Bipolar Disorder Support Group
Bipolar disorder is not just a single disorder, but a category of mood disorders marked by periods of abnormally high energy and euphoria, often accompanied by bouts of clinical depression. This is the place to talk about your experience with bipolar disorder, learn from others' experiences, and find support.
I don't know if this is the proper place to do this but here it goes. I have been on these meds for 6 years on disability and it's so hard for me to find happiness anymore in anything. Chemically speaking our meds take away the link to happiness in the brain it don't balance dopamine it brings it down so you cant feel or experience happiness or good feelings. Look it up. That's just the mechanism on how these things work. Will they ever find a freaking pill that don't take away your happiness levels in your brain. I mean damn it sure would help. Maybe if they found a pill to work on the NADA receptors instead of dopamine. I know I will get flack from people saying well I am happy you are happy based on numbness. I remember when I went off my meds for a while I was laughing again was able to get cold chills have better orgasms etc everything to do with happiness. It's just not far we are forced to take these things and not feel nothing. Sometimes I say lock me in a cell just give me back my feelings.
I am on Depakote...a med that almost guarantees blunted feelings.
I don't laugh as hard, I don't cry when saddened, the sex part is blunted also.
OK, so I'm stable for the most part, but I do feel like I have sacrificed a lot to stay that way.
Finding happiness in small things, well , that helps me a bit.
But I certainly do miss the elation and super highs of hypo-mania
Try a med change if you are unhappy. Lamictal works really well for me and doesn't make me feel flat.
So Depakote works , when nothing else did .
So I'm kinda stuck..and Heaven Help Me, if the Deapkote stops working !
And some poor souls are doomed to not be happy in the way that they would like to be, no matter which meds they are on.
No, that ISN'T fair.
A LOT of things in life are not 'fair'.
And if one has the mindset that the world SHOULD be fair, they are sure to be unhappy. (Unhappier than they would be otherwise.)
But not everyone lives a joyless life because of the meds they're on. Some DO manage to have a more or less decent life. And are able to feel true happiness and have a satisfying sex life.
Six years is a long time, all right.
But plenty of people take that long and even longer than that to find the right meds.
I've been on meds for as long as you have.
In my case, they seem to work well, but only for a while.
I often have to switch meds, when they quit working the way they're supposed to.
I think maybe that's just the way it's always going to be for me.
I hope you will keep trying to find a med or meds that will let you feel more 'alive'!!!
You felt so good when you went off meds!!
Why did you go back on them?
Usually, the answer to that question is that as good as it went for a while, things then got bad. Bad enough to make the meds a better choice.
I'm not knocking what you say.
Just today, I was questioning whether the toll the drugs are taking is worth it and wondered if I would be better off if I'd never gone on them in the first place.
I wish there were better choices for us.
Still, I've 'heard' people on here say that it took them 10 years to find the right meds.
So I hope you won't give up.
Good luck.
(((((Hugs)))))
Life does not have to end because of a DX of bipolar...maybe reevaluate and redefine, yep, but still a good life can be had
I'd say, I guess that I try for just a deep, simple feeling of basic satisfaction, which, although fleeting, I hold onto when the feeling comes along. I enjoy the feeling for as long as it is there and the rest of the time, I have to go with the flow.
All I know is that I'm definitely a person I don't like when unmedicated. My family doesn't much care for me either. Whether meds are the best choice needs to be decided by the individual.
All I know is that I'm definitely a person I don't like when unmedicated. My family doesn't much care for me either. Whether meds are the best choice needs to be decided by the individual.
All I know is that I'm definitely a person I don't like when unmedicated. My family doesn't much care for me either. Whether meds are the best choice needs to be decided by the individual.
It sucks that the meds cause this in me, but I wouldn't trade it for the roller coaster of unpredictable (and usually not justifiable) emotions that I have without the meds. I guess this is the "new me", albeit a "flat emotions me".
If you haven't tried other meds, you could keep trying to find one that doesn't cause it as much. Good luck!