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1. I still have yet to experience any real relief to date this lasted from any medication I've taken. In the exception of Vraylar, but the side effects were too much for me
2. In the last 3 days my eyes have gotten super blurry, I'm having a hard time reading my phone, and it just came out of nowhere.
3. I still believe I'm rapid cycling because I switch polarities two to three times a month. If you count mixed states, then it would be a significantly higher number.
I think I have yet to reach a normal mood and stay there longer than just traveling to the other side.
4. Divalproex makes my hair fall out. Lamictal does too, kind of, but not as bad.
5. Every day is a question mark and I am doing everything I can to stay positive and not dwell on the fact that I may never get any relief from this.
I have lost all control of my life, I can't make money, because I freak out at work, I can't make plans because I'm afraid of breaking them constantly.
On the odd occasion that my physical body feels well, I have no idea what to do with my day. I don't want to rush around like I have hurry sickness, but I know that when I feel like a normal human being my time in that state is very limited.
6. A lot of my moods are mixed in the most uncomfortable way. I feel like I'm trapped in hell sometimes. A lot of days I don't see an end in sight. I get the overwhelming urge to pace, and also take off on foot.
Like just take off running into the neighborhood in the middle of the night. I have spoken with a couple other people online who have confirmed that they too have this urge when they're in a mixed state.
So I guess now we know why we see crazy people just walking around all the time.
7. Yes, I have pretty bad intrusive thoughts. Sometimes they are suicidal because I don't truly feel that I'm ever going to catch a break or get any relief from this. On a real note though, I don't want to die. I feel like I deserve to get what I've worked for and I've accomplished a lot but I've never been in such a long state of goal related stagnancy in my life.
* My mother has had to remind me several times what our short-term goals are. And even though we discuss them and make a plan on how to get these goals completed, 99.9% of the time I just dread it too much and ignore it. Especially with medical paperwork.
8. I keep trying to work odd jobs, but I cry and zone out / disassociate without the ability to consciously stop. In fact, I do this so much, when I worked at Amazon I got something called t o t, time off task, the sad part was I had never left my station, I was where I was supposed to be only I couldn't remember the last product I had counted or scanned. This zoning out happened so much, that I had to take a leave of absence.
I would be able to see how long I had been gone for on my monitor at my station. It tells you how long it's been since you did your last recorded action.
For the life of me, I cannot Even tell anyone what was going through my mind, it was like I spent 10 minutes every 2 minutes thinking about nothing.
9. I'm so embarrassed because I can't be depended on. Not by others and I certainly cannot depend on myself. I know how it looks to other people who have healthy minds who are able to function correctly in society. They cannot understand why someone is unable to get out of bed on Tuesday when on Monday (the day before) they were manic/crazed / full of energy.
It makes me look lazy when in truth I'm a really hard worker. If I have a project that I'm passionate about there's no stopping me I'm going to work on it. Not when I'm depressed but if I can sit up long enough, I'm going to work on it. I've always been that way.
10. My anxiety is still through the roof in the evening time even this month when I haven't taken Adderall. I always felt like when the Adderall wore off, that was when I would get anxiety, but that's not the case now that we've taken that particular variable out of the equation.
I feel like I'm in such a high state of hypervigilance and fear and worry and clenched tight muscles white-knuckling it all the time, I feel like it's no wonder my anxiety medicine doesn't do much for me.
Also, I sweat profusely when in public due to anxiety. I get pretty bad stomach aches that (end in the bathroom and last for hours), cold chills and nausea from it. So you can imagine what that does to the old self-esteem 😊