I know you guys aren't doctors, but I know there are some smart people here and people who have worked with psychiatric services and I’m trying to work out if something is normal.
So, I’m diagnosed bipolar, and on medication (lamotrigine and aripiprazole) and have a history of hospitalization, but have been stable for the last 3-4 years. Used to be diagnosed as type one, now type two (because I’ve not had a manic episode in a number of years). I’m on medication and apparently stable. I’ve been going through some stuff lately (parents in law hitting end of life stage, work stress, wedding planning stress, money stress) and it’s felt like it’s getting to me so my fiancé kicked me into talking to my CPN today.
I went in and explained that I’d not been sleeping properly lately, that since Thursday I’d been tearful most days, and that on Thursday and Sunday I’d been actively suicidal and making plans to die, including one day on which I acquired the method I was thinking of using (it was an inept plan, in retrospect, but that isn’t the point). I said I felt exhausted and drained and I just wanted to be dead so I could rest, and I felt so very alone. I also said I’d self-harmed for the first time in four years. I also showed her my mood tracker in my diary and how many days I was on a 1 or 2 (I track my moods from 1-10, with 1 being suicidal and 10 being ecstatic).
She said “well, that’s normal. You’ve got a lot on. You should try more exercise” and “what’s the point of that mood tracker? How can you track your own moods? You won’t be objective” and pretty much sent me on my way, with this vague sense that I was being whingy and a bit melodramatic. She didn't make another appointment to see me either, so apparently I'm not seeing her again unless I chase, although I'm still seeing my pdoc every four months. I don’t know if maybe I was just coming across as stable (I was freshly showered, with make up and nice work clothes) or it was the very neatly set up bullet journal with stickers and notes, and maybe that does mean I’m OK – her normal line is that if I think I might be unwell, I’m not. But it feels a bit too me as if I’m caught in a catch 22, as either way (either I’m too mad to know I need help, or if I know I need help, I’m not mad enough to get it) I get no support.
She’s done this before – in August I had a bit of a wobble where I decided that I was getting messages from Disney songs and just needed to run until I turned into sky – where she said if I could recognize those were odd thoughts then I wasn’t actually unwell – and I’m beginning to wonder if she thinks there is anything wrong with me. Which is OK, if there is nothing wrong with me, but surely none of this is totally normal? Or is it? Am I just being melodramatic?
And if it’s not normal, who am I meant to talk to? What am I meant to do? Is there any kind of alternative support structure away from a CPN that isn’t ‘whinging to my friends’? Or should I just get on with it (not the suicide, the gluing myself back together)?
Any advice very gratefully received.