I wish my mood would make up its fecking mind.

[babyheaves]

RAAAAAAH just RAAAAAAAHHH

Sodding rapid cycling bollocks unstable bloody crappy mood bollocks.

Last two days bloody happy as larry. Got out and about, felt fab, actually made an effort not to look like a shambling mound. This lasted until approximately 3 hours ago when my mood took a monumental dive into crappyness and I'm back to feeling sodding suicidal again. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not at the stage where I would DO anything about it, but fuck me this is annoying.

I am having a medical review tomorrow and the psych is just going to have to sort this out so I don't wind up going utterly bonkers again. I would like the mood stabilisers to do what it say on the sodding tin thankyouverymuch.

I giggled at 'shambling mound.' I have had lots of Shambling Mound Days! I get most (though by no means all) of my mood swings in the week before my period. Literally laughing one minute, then furiously angry or utterly dejected the next. Prozac has helped, but took it's time to...
Some more useful people will be along in a minute...

Sadly, prozac makes me go manic, mores the pity as I could do with a bit of manic right now.

It just scares me that I can flip from feeling great to feeling awful within the space of an hour. It almost makes me yearn to be back in the hospital where I had a cast of many to watch out and help me when I go down. Nicer and more comfortable though it is at home, its more stressful when the down or mixed mood happens as I'm fully responsible for myself.

Bah. Damn you brain. :(

Hope you can get this sorted tomorrow.

At least you recognise the moods for what they are and can externalise them.

I've got the med review bought forward for review after having this kind of convo with the CT. "waaaaah waaaah wahhhh eeekk". I think they got a handle on how hard I'm finding this.

I think the best thing for me will be to get my arse off the sofa, out of my PJs into clothes and get myself out of the door and into the real world so I stop just hanging out in virtual life feeling shit. There's a support group this afternoon and I may well go.

*not brought forward for review. Brought forward to later this afternoon.

Hello babyheaves. I'm bipolar and have rapid cycling (sometimes ultra ultra rapid cycling) but have been "stable" for a while - lots of mild hypomanias :) on lamictal. What medication are you on? And what's the dosage?

I'm on 600-650mg quetiapine and 100mg lamotrigine, but the quetiapine should be reduced at some point when the other one is more established at settling my mood. I've only been out of hospital for a week and a bit so its early days.

are you writing all of this down? Keep a diary - one, it gives you something to do and two, there may be other factors that are influencing the drops.

Don't give up Babyheaves- I'm on lamotrigine (the generic name for Lamictal), and I found that 100mg twice a day just wasn't enough. My psych upped it to 150mg twice a day, and it has indeed done what it says on the tin, as you put it. I do still cycle a bit, especially around the time if my period, but the mood swings are mild; pretty vanilla really in the scheme of things. Certainly people who don't know I have bipolar wouldn't realise what's going on; I just appear to be in a really good mood! The depression is more cope-able with too. Fingers crossed things get better for you!

I'm at the mo.

The medical review went..

"have you been taking everything exactly as prescribed"

"mostly"

"that needs to be a yes"

Anyway, in the end I'll be on 200mg lamotrigine and then once that's settled they'll look to reduce the quetiapine, but until then, I have to take it all

I didn't really realise it until recently, but in recent years my 'world' ie. the places that I go, the people I see or meet, activities and so, have shrunk and shrunk and shrunk to these four walls, because of my depression and anxiety. I ended up in a really dark place, only able to reach out through my laptop.
These things worked for me, so obviously not everyones cup of tea, but I:

enrolled on a beauty therapy course, so 1 day a week I was forced to talk to people and be in a student / work environment, I was forced to used me old brain, I learnt a marketable skill and got a qualification, and yes, it wasn't easy to do the work (actually it was bloody hard) but it gave me a fantastic confidence boost

I learnt to meditate, which, and I don't have a clue how it works, has made me happier. I have a higher 'baseline' happy mood now. 10mins a day, quick results, made me feel so much better. I do it to a guided meditation CD.

I learnt that people really did like me, and I didn't have to push them away, but I did have to 'work' at friendships. I think that escaped me in previous years...

I found it easier to face the world wearing make-up and with Good Hair.

A job will help. Doesn't really matter what it is. As long as it's not working in an abbattoir or something, I think that would be fairly soul destroying...

Thanks for replying StandYourGround. I can empathise with the whole 'withdrawing' thing and its been picked up by the CT as important to do things that will get me out of the house.

I'm lucky that I do have FT perm employment to go back to and I've set myself the target of making it back in by September, even if on a gradual return. I'll then have to work out whether I will be able to keep it up full time or if I need to downsize and look elsewhere, which would be a blow as I actually quite like what I do, most of the time.

I do wish my mood will stabilise though, even though the psych yesterday said it could take months, I am incredibly impatient. I hate the fact that I've gone from being described as "competent", "confident", "well organised", to that of "vunerable adult". Its like the severity of the illness this time has made me lose a bit of myself and I really want it back.

I also wish that the side effects of my meds were "weight loss" and "loss of appetite" as I could eat the whole side of a cow and follow it up with the contents of a sweetie ship chaser.