I could handle sitting there and talking for an hour - plus I had to get my new meds. See, I saw him two weeks ago, right before I got so sick, and we decided to taper me off the Zyprexa and then have me come back to see how I was doing and to start a new med. to replace the Zyprexa. He gave me Haldol (an antipsychotic drug) instead and I have to take Cogentine ( used to control movement side effects of antipsychotic drugs) with it because I usually get Akathisia (a feeling of "inner restlessness", a constant urge to be moving) from those types of meds. They just help to calm my mind down so I can chill out a little bit instead of freaking out over crazy stuff that I'm thinking about all the time. So far, I've been pretty restless. I've been wandering around looking for stuff to do but I'm still getting over the flu so it sucks because I really feel like I should just lay down and rest but at the same time I feel like I should be doing something. I was on Abilify a while back, it's also an antipsychotic, and the akathisia was so bad that I couldn't even sit down for more than two minutes! It was crazy, I would stay up all night long cleaning and organizing then I exercise for a few hours, then rearange my furniture, pace around my house, go for long walks - it was ridiculous! It took about a week for it to wear off after my doctor told me to stop taking it. If it gets much worse than it is now I'm gonna call him and stop taking it. We talked about possibly adding Valium to the mix BUT, that's a benzo and we all know that I don't do well with those types of drugs so I don't really know if we're gonna go that route or not. The last time I took benzos, my stupid ass doctor gave ME a prescription for Klonipin, after I told him twice I could not take them. He told me not to worry about it. I came home with my prescription, took a few, decided it would work better if I added a few "vodka an Kool-Aids" to the mix, then decided I should take a few more, then decided that a couple of cuts on my arm wouldn't do any harm. (Yes, I occasionally am also a "cutter" as they call us in the mental hospitals around here) I cut up both of my arms and then moved on to my legs. I'm covered in scars, big and little. I was home by myself and I called my husband (don't remember any of this) but he said I told him I hurt myself. He had to break down the door cause I had looked myself in the bathroom. He immediately called an ambulance and I was rushed to the hospital. I ended up with over 50 or 60 stitches, had my stomach pumped because I ended up taking all of the Klonipin and then I ended up in a mental hospital for about two weeks I think. Apparently through all of this I decided that I needed some lotion so I had smeard the blood and lotion all over myself, including my face. My brother, who came to help my husband, said it looked like something straight out of a horror movie. He said I was laying on the bathroom floor, covered in blood from head to toe, with a knife in each hand. I felt terrible the next day but I really didn't know what was going on at the time. That's why I get so scared whenever doctors start talking about trying something new or trying something that didn't work the first time I tried it. I go back to see my psychiatrist in another two weeks so I guess I'll just wait and see what he has to say then. He told me he wanted to talk to my therapist and see what see thinks about everything.

So I thought that I would make a post today because it was an angry day for me. Nobody did anything and nothing happened but I've been madd angry all day. I hate it that my pills are all wrong. The adderall he has me on isn't doing anything so I'm all over the place and can't decide what to do or when to do it and I'm not taking anything for anxiety and he didn't want to give me any benzos so I have nothing to cal me down and chill me out! My appointment isn't until three weeks from now so I will be calling tomorrow to reschedule my appointment to as soon as possible. I hope I can get in there soon like, oh I don't know, TOMORROW. Hoe does he expect me to last a whole month like this - NO WAY - I can't do it. I'm gonna end up smashing my head through the wall or breaking everything. The last time I couldn't take it any more I smashed my favorite perfume straight through the bottom of my porcelin sink in my bathroom and I broke all four of the lights hanging on the wall and I destroyed madd bottles of lotion, makeup, perfume, deodorant, my radio and my vanity bench. I can't afford to keep having these bad days, I need to have some good days. Not that I do have good days, I have great days but it just seems like when I have these bad days like this they just seem to take over at night. Like, I'm ill and angry but I can keep it together for Chase but then after he goes to bed I just can't fight it, I guess it's like holding it in all day for him it just has to come out by the end of the day. I really, really wish my therapist would hurry up and get me into the DBT classes but every week she gives me another reason why I can't start them yet. Supposably I will learn how to deal with the rage and anger in these classes. I will definetly benefit from learning how to deal with days like this and being pissed off, madd and angry for no apparent reason. I'm sure that tomorrow will be fine cause thats how it works, just one or two random suck ass days each week and the rest are fine. I'm sure other people have bad days too but I don't believe they have the anger that I have. I like that I have made this blog so that I can get things off my chest and have a place to just talk about me and my issues and get thinks out. My other blog, 'Manda Blogs About..., is great too because it keeps me busy during the day and it is good for me because I make all the images and links and I get that instant gratification that I need and it fulfills my need to create and make things and it provides a way to meet my new to constantly have new things and needing to shop because I'm doing product reviews so people send me stuff to test out and then I write about it. I kinda wish that I would have thought about starting a blog a lot sooner. I think that I'm just gonna go to bad and sleep out the bad day. This is how I usually deal with it - it's better than breaking stuff. I'll sleep it off and try again tomorrow for a better day.

So, I had an appointment with my therapist this morning at 10 o'clock. I got up at 7:30. I usually get up at 8 o'clock and have just enough time to get Chase ready and off to school. An extra thirty minutes is not a good thing for me. I freaked out and didn't know what to do. I cleaned but I've been keeping the house completely spotless so there really wasn't anything to do. I had already gotten dressed for my appointment, I mean it takes me all of two seconds to throw on some sweat pants and a t-shirt (the usual attire). I was seriously freaking out so I decided to go to my moms house. (Yes, we're neighbors and my brother in law lives across the street)


When  it was finally time to take Chase to school it still left me another thirty minutes with nothing to do because I didn't have to leave until 9:30 to see my therapist. I got on the computer and wrote which calmed me down like it usually does but I hate to start something and have to leave before I finish it. I havn't been doing so well since the doctor changed my adderall last week and took me off the buspar. He put me on 10mg of adderall twice a day instead of 30mg once a day. I think it was a really bad idea cause I've been such a wreck ever since a few days after that appt. I'm dealing with the counting and the numbers running through my head over and over again and millions of different thoughts and ideas all hitting me at once. It's very difficult not to flip the fuck out when there is 20 bazillion things running through your head all at one time and none of those things is what you want to do or what you are drying to get done. So many times during my day I just want to scream, and kick, and break stuff, and bash my fist through the wall and kick shit and break everything in my house! It gets so frustrating and it makes me so very angry! I have to stop and count to ten but then I'm, already constantly counting in my head and I stop and close my eyes and take deep breathes and I just see numbers and colors and shapes and sqiggles. It really sucks! Today is just a really, really, madd shitty day for me.

I spent my appointment talking about how I do not like being treated like a child by my parents and my husband and how I need to make more decisions and stop asking for their opinions or taking their opinions when I do not ask for them. She said I need to talk to myself more often. How awesome is that - my therapist is encouraging me to be a nutcase. I need to remind myself that I make my decisions and everybody else can just shut their mouths and deal with it. I'm so bipolar, you know? It's either I'm super bitch, and I'm telling you that this is what's going down or I'm , oh, okay, yes, let's do it your way. I need some balance! Anyway, we also talked about how badly I want to go back to school and how I should just do it and stop making excuses and worrying so much.

I think that tomorrow I'm gonna do some research and figure out the school thing. That's my plan anyway.