I am having a difficult time of it lately…

Probably the worst mood state to experience is the mixed state and that is what I am suffering from at the minute.

You don’t know whether you are coming or going to put it mildly.

Increased energy, racing thoughts, sleeplessness and irritability combined with the feeling of helplessness, lack of motivation, paranoia and general depressive thoughts… it’s tough… it’s like what the f***?!?!?

Last time I posted, I honestly thought I was going high and into mania and for the first two weeks I was showing all the signs of mania… and mania only…

The real stand out was the lack of sleep and extreme irritability…

Alas, it didn’t last…  and I say alas because I would rather deal with a fixed state than a mixed… anyway…

The negativity, the paranoia, the extreme effort to do anything started to kick in and I was honestly lost…

Think about it… how do you deal with tenfold increased energy and yet a total lack of motivation and inspiration… and that is only one example of the conflicting emotions…

You’re climbing the walls and seeking your bed at the same time… fun, fun, fun…

It massively started to effect work and I had to retreat from the world, fortunately my holiday year had reset and I took off the latter half of the week to try and get back in control…

I had some success but ultimately I am still at this states mercy… it’s easier to deal with when you’re home alone but once that ends and you HAVE to re-enter the world then you start on that slippery slope to difficulty…

I just hope it ends soon… I am about four/five weeks in now and starting to get REAL tired of it…

Just ARGH…

I am maybe a day behind on the diagnosis , I’ve felt it there in the background but tried to ignore it… however, that is impossible as it starts to ramp up… my mood state is shifting to mania…

Let’s rewind a bit first…

I’ve had a normal mood state for around a month now and I’ve cherished it… for the first time in over a year I had an extended period where I can safely say I was normal… NORMAL… I had forgot what it was like…

Though I do hate saying “normal,” so I’ll go with a “no-mood” state….

I was able to find enjoyment again in reading, in watching shows, in interacting with friends, in just being my self really. It was nice to not have any anxiety, no paranoia, no irritability, no racing thoughts, no sleep issues… I could go on and on but the benefits of a no mood state are immense…

I had my usual hospital appointment with Dr. S. and it was almost a celebration of being stable, I was able to relay what it is like for me to be in that stable state and we agreed to not rock the boat with the meds and try and see how long the stability could last…

Unfortunately it lasted for another week after the appointment then the snowball started to roll down the mountain…

The caffeine eyes, the body tired from sleepless nights and the irritability is canny massive at the minute… not telling people to go fuck themselves today is a huge accomplishment…

Every little thing that normally wouldn’t bother me has…

It is ridiculous at what can wind you up… I guess the one saving grace is that you recognise why you are getting wound up, that it is not you and that you just need to take a breath and step back… that is the key as always, breath before any reaction…

So now I’m in the height of a rising mania state trying to keep it under control… it’s not easy…

Especially now that the sleeplessness is kicking in.

I’ve gone from a needed 9-11 hours of sleep a night to 4-6 hours of sleep and the more the mania kicks in the less sleep I will have… troubling…

I’m away this weekend for our work Christmas party in Benidorm too, sleep with not be happening, I am not going to be able to take the medication the way the weekend is set up and that is a massive concern with the rising mania… Sunday / Monday is also going to be such a battle…

Oh well… at least once the mania kicks in fully I won’t really give a fuck anymore and just be enjoying the ride… hopefully…

How is everything of late?

Manageable… it hasn’t been the most difficult of crashes but I am really doing everything that I can to not be putting myself in situations that I’ll find difficult…  I’m also forcing myself to take the medication early which results in an early night… yeah I miss an hour or two of chill time but making sure I don’t have a breakdown like last Christmas is what this is all about…

I just cannot afford to have another period like that…

I’m currently living in a hotel whilst I get my flooring done. Duration will be hopefully no more than two weeks… I thought that I may find this hard – the whole changing of the routine and restricting myself to what I can do would normally be really difficult but for now the novelty factor is seeing me through… this will probably change once the novelty wears off but I’m not thinking about that yet.

Work is fine; I’m not struggling or having any issues. Money is obviously difficult but I’m just trying to make it through the months as best as I can… that’s all that one can do…

I’m a bit “flat” but that is to be expected, I’m not really finding happiness or joy at the moment… life just feels like… hmm… a process at the minute.

It’s all about just getting on with the job at hand… survival… if this is the way that I need to live whilst on a crash then so be it… as long as I’m not breaking down I guess I’ll take it…

I’ve chewed myself up this morning so let’s get some writing therapy…

It was hospital day yesterday.

It went okay or as okay as it can go whilst on a crash – it was talking through the issues, thoughts and feelings of the moment and reflecting on how the last few weeks have gone.

