Hmmm
August 25, 2009 7:28pm
Came across a notbook that I'd requested while in a psych hospital in Sydney 8 months ago. I found a lot of plans, especially an exit plan, from …
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npetersen77
1:39am, August 22, 2009
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About Me
npetersen77
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About Me
Bipolar and learning to embrace it to try and have it work for me instead of against me. Australian born, Egyptian parents and have spent the last 10 years in the States. I would like to give and receive support from those, like myself, that have trouble sticking with the meds. My story (on lower right) is long but may be helpful to some.
Bipolar and learning to embrace it to try and have it work for me instead of against me. Australian born, Egyptian parents and have spent the last 10 years in the States. I would like to give and receive support from those, like myself, that have trouble sticking with the meds. My story (on lower right) is long but may be helpful to some.
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Interests
Worrying is a waste of energy that can be spent elsewhere. Yes we need to plan and minimise error however, as humans we persevere and deal with whatever life throws at us. Planned or unplanned. Smile
Worrying is a waste of energy that can be spent elsewhere. Yes we need to plan and minimise error however,
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Journal
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I made it!!!
August 22, 2009 1:37am
Trip was amazing and just eye opening. It was like I was being tested at every corner. sitting in middle seats total of 19 hours flying.Massive …
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Aaaaaaaghhh!!!
August 13, 2009 6:35pm
I'm holding it together and I don't know how. I needed this, huge eye opener but huge pressure and I'm reminding myself to stay calm and …
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Hugbook
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I wish to engage with you in chat, will you grant me my wish?
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Celebration
Welcome back darling, I have missed you also. I just made a comment on your comment re. my latest journal piece, take a peek when you get a chance to.
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I look forward to learning more about you... and sharing ...
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Everything is going pretty good for now. Just hanging with the kids and playing WOW. Still waiting for my disability hearing.....over a year and a half now . but other then that it's all good. Nice to talk to you again!!!
Thanks
:^)
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Goals
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Support Groups
Close Bipolar Disorder
I have Bipolar and I am learning to embrace it. I beleive that since this condition is very volatile, a lot of control and self awareness is necessary in order to minimise the negatives of the condition but also maximise the benefits, because let's face it, we can be pretty creative, intellegent, unuique people. HOWEVER if the mania gets out of control, then those great ideas can be overshadowed by irrationality and some VERY bad decisions. My older brother and sister have also been diagnosed with the same condition, so it seems it runs through our family. I have always battled with the ups and downs, mostly the downs, and was very discontent with my life trying to fit in and be "normal". I couldn't justify life and what it is all about, and I still struggle with that occasionaly. Two years ago, marked by my 30th birthday I had a complete and utter breakdown, which resulted in ending my marriage, losing my home and car, ruining my credit, 2 hospitalizations and pushing away and attacking those closest to me. I have been very fortunate in that I had a job with good benifits and have been on long term disability for the past 18 months and that marked the beginning of my severe out of control roller coaster ride! First I was REALLY manic (and of course at the time I didn't see or think that) and that resulted in hospital stay number one. This manic episode lasted from about Nov 07 to March 08. I was having the time of my life and felt literally on top of the world and only in hindsight do I realise how out of control I was, and how I exposed myself to so many life altering stupid risks. April 08- August 08 everything caught up with me and I was literally helpless and if it weren't for my exceptional ex I honestly don't know what would have become of me. I have no family in the states and alienated all my friends by my behaviour the preceding months. It was decided it would be a good idea for me to go spend time with my family in Australia, and this was the lowest point of my life. I felt like a complete loser, i had crashed my life so bad and could not, at the time, see a way of rebuilding and getting back on my feet. For 3-4 months I was SO depressed I literally sat on my sisters couch the whole time, completly dysfunctional barely able to summon the will or desire to even shower. I started taking the meds (because of course when I was manic I wasn't taking the meds, who wants to come down from that!!) and with the meds came the side effects, my hair was falling out, I had bad acne etc but I didn't care, I just took what I was told to. Sep 08-Oct 08- still in Sydney and suddenly catapolted into mania which brings us to hospital stay number 2. . A mental hospital can be a very debilitating place. It's difficult to accept that you have NO and I mean NO say in how you are treated and what you can and cannot do, since it has been deemed that you are incapable of making decisions for yourself and therefore the doctors and the judge/magistrate will be making the decisions for you. I learned nothing from my first hospital stay because I was literally a wild animal, since I went there for an assesment not realizing that you can walk in but you may not walk out till they let you. For 75% of the time i was there they knocked me out ( a lot of thorazine and solitary confinment) becuase each time I woke up, I was furious and the rage of being locked up would consume me and I would knock paintings and whiteboards off the wall, try to attack the nurses (well actually one particular nurse that I viewed as very condesending and demeaning) etc. The second hospital stay however I learned A LOT from. I went there with my brother since he expressed his concern that I was manic and maybe getting out of control and I was confident that I was ok so I went with him willingly. