The beginning

So I needed a place to vent and to try and understand myself. I decided that I would do it in a way that my thoughts may come to benefit others.

I was diagnosed with bipolar in my fourth year of university. That would have made it 2005. Wow, that is quite a while ago. I was only diagnosed properly because my doctor started looking at my sleeping patterns. This was the first clear sign of the mania. Prior to that, they were attempting to treat it as if I was depressed. I hate anti-depressants. I have never been on one where I didn't get slaughtered by the side effects. And they didn't do a lot for making me feel better.

Now, after so many years, I have finally come to accept that this is something that I'm going to have to live with for the rest of my life. It isn't going to go away. I kept hoping that it would. That I would be one of the lucky ones where it was mild enough that I wouldn't be spending every day of my life on meds. I went on lithium when I was diagnosed. I was on that until November of 2006. June 2007, I was back in the doctors office asking for more pills. The doctor decided that we were going to try a new idea for meds: Anti-convulsants. Tropamax was the first one. I had so many side effects. I was ataxic; nauseous; I developed a tremor; Dizziness; etc. It killed my ability to think clearly or reason. I didn't go back to the doctors until my next scheduled appointment (last Wednesday). She gave me shit and told me I should have been in her office a couple of weeks earlier. We stopped those drugs that evening and I started to feel better almost right away.

Monday morning I started on the next variety. I will have to look up the name of it at a later date. I don't remember. But so far, so good. I've had a couple of minor dizzy spells but nothing really bad. Nick says that my mood is a little better but then I went and ripped a strip out of him last night because I was feeling aggressive and mean. I'm sorry Nick. This is why we are trying meds again, so that my moods are at least more predictable. I ended up just walking away because I couldn't say anything nice or positive. I couldn't shake the feeling so I went and kissed Nick (quickly; I felt like if I spent a lot of time touching him I would punch him or something) and went to bed.

This is my journey to deal with a disease that is going to run the rest of my life.