First Entry

Well, I'm going to give this journal a try.  Maybe it will help, if for no other reason than so I can track how I'm feeling and keep up with my thoughts.   My back story is that I've been diagnosed for one year.  November, 2008.  I was making copies in the copy room at my school when I began to have a major panic attack.  I went to the teacher's lounge and called my GP.  I could barely speak and it took a long time just to get out one sentence.  He told me to go to the school wellness center if they had one.  (Fortunately, this was the largest school in the state and we DID have a wellness center.)   I went to the wellness center and the couselor was out.  The nurse was in and I felt that I had to see someone fast or I was going to explode.  I went in to see the nurse and exploded into uncontrollable tears.  I sobbed like a baby for no apparant reason.   I had woken up the night before with thoughts of putting a knife through my chest and doing harmful things to myself.  I laid in bed all through that night with those thoughts.  I dismissed it long enough to get to work, but something still felt wrong.  Then the meltdown.   I spoke to the counselor and I (once again) burst into tears.  They called a psychological evaluator in to talk with me.  I wasn't so suicidal that they committed me, but told me to go home and see a doctor.   This deep depression lasted for about 3 and a half days.  I wanted to kill myself and if it had gone on much longer, I think I would have.  Fortunately, I cycled up again before I could get an appointmend with a Psychiatrist.  He then met with me and we uncovered that I have been somewhat manic through the last several years in addition to depressed.  (I can look back on different times in my life and definitely see the mania.)  I've never been crazy manic, just somewhat manic.  Irrational at worst.  So I was diagnosed as being Bipolar 2.   I just last month experienced another depression episode that lasted about 4 days.  It was a deeper sadness than before (if that's possible) but without the panic.   Now I'm okay.  I just take my meds and pray to God that they are working.