My spark is definitely missing at the moment. Doctor S. was saying how the difference in me is massive comparing me from our last appointment and when I was on a high to now whilst on a crash – obviously…

There were no smiles and engagement was at a minimum where as last time I never shut up – it’s not something I fully notice happening whilst in the moment but to the outside that know me and know what I go through, I guess it was plain to see.

We discussed – and this is true – how you have a sense of loss and mourning when you lose the high… it is especially evident when the high runs out and when it runs into the crash… you become forlorn… it’s not a nice sensation to experience.

I’ve mentioned before but you’re begging the world for it to not happen but it is inevitable… you go from that buzzing effect to abject dejection… and it is hard to take…

We also discussed adding a second medication to what I currently take – Sodium Valproate – which would help eliminate the mood change and “flatten” my moods out but there is a lot of side effects taking this and there is the risk that it will just turn me into a walking zombie… the doc advised some people prefer this to the up and down mood states where as some people hate this – they feel like am emotionless robot… my reply was give it some time and see how I react to the increase in XL first…

Mainly because where as I do struggle with the extremes of the disorder, I am finding it manageable at the moment on the increased Quetiapine XL of 600mg.

The one problem is that I am in the bedding in phase of the medication, when you increase the meds you have a period of 6-8 weeks where it is working at it’s maximum efficiency but the more you take it, the more you get used to it, the more this grace period wears off…

So once that happens, I could be in for a world of hurt… as this is predicted to be a bad crash as mentioned in my last update… my next appointment is for 6 weeks but we agreed that if I snowball then to call up and we can get some more medication arranged.

We’ve built up that relationship now, the doc and I where as the treatment and process behind the treatment can be fluid which helps a great deal.

So all in all – I’m not really too sure what the next few weeks hold for me, whether I’ll continue as is or whether it will go down from here. I have a prediction how it will turn out but yeah… let’s not curse anything…

That is one of the kickers too, that you know that you’re not going to get better any time soon – from the crash that is – that the only time any improvement occurs is when the crash fades and timescales for this are so unknown, I could be like this for months… oh joy…

As predicted, I’ve crashed after my run of a nice high. It started to happen about 10 days ago, it wasn’t too bad at first but now… now I’ve really hit rock bottom and I’m struggling.

I was warned that it will be bad due to the length of the high and the doc sure wasn’t kidding…

Today was the first day in ages that I felt like crying…

Why?

I guess in one sense I’m just feeling sorry for myself but it is more than that. It’s the knowing that I’m going to have to go through this for the rest of my life… I’ve said it before but it just makes life so difficult.

There is just no escape…

It’s a monumental effort just to get out of bed at the moment and I’m really hating it…

Thinking back to how I was only two weeks ago is sickening, yes I was riding a high so in a way it was a false illusion of life but still… to go from there to here… it really is crushing…

It’s been a while…

I’m just enjoying a high that has rolled on to it’s fifth / sixth week now… enjoying it because I am sleeping well and it is under control… it’s manageable…

It makes life good… it also makes life interesting… I had a total euphoric experience when I first started to switch that was like nothing I had experienced before…

It felt like every ounce of my being was alive, I was simply watching a TV show but it felt like I was on a rollercoaster experiencing the high extremes… it is so hard to describe what it was like but it was fun… until I couldn’t sleep that night… but after that I settled into a manageable experience…

I think that it helps that I am a lot more at peace with myself.

Yeah, I’ve still got a lot of hard work to do and my outlook may change when I inevitably crash but at the moment all is good… there are issues that could be causing my stress but I am just not letting it happen…

So I’ll take that.

I was at the hospital last week and it was mainly preparing me for the next mood shift which will be a crash – I’ll eventually burn out of the “good” chemicals and the fight will be on.

It sucks that I have no control over how and when it happens but I am used to this now…

I’ve been given an extra 100mg of Quetiapine XL for when the crash occurs to see how that regulates it. Apparently with the Bipolar Depression people react well to either 300mg or 600mg so we are doing a test run of 600mg when I crash to see how it goes but at the moment I am sticking to the current dose of 500mg.

We also spoke about trying to flatten out the extremes of the mood phases – note eurphoric experience – and by that I mean that yeah, I’ll always get the “phases” but the goal is to lesson/flatten them… Doctor S. is considering adding a “lil” of another medication to assist with this but that isn’t on the horizon yet and it’s only if the extra 100mg doesn’t work…

So we’ll see how it goes…

I’ve gone hyper. It normally happens after a difficult crash so it was kinda expected…

I’m talking more even if I’m talking crap, I’m very restless but the world feels good again and I’ve got the whisperings of “change.”

Change? Change what? God knows but it’s part of the mania. I feel like I need a change…

The trouble with that though is that I’m quite settled so change can jog on… I’ve just got to ignore the urges.

