Posted by wendy b. on January 28, 2002, at 23:26:38
In reply to ahhhhhhhhhhh, posted by sar on January 23, 2002, at 16:26:19
Hi Sar,
Glad you found the library computers with internet access! I have been pretty much in absentia these days, not because my depression or hypomania have flared up, but because I felt I was spending too much time online, and not really living. Also, my daughter has been sick several times this month, and she has also then given me every virus known to (wo)man. Third, I have been caught in family court stuff (daughter didn't want to visit her dad for quite a while after X-mas), which has made me worried and anxious, my ex can be a real bastard sometimes. Fourth, because I have met a few men online thru a reputable dating service, and I write to them via e-mail a lot. Cool thing is, out of 4 dates, 2 have been very nice. They both want to see me, and I want to see them, again. So within the context of all that, I have been lurking, but not writing much at all.
I'm so glad to hear about what has been happening with you, though I am sorry about the hospital. I have a few suggestions: knowing your backstory as I do, the meds were working fine, you maybe needed to be on less neurontin if it was making you sleepy. And then the uninformed doctor wouldn't write you a scrip for it anymore... It WAS making you feel better, your moods needed regulating. And weren't you trying lamictal, toward the end? Maybe that was the sleepy drug, and should have been discontinued. You wrote many times when on prozac and neurontin how great you were feeling on the meds, and I think you were. You have to be true to your own experience, and not forget about it cuz it's not happening to you right now.
The meds issue is semi-malpractice stuff. They took you off all meds? Can't even believe it... Like someone else said, in a STATE hospital, no less, where drugging people up is the norm (or at least in the popular mind it is). You know and I know you need both meds and therapy. It would probably help if you could attend a group, too. People like us try to convince ourselves every once in a while that the meds are causing all the problems, and we want to just punt them. But that's just an excuse. We blame the meds, and in some cases, it is warranted. And we have to cut back or try other things. Yeah, it's a bitch. But try to get a handle on this: once you find a doctor who knows how to treat you, you will probably be on meds for the rest of your life. And there is really nothing wrong with that. The moralizers who decree with their judgmental attitudes that it's bad, or wrong, or that we're all becomeing a society of drugged-up sleepwalkers are the ones who are wrong. And you are not one of them...
I think you have been treated by a lot of people who were not exactly at the cutting edge of their respective fields. (Joke: What do they call the guy who graduates at the very bottom of his class in med school? Answer: "Doctor." ! ) This is not to demean the docs or therapists who work in the clinics you've been to, but it has been kind of a wasteland for you in terms of getting treatment. I don't think you have had the excellent health-care that you (and everyone else) deserve. I think in Austin there MUST be some excellent clinics at the hospital associated with the university, and probably a good selection of group therapy things, too. Ask around.
Please, don't get hung up on the diagnosis thing again. We've been over this one too, ya know... Abusive parents and the trust issues are biggies for you, that's why you always present well, and you write such funny posts, and you have this 'persona' you feel you need to keep up. You can recognize it in Mair, but not in yourself. For whose benefit are you keeping up the facade? Who are these people who want you to be so wonderfully entertaining? Who are you protecting by keeping up appearances (until you freak out and try suicide again)? A lot of this has to do with your family. Remember in the fall when your brother and your mother beat you up? Of course you do, I know, but when and how you finally come to grips with the horrors of your childhood, will determine how easy your climb out of the tunnel will be. There is a wonderful heart inside you there, that has been beaten down again and again. And it will take many, many years to undo what they have wrought upon you. And you cannot do it alone. And you cannot, I firmly believe, do it without meds.
The state hospital staff and their flippant suggestion that maybe you are just a "thrill-seeker," are out of some surreal B-movie. Please undestand that thrill-seeking is a symptom of bipolar disorder, and you do have all of those tendencies, along with the co-morbid alcohol abuse. You have real episodes of hypomania, and then you drink to bring yourself down. But it's well-known that it does just the opposite. You may have BPD too, I'm no expert. But anti-depressants and mood-stabilizers did help you. The only thing was, you were drinking on the neurontin, and that's a real no-no. When are you going to face that big one? And go thru a detox program? Why is no one looking for a bed for you in one of them? You gotta face that one, cuz you'll never gain the benefit of the mood-stabilizers as long as you are drinking. Brutally honest, my very dear friend, but true...
Anybody else (Kat, Mouse, Dinah, Mair, Kristi) want to comment? maybe I'm not seeing something that you guys can. I want so much for this chick to get well, I can't stand it. Sar, I cried when I read that you'd swallowed all those pills and had to be hospitalized. But then I realized that my wanting you to get well has nothing to do with the reality of the situation, you have to want it, too... Throwing someone a life-raft won't do any good if they don't reach out and grab it. I hope someday you can grab the raft that we all are throwing...
with much love,
Wendy
> hello!
>
> i've missed y'all; i've finally discovered a library near my new home that offers free internet access, so i'll finally be able to catch up here (somewhat). & they did confiscate my coffee...
>
> i was doing all right, and then something fell on me; the pressures of everyday life, i guess: no money, no car, not wanting to strip, not knowing what to do, running out of medication, paying cab drivers through the nose because the bus schedule looks like ancient chinese algebra. and so took to sleeping all day, waking up only to cry, eat a little, try to write...
>
> then got drunk and swallowed nearly every pill in my possession, immediately freaked out and called 911, and then, THEN, i drank liquid charcoal given to me in the emergency room, and 2 days later was involuntarily committed to the state hospital, where i spent 6 days and was taken off all medication.
>
> since April 2001, i have been put on 1) prozac, then 2) klonopin, then 3) neurontin, then 4) lamictal. at one time, i was taking all 4 of these drugs. at the state hospital, they asked if i felt that i'd been overmedicated. a new perspective! i said that perhaps i had been, the bipolar stuff was all up in the air anyway, and a nurse suggested that my crazy actions were that of a thrill seeker (made that way because of longterm childhood abuse) rather than a manic-depressive.
>
> hmmmm!
>
> i'm going through withdrawal right now; my legs twitch and my anxiety has returned, but i feel as if--i feel more normal somehow, i can't explain it; perhaps the medication softened me too much, softened me into bed and spending too much, shoplifting without worrying, only wanting to sleep, not caring what i ate.
>
> i'm baffled; i must get re-evaluated and start seeing a new pdoc the 28th; give the history again, all of it, 3 attempts and family history and symptoms and blah blah blah, and then he will make some sort of decision and put me on some whack drug based on 30 minutes of talking with me, and it's all really crazy, AAAAHHH!!! ha ha ha, mmm.....i hope yall are farin better than moi, i'd like to know your opinion. in the hospital, without computers books etc i began to wonder if i'd gotten too involved in the world of psychology: do i have too much surface knowledge, like the first-year med student who diagnoses himself with every disease she reads about? depressed, anxious, borderline, bipolar, give me all of these drugs, doctor! every drug i was prescribed i suggested myself, i knew that i wanted prozac not celexa, neurontin not depakote...and at the state hospital they suggested thatr perhaps i need nothing but therapy.
>
> hmm indeed.....
>
> this is all weird!
>
> ah.
>
> love,
> sar
poster:wendy b.
thread:17120
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020125/msgs/17433.html