wow, busy night

Ok so like I posted before, I've been really sick lately and I just thought I had the flu or something. But then last night, I developed this rash all over my body and I freaked out, because one of the side effects of Lamictal can be a fatal rash. I looked up the type of rash that this med can cause on the internet and it also had other symptoms listed, like fever, blisters in the mouth and bruising, all of which I had, so then I really become worried. So I call my doctor right away, and I tell him my symptoms and he tells me to go straight to the emergency room. So I start crying and really freaking out and I tell my mom and she takes me right over there. So I spend most of the night in the ER. Then my sister gets out of work at 10:30 and freaks out that I'm in the hospital (She's younger than me and we're really close). Anyway so they tell me that they think I was allergic to the amoxicillin that my family doctor had given me for my original flu-like symptoms. But the thing is, I've taken amoxicillin before and never had any reaction to it. So anyway, the doctors at the hospital told me to stop taking the amoxicillin and my psychiatrist told me to stop taking the Lamictal but to keep taking the Abilify. My psychiatrist (and my therapist for that matter) both live in a different town about 2 hours away (it's the city where I go to school), and so luckily I'm heading that way tomorrow anyway, so I can stop by my psychiatrist's office and talk to him. So I'm exhausted today and still not feeling well, but hopefully now that I know what's wrong with me, I can get better.

Yay! My boyfriend's back

Everything's good right now, my boyfriend and I are back together. Well, except that I'm really sick, now I have a fever and can hardly get out of bed. I fell like shit and I've been to the doctor, but nothing seems to be improving. I keep going back but I'm starting to feel like a hypochondriac. Every time I go, he just tells me to keep taking my medicine. But I'm still not getting better. I feel worse, actually. As far as my moods, things have been ok. I still feel a little shaky or like I'm on thin ice, like everything could fall apart at any minute but I'm managing to hold it together for now. I'm still feeling irritable now, I'm just better able to control it. Well maybe not control it, but keep it from ruining my life. I'm still on the 50mg of Lamictal that I started Sunday and it's kind of starting to kick in, I'm having more good days, at least.

still without boyfriend

I had thought this would be over by now, he never takes this long to come back. He says he wants me to stabilize and for my medication to kick in so that he doesn't have to leave me for good. This doesn't make sense to me, because I think that a boyfriend should be there for his girlfriend through thick and thin, not just when it's easy. You can't just give up when it's tough and think "oh, I'll wait it out until things get better." You're there to be supportive and loving and understanding. If I had cancer, he wouldn't abandon me. And besides if he was doing the same things, I would be there for him, so why isn't he there for me. Ughh sorry I'm ranting. I'm also sick. I started to feel bad Wednesday night. When is this medicine going to kick in and I'm going to start feeling better? I'm miserable and I don't know what to do with myself. I mean, I usually spend all day either with him or talking to him, and now I'm doing neither so I don't know what to do. He usually comes by my house everymorning to tell me hello and give me a kiss before he goes off to work. Now, even though he's not, I get very excited when the dogs start barking or whining, because I think it might be him. But it never is.

bad day...

going to the gym. That always helps me feel better.

Psychiatrist appointment

So I went to see my psychiatrist today. He had told me when I went to see him last week to try to be depressed or at least irritable the next time I went to see him (which I don't know how I was supposed to do that, it's not like I decide when I'm depressed or manic) because I was very manic when I went to see him last time. I was talking fast, very animated and in an excellent mood the first time I saw him. But today was an extremely good day. So when I went to see him I had to explain that the past two weeks had been horrible, but that today was abnormally good. He listened intently and then told me to continue to take the Lamictal and he also gave me 2mg of Abilify to take also. So I'm still on 25mg of Lamictal until Sunday and now 1mg (half a pill) of Abilify in the morning and 1mg at night. I think I forgot to mention in the about me post that I had been put back on Zoloft (150mg) and was on 2mg of Ativan (not a good idea for a drug addict) by my family practitioner before I went to see him. I had thought that I was still just depressed and so I went to my family doctor to help me out and he originally put me on Paxil, which just made me crazier, and then on Zoloft because it had "worked" before. Anyway so he weaned me off the Zoloft and I didn't begin taking the Lamictal until that Sunday. So anyway the day that had begun so wonderfully ended in disaster. I yelled and screamed and cryed at my boyfriend (sorry mistankenly put my mother but it was actually my boyfriend, we had been back together, briefly) and basically had another episode. So I came home in a horrible mood and now everyone's wandering my house in a state of shock and I'm better but not good yet.

wasting my time reading magazines

Ugh, today sucks. Life just kind of sucks right now. I'm wasting my time doing pointless things like running errands for my mother or reading magazines, nothing worthwhile. I love to write and in a vain attempt to improve my vocabulary and thus my writing, I like to read The New Yorker or other literary publications like the Antioch Review, etc. But not I'm just reading Cosmo and Lucky and looking at clothes and trying to decide what I want to buy. I don't need to spend any more money! I've gone way over-budget already. I have some new shoes on today but I don't want anyone to know they're new because then they'll know I've been shopping again. I'm currently obsessed with Bright Eyes, The First Day of My Life. It's such a beautiful, moving song.

And I thought it was strange,
you said everything changed.
You felt as if you just woke up.
You said this is the first day of my life.
I'm glad I didn't die before I met you.
But now I dont care I could go anywhere with you
And I'd probably be happy.

