Fun With Bipolar Disorder
02.27.06 (1:11 pm) [edit]"Manic depression's a frustrating mess." - Jimi Hendrix
I read more today about the relationship between bipolar disorder and ADD, and saw something interesting.
Apparantly, the stimulants that are often used to control ADD (I was on Ritalin for a while) can actually make bipolar disorder worse. Well, whaddya know. Gee, I can't think of how that might have affected ME when I was taking those drugs and irritable as all fuck and wanting to grab some random asshole off the street and cave his goddamn skull in. Laying on the floor for half an hour at a time unable to think well enough to stand. Letting every godamn tiny insignificant thing on the planet send me over the edge.
Gee, stimulants don't always work, eh? Fuckers.
I'm starting to wonder if I'm actually getting better, or if I've just shifted into an extended manic mode. It doesn't seem that way for