Turining 30

[Ashes]

I'm turning 30 in a few days and it is sad to compare my life now to 5 years ago.  Then at least I had goals, I looked for love and I had friends.  Now I cant stand being around anyone for even an hour much less be in a relationship.  I don't want anyone having to deal with my depression either.  I have also lost my ability to small talk so I even ignore the phone.  I cant connect with people anymore.  I listen to my family talk about a bad day at work and think to myself, you have no idea how hard life could be.  I never feel like any of them understand so I have completely cut  myself off from any unnecessary communication.  The computer is nice because I can ignore it and not feel guilty. 

[Dreamline]

At least here you can find some people to relate to and also only have to respond when you feel like it.  People without mood disorders don't have a clue...yeah some of them intellectually know what its like but they haven't gone through it.  They don't know what its like emotionally.  Even if they can imagine it, its only for a second and not weeks or months.  With bipolar there's the fact that there is a huge contrast to make it worse...you're manic or hypomanic then crash...its not lik you go from normal to the depths of dispair.  You depressed now?

[Ashes]

Yes I'm depressed Ive been down for about 3 months now.  The last couple of weeks have been pretty difficult.  My depression has gotten worse and Ive been dealing with psychosis. My doc is trying to find a med that works. 

[Dreamline]

Sucks, sometimes meds are just hit and miss.  I got lucky that lithium works for me.  You'll get lucky eventually I think.  I never got the hallucinations real bad; only in my peripheral or in the dark.  My problem was more my over enthusiastic gradiose projects or if I was depressed, everything was just so horrid, like people's faces looked ugly or grotesque.  Don't some of the antipsychotics work better for the depression than others?

[Ashes]

I actually just switched from lithium to Haldol.  The most current voices started while I was on lithium.  A couple of years ago while I was hospitalized peoples eyes and faces scared me.  Some looked dead and others looked evil.   

[Dreamline]

I see people looking through the window, standing in the hall...one night I was chasing one through the house with a 38.  I though somebody had broken into the house.  I was on the computer one day and saw a 40lb grey cat staring at me with glowing green eyes and it reached up with its claws to scratch my leg.  I jumped and it was gone...just a box. 

The scariest thing though was when I was a teen and up in the middle of the night.  I was standing in the hall and there were little demons clinging to the walls like lizzards...I was so scared and kept telling my self "they're not real" but was too terrified of them to let it go.  One time when I was a kid I was hiding in the bathroom from a chow that was in my mom and dad's room.  After I was in there for an hour she checked on me...I screamed at her when she tried to open the door.  It took her forever to convince me the chow was gone.  The chow was going to bite me, even if I cracked the door it would have forced its way in.

[Ashes]

I have to say my worst was when I was convinced that my son was dead.  My family was trying to be helpful by keeping him with them or in the other room but every time he was out of my sight the voices convinced me that he was dead.  I was sure because of the delusions that it was my fault and at the time it was all real to me.  I couldn't convince myself otherwise.

[Dreamline]

Yeah that would really suck, like I guess you don't know what to think sometimes.  Having delusions isn't your fault though.  I'm lucky nothing really bad happened to me because of some stuff I have done like driving really fast.

[scubasteve657]

you have no idea how hard life could be

  That's what I'm always thinking but to others it must seem silly since all the material things seem to work out effortlessly for me.  Seem to.  But I constantly feel like there's someone about to pounce on me....or i feel like i'm about to pounce on someone else.  Sometimes i do...there's never just a normal, happy day anymore.

People are tough.  I make a point of trying to show the people i'm close to just how intense mania can be, but most people will probably interpret it as "showing off" unfortunately; my landlord describes being on crack as a lot like mania!  But yeah, people with balanced "normal" moods often have a lacking sense of empathy (cause they just don't know).  like, "It's just depression, snap out of it!".  Thanks.  Hadn't thought of that.

Have you tried to find bipolar people in your area?  It helps a lot to have someone you can be yourself around.  Long as your self isn't psychotic at the moment....that's a scary thing, i hope you find a way to deal with it.

[goosemuffin]

Heh-And her eI thought this was normal and everyone did it. I;ve been having delusions my entire life. I go into panic mode when I 'see' or 'hear' something. I will actually go out of my way to miss the thing I think is alive or whatnot. I just thought my imagination went wild. But now I see ya'll talking about the exact tings I've gone through. I won't look out into the night out a wondow...people look back. I wont fall asleep without a light on as I believe evil creeps out in the dead of dark....this drives my husband insane. I have passed eating certain foods thinking they were poisened by whoimever cooked it. Everyone is out to get me. I am so beyond paranoid sometimes it is really sickening. It is makiing life very difficult. I haven't told the tdoc or pdoc because I've been embarrassed and now I think I need to. I really thought this was completely normal.

[Ashes]

Goosemuffin,
It would be a good idea to mention these things to your doc.  I have also experienced the poison paranoia.  I went for a week eating only from cans and drinking from glass bottles.  In my delusion they couldn't stab those with a needle to insert the poison. I too will only sleep with a light.

[Dreamline]

I haven't ever told my pdoc or therapist about that stuff either.  The lithium seems to take care of all that for me so I guess I don't need to?  I am the same way though, it would be embarrassing or awkward to tell them.  I saw a diff pdoc back in feb when I was high as hell and she asked me if I was hallucinating...I was looking around the room at the time.  I said "would I know if I was" and I was thinking "but you have plasma oozing out of your plants" 

[christian.156]

On my monster dose of seroquel I feel sad, sad, sad and have suicidal thoughts. I think the drugs can cause these things instead of fixing them.

[Ashes]

Hi christian.156,
I got really low and kept dwelling on death while I was on lamictal.  Being on seroquel worked at first but when it stopped he started raising the doseage, I started sleepwalking and the  side effects where to much to handle.

[Paz]

 I agree with Christian about the meds sometimes causing these things to happen instead of fixing them...I truly believe that I was much worse and harder to deal with when I was on so many meds.