God what a beautiful song, it just describes how I feel about my boyfriend perfectly. Have you ever heard a song that did that, just told your story, described how you felt? Well I have, but maybe that's just because I connect with music a lot. Sometimes I feel like that might be part of my disease, but then again, a lot of non-bipolar people like music and connect with it.

Blah two weeks

The past two weeks have just been horrible. I have been irritable every single day. Everything anyone does just irritates the heck out of me, especially my loving boyfriend. I know he's just trying to help, but man, everything he does just drives me crazy. And the thing that really sucks is that I know it's me; I know that he's not doing anything differently, well besides taking a break, but more about that in a minute. It's just that everything he always does just happens to be bothering me right now. When I went to see the doctor, he put me on the Lamictal starter pack. I'm supposed to take 25mg for the first two weeks, then 50mg for the next two weeks and on and on until I get to the dosage I'm supposed to be on. You have to do this because apparently if you take the medicine too fast you can develop a fatal rash. But it sucks because I'm not seeing any results so far. And now my boyfriend has decided that I'm too crazy and that he can't stand to be around me like this anymore and that he's been patient enough but that now he's going to wait until my medicine kicks in to get back with me. This, of course, just made me absolutely livid and so I"m crying and screaming and having an episode all over again. This is NOT helping. And this just makes me want to be normal more than ever, to just be able to control my behavior, to stop acting like a spoiled child. But no matter what I do or how hard I try or what resolutions I make, I just can't do it. I don't want to be bipolar, I don't want to have to take a break from my boyfriend because I'm so freaking crazy. This sucks. Thank God I'm going to see the doctor on Thursday.

About Me

Well, the about me spot on the profile wouldn't let me type enough to tell you all about me so I'm creating a post to do just that. I'm bpgirl87, short for bipolar girl. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in late May after a tumultuous couple of months. I was first diagnosed with depression four years ago while I was in the hospital recovering from an eating disorder. The doctors there put me on Zoloft and I was on it for the next three and a half years until I realized that I had no emotions on that medicine and that I was basically a walking zombie. That's not to say that this medicine isn't right for other people, I just think that I was originally misdiagnosed and that the Zoloft just managed to cover up the symptoms for so long. For about a year and a half, I had been noticing that I couldn't cry, especially about things that I "should" be crying about, and that I didn't really get happy or excited about things, that I had to remind myself to feel these emotions. I didn't figure out what was wrong with me (yes, I'm slow) until last October. So I stopped taking my medicine, without the help of a doctor (yes, that's very dangerous). Things started to really fall apart from there. To give you the short version of what happened, I broke up with my boyfriend, started drinking and using drugs after being sober for two years, got a minor in possession, got back together with my boyfriend, got sober again, got a ticket for going 125 mph on the highway, became very violent, lost a lot of important things to me (such as my ipod) because I just couldn't keep track of things, and starting having mini nervous breakdowns. I was going 125 mph because I was angry with my boyfriend, and so I lost all rational thought and just started going as fast as I possibly could, not considering the consequences of my actions. That seemed to be a common theme over those few months, I just didn't think about the consequences or I just didn't care. I became very violent with my boyfriend who I love very much and who has been nothing but extremely supportive of me. We would get in knock-down, drag-out fights over big and small things. These fights included me trying to hit him, poke him in the eye, kick his balls, anything to hurt him and him trying desperately to restrain me, usually by holding on to my hair. Then I would begin crying uncontrollably and shaking and rubbing things compulsively. These episodes are what really freaked out my boyfriend and he implored me to go see a psychiatrist. I was already seeing a psychologist, but, given my history of drug abuse, he was reluctant to send me to see a psychiatrist to get on medication. But since all of these thing were happening and I was seriously starting to think that I was crazy, I told him that I really felt like I needed to see one. These violent, crazy episodes were punctuated with short, minor depressions. Nothing so bad that I couldn't ge out of bed, but enough to affect my life and my school work. I would still carry on with my routine (but only because I'm obsessive about it), but my heart wasn't in anything. My boyfriend and family could always tell when I was depressed because you could see it on my face. Thus, it was time to see a psychiatrist. So I went for my first appointment May 31st. After filling out about twenty pages of forms (no joke) before I went and then answering about one hundred questions once I got there, he told me that he thought I was bipolar. I have always had this kind of secret desire to be bipolar, because I already had the depressions, and so I would love to be able to stay up all night and not have to eat and have all the "good" parts of being manic. Of course, I just ended up with the "bad" effects of a manic episode. I don't typically stay up all night or eat less, I'm just very irritable, get violent, and spend excessive amounts of money. So I was honestly shocked when the doctor told me that I was bipolar. I didn't think that this could be possible because I didn't stay up all night or any of the other things I previously mentioned. But he told me that since I was highly irritable ten days out of ten, and that I had gotten violent he felt that it was a correct diagnosis. So now I'm bipolar and I'm really trying not to let my life be defined by the fact that I am. I've decided not to tell anyone except obviously my boyfriend and my immediate family. I was originally reticent about telling even my immediate family because I was afraid that they wouldn't be able to not tell the whole world, but I eventually decided that they are part of my support system and they need to know if they're going to be able to help me. So that's pretty much it about me, feel free to ask any questions and I'll answer them honestly. Welcome to my blog!