I guess I’ll start with…

02/02/2017 CMHT Appointment, 11:30am:

Bipolar…

We spoke about the need for me to continue the reduction in Fluoxetine, that it helps jack-diddly-squat with Bipolar Depression as seen with the evidence over Christmas. There is no reduction in the time spent in that mood phase, there is no ease in the turmoil, there is nothing that it really offers me…

It’ll help with depression but not Bipolar Depression…

At least knowing this, I now know that… Hmm…

Well…

It’s hard to put into words. Christmas and the last few months… hell…

The fact that it was so hard whilst I was on an apparent antidepressant made it worse, that there was no let up whilst on this medication tore me apart with thoughts that even with meds… I am still THIS bad… now that I know WHY it didn’t help… helps… in a way… I’ll take what I can get. I knew that they were to paint over the cracks until I could get some proper help but in my mind they should have at least offered some let up…

It’s not until I’ve had some time on the latest medication that I can make that comment with certainty.

The difference is dramatic but apparently I am going through medication naivety at the minute…

It appears better than what it is for me as I am not fully used to the medication yet… so my body is reacting better… in a way…

After talking through this for a while, I came to realise that my mood has switched over the last few days to normal mode. Yes the medication has helped in bucket loads – mainly with the mucho sleep I have had lately – but once my body starts getting used to it, it won’t be as good as what it is at the minute and I need to be aware that this will happen and not to be disheartened…

At the start of the week, once the Quetiapine had started to wear off on the afternoon at work I had started to feel it difficult with the racing irrational thoughts… at the time of the day where I would normally be on lunch with my friend having an unwind and able to talk… now I was by myself chewing away with the need to just get through the day and try and block out the whirlwind…

With that we agreed – the Doc and I – to increase the Quetiapine to 200mg so that I wouldn’t get dragged into the Whirlwind… the dose should last the day for now…

But aye, talking through the week, I realised that as the week went on, this Whirlwind became less… I was no longer irrationally excited and felt a bit flat… the eyes were no longer alert…

I was normal… yey…

Talking with the doctor helped though… at first I realised that I had struggled with this flat feeling… I was scared that I was crashing but the Doctor helped me realise that this “flat” feeling is just a normal feeling without the high… that this is life…

It’s strange to say but with my moods switching since early October to now, I had forgot this “normal-life-mode.” I had to remind myself that you can get upset or happy in a normal mode and that it doesn’t mean a mood shift… Deep down I know this but it helped to remind myself this…

We spoke about the meds and how I feel on them… the first few days they totally kicked my ass… well the first week to be honest but I do feel an improvement on them, as said before sleep was always a big trigger and whilst I still get the sedation, I’ll take all the sleep that I can get. It helped dramatically with work, yes I was a touch zombie on the morning but once I got going into a flow I was able to do the job that I know I can do, logic was working for me again…

One thing that did surprise me was learning that you can die from Mania, that it is one of only two mood disorders that can kill you. You can fully burn yourself out, hit a week of no sleep but full on action mode and you can really push yourself too far… your brain runs out of the needed chemicals…

I found out that getting me on the medication was an emergency and I was lucky to have the CMHT appointment when I did. Looking at my sleep and my behaviour leading into the CMHT appointment, I was showing classic cases of burnout. What I’ve wrote before without really knowing what it is… Zombie mode… scary really…

I should have had a full medical assessment before I went onto the meds so I can have a baseline to go from, so I can see how the medication is effecting my body… Blood sugars, blood pressure, ECG readings, BMI etc but as it was an emergency I didn’t have this. I got this sorted and have to go for another assessment again to see where my body is going on them…

I know it is going to be a lot of work to rebuild and get my life back on track again but it is not something that I am going to shy from…

I won’t lie, I have struggled with some things, I am still finding it hard with the loss of my friend from work, we don’t get to speak as much even by text now and the loss does hurt… coming off the Fluoxetine I will suffer withdrawals, I’ve got to remember that it always won’t be this good on the Quetiapine… I know that it will help my mood phases but it will not stop my mood phases… and my next mood phase will be a crash… I really do dread that but…

But where as before, this task felt impossible and so far away… rebuilding my life… at the minute I can see a route to my end goal now and now I have a sense of optimism going forward…

I look back over the last few months in a kind of stunned horror… to see how my body and self can be so affected by something that I have little control over…

And it comes back to the writing… the writing has helped so much over the last couple of months but at the minute… I really do not feel the need to write… either it is the medication dulling the creative side or I do not need this particular therapy at the minute…

We’ll just say that for now… Life is looking up…

The next time I write… I have a feeling it’ll be in the midst of a crash…

Let’s see and let’s hope that it is a long time away…