Bipolar - what next?

[KurtCobainLover]

Hi, I've posted before about my bipolar and struggling with symptoms. I'm currently under the car of the mental health team again and have a call with my key worker tomorrow but not really sure what they can offer me.

I've been really down recently with intrusive thoughts of something happening to my children of being referred to social services. My anxiety is through the roof.

They tried giving me an antidepressant but that just made me high so I had to come off straight away which gave me awful withdrawals. I've been on other antidepressants before and they always send me high.

I'm just not sure where to go from here. I feel like I've tried all the medications and there's nowhere else to go (currently on 30mg aripiprazole, 250mg lamotragine and 800mg lithium). My key worker has mentioned psychological therapy but I've had lots of therapy in the past so not sure if it will help or not (plus I'm sure it has long waitlists).

I also have a review with the psychiatrist in 3 weeks and he always asks me what I want to try but this time I have no ideas.

Not great. I went to work and just felt out of place which made me worse. I spoke to my boss who was lovely and said he’s happy for me to be away for two weeks but to think about if the routine will help me - even if I spend a lot of time doing nothing which I think will make me worse.

i spoke to my key worker this morning and she is going to discuss me in the team meeting this afternoon and get back to me. She said they decide to put me on step up where someone calls me every evening to check on me but I’m not sure - she is going to call me in the morning and let me know.

i feel like I’m losing everything again.

It’s so hard. My consultant told me to remember it is episodic - so the bad times will get better. It doesn’t feel like it will some days though. I’ve just had my lithium upped to hopefully get me up out of the moderate depression I have. They’ve told me I will take a month or two to tell though. The melatonin which is new has helped as I can sleep again.

If you can go to work ok, I do see why you’d find the routine useful. I hope you get some good sleep tonight.

I can see you are having a very bad time.

Lots of people have given good in depth advice. I can't see in any post the one thing I did that was a bit of a game changer I became teetotal not even a sip of anything ever. I had one slip up when people bought me drinks on my Birthday, it was only 2 drinks, felt great and went a bit manic then I went in to an awful depressive spiralling episode and then of course what goes down must come up again.

What really helped me was stopping working in my quite well paid but stressful job obviously that was only possible because DH took up the slack when my income halved. Also the kids leaving home when grown up as much as I adore them the noise levels in the house dropped and it was really helpful.

On possibly an odd note I give my illness a name hence my name on here. I have my Mrs Rochester in the attic moments where I’m crackers and a bit out of control. I try to reason with the mad side of me and attempt to talk like a concerned sensible adult would, telling her it will pass.

All the best, when unwell it’s a lonely place.