I don’t know if I am thinking with clarity or thinking with mania but a subject matter that was hammering me from the start of the year has been well and truly put to bed, it was the last thing I expected to happen – this to have a good resolution but it has – and now it is like a weight has been lifted from me.

Sometimes what you think is good for you… actually isn’t… it just takes a long time to realise this…

I’m really controlling my sleep at the moment, it’s a case of having to so fortunately there is no exhaustion yet. Even if it means I am in bed, medicated by 20:30 and asleep, I’ve got to. I can’t get on a roll of sleepless nights as that just leads one way… It’s a battle as the last thing my body wants to do is sleep…

I’m watching what I eat, I’m back at the gym, I’m trying to do everything that I can to help with the mood phases… it just becomes hardwork when it is so full-on but you got to do what you got to do to survive.

Money is a big issue at the moment but fortunately with the mood, it is not really effecting me as in bringing me down… though with the mania every day is an urge to spend… spend what? I’m broke but again, it’s still an urge that I need to resist.

I need work to be busy when I am like this, keep me occupied but unfortunately, August is one of our quietest months so a days work feels like 20 hours+, at home I would always have something to keep me occupied, even if it was only for  5 minutes then I would switch to another subject matter to pass more time… at work you’re stuck on one subject matter and how busy I am is out of my hands so that is why it drags whilst hyper.

So yeah, this is where I am at currently, considering how difficult it has been lately, I’ll take a hyper phase…

It’s been a while since a proper update…

I honestly think it is the medication, it kinda shuts me down… it kinda shuts down a lot of things to be honest…

I’ve read of people feeling like a one emotion zombie/robot on it and whilst I am not at that level, I can understand and see where they are coming from.

It takes a lot to get the emotions peaked… I can still laugh but when I laugh it soon ends… I can still get pissed off or upset but when it happens it soon ends…

I am now on 500mg of Quetiapine XL and since I was upgraded to this level I haven’t had a major emotional swing.

Over the last week I have felt myself come out of a depressive episode but even then, it wasn’t World War 3 trench action. It was easier to deal with than some of the episodes I have wrote about.

Yeah I had some major issues over the last month or so but they were more due to outside circumstances than my overall Bipolar. It was more my moods were a consequence of actions rather than my moods causing the actions.

It still fucked me up and had an impact on my life but I was able to deal with it… just about…

If it had happened last year when I wasn’t receiving help then I don’t think I would still be here.

Is this an improvement for me?

Yes and no… mostly yes though.

Whilst I miss my usual quick witted charming self… I certainly don’t miss the adverse mood shifts… the tears or rages… the lack of sleep or motivation…

It’s a case of do the benefits outweigh the side effects… and yes, they do…

I guess it is just taking the good with the bad…

One thing my doc asks me in every session is do I still see value in taking the medication and when comparing myself to last year, the answer is always yes.

As an example – I’ve just came back from a situation that I would have normally felt really difficult.

It was one of my best mates Stag-Do’s, we’d arranged a 3 night stay in a massive country house with a group of around 20 of us… to be honest I was really nervous going into it, I wasn’t sure how I would deal with it.

Big groups, especially big groups where I don’t know everyone, these are difficult… and yes, whilst I found the first night quite difficult, it got better as the weekend went on.

I just had to really control myself, if I started to get worked up then I needed to take a little chill, fortunately the house was that big that it allowed me to do this.

If someone pissed me off I just stepped away or tried to turn off to it…

It went surprisingly well and I had a good time.

By the final night, there was only 5 of us left and I was much more comfortable in the group. I felt like myself where as normally, even in the reduced group I would still stay quiet…ish…

If this was last year? I think I would have had to hide away for most of it…

So I’ll take that…

I may be feeling positive at the moment as I’ve come out of the crash or it may be a consequence of the medication and life of late… who knows…

But I’ll take where I am at now…

I just don’t want to be here anymore.

If I had the balls, I wouldn’t be, got home, can’t stop crying. I can’t see a way through this next year… head fucked.

It has certainly been a while since I last updated…

Why is that?

I simply have nothing in me at the moment, no drive, no motivation, no creativity… no spark… it’s all gone…

I am just living life as it comes, day by day with no long term plans or goals at the minute…

I’ve had a difficult time at work lately and received some news which will have a massive knock on effect for the coming year…

It’s just sapped me of everything … I’m pretty much fucked for the upcoming year with no way out unless I win the lottery… there is nothing I can do…

And it’s left me feeling totally lost… and head fucked…

I feel like a different person as I type this… something less than what I was…

I feel broken…

I’m just trying to get on with my life, keep my head down but it has made everything such a struggle… it’s been a long time since life was this difficult…