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice...lol They kept me there and for the first 2 weeks I was heavily medicated. I was not as aggressive this time but again that sense of having no say was difficult for me to deal with and I had my moments. By the 3rd week I realised that I had to change my tune or else I'd be there for a while and i couldn't afford that since I would lose my long term disability if I were out of the States for longer than 6 months and that was my only source of income and obviously too dysfunctional to work, so I had to get out of the hospital! That's when I started figuring things out. I realised that I would have to exercise a lot of control to convince these doctors that I was better ( I was in Australia, public healthcare and so no insurance company breathing down hospitals neck to justify expenses, there were people in that hospital that had been there for months!) I realised that I would have to control my rate of speech, stick to one topic at a time, watch my body language/hand and leg movements, eye contact, everything! I had to come across as a sane rational person and there is a social accepted standard of normal that I must comply with, even if I saw things differently. A week later I was out of that hospital and week after that i was back in the states Halloween 08. I went back to living with my ex and his family, who so graciously welcomed me into their home after everything I had done to their son. It was time for me to try and get back into life. In November I bought a cheap car and realised that I was going to start making the same stupid mistakes again. I really didn't want to lose it again and take stupid risks just to have some of the excitement that I constantly crave. I realised that I am a thrill seeker and monotony makes me discontent with life and therefore frustrated, angry and therefore depressed. I decided that I need to find positive and constructive ways to channel the amazing energy I have, without "losing it" again. I was told by many psychiatrits that it is not possible to control bi polar without meds since it was such a slippery slope and so I continued to take the meds, regardless of the weight gain and the feeling just being blah. Dec 09 I realised I need an activity to stay out of trouble and voluntereed for the red cross and decided to return to college, which had neglected for past year or so. Jan 09- Mar 09. I'm still trudging a long, taking the meds when my mid term results come in with C's and D's. Now just before my meltdown I completed 2 years of college working 60-70 hours a week as a facilitator for a credit card company AND was doing a full time load at university and I was getting straight A's, deans list every semester. I was having difficulty speaking, thinking, writing... my mind was not my mind anymore. I lost the spark that makes me me and I decided to go off the meds. I consulted my psychiatrist, and I cannot stress the importance of a psychitrist that understands you and you are comfortable with! I am the first person that does not want to "lose it" anymore. I decided I was willing to put in enourmous effort to try and control and embrace my uniuqe beautiful mind without constant medication, accepting 100% that if my support group indicated changes in my behaviiour, I would go in for a sanity check and happily take the medicine to bring the mania down. I finished the semester with an A, 2 A- and a B+, considering everything I was going through (and boy was I going through a lot!) I had MY mind back. The semester ended in May 09 and I got an apartment. June 09 I flew out to get my furniture from storage in the state I used to live in, faced my demons since I left there in a hurry the last time I was there and drove a truck 17 hours back and started to unpack. I am very proud of myself for I anticipated, allowed and prepared for triggers since I was doing a lot and there was a lot of instability and it's easy to lose it in those instances. Days easily roll into each other with little to no sleep and food and that IS NOT good. I made sure I ate at least once a day and got atleast 4 hours of sleep. I kept track of the little indicators, such as difficulty eating/sleeping, traffic frustrations that are seriously unmerited, wanting to pick an argument for the sake of expelling that extra energy etc. July 09 I was finally put to the test and I am still dealing with it. My credit is still bad and I haven't made payments since jan 08 and I received a call from my former father in law stating that a private investigator came knocking looking for me and was very rude and abrupt. That was an unexpected trigger and shamed and shook me significantly. I didn't allow for an unexpected trigger and i spiralled into an episode. I had been talking the talk and now was the time to walk the walk. I excercised MAXIMUM CONTROL, raising the level to red. Minimise anything that requires me to make a decision and definatly no major decisions; since I accepted I was manic and my view may be impaired, since had first hand proof, in hindshight and self reflecting, that when manic I am capable of rationalizing things in an irrational and self destructive way. I have stories that would shock most. I just celebrated my 32nd birthday and unpacked my last box. I have a home again :) None of this has been easy but I am proud of myself, very very much. I'm still batteling this episode and have taken serequal twice in the last 2 weeks to control the possibility of psychosis. I can tell by the seriqual that I'm manic becuse 200 mg would normally knock me out for 18 hours and I took 450mg last week and barely slept 6 hours. I am on board with my psychiatrist, who at this point is aiding me in trying to control this without meds. The drastic change in my appearance, weight loss, acne gone etc and the enthusiasim and zest for life I have at times have convinced him that I am possibly on a right path, for myself. Again, this is a very volitile, up/down disorder which leads me to beleive that there isn't a one size fits all solution and what works today may not work tomorrow. We are moody and we have to compensate for those moods knowing when to stop, mentally step back and re evaluate the situation. Just remember, to help others, you have to be balanced first, so it's not selfish to say no sometimes and to not over extend your self.
Close Sarcoidosis
My sister has this condition and I don't know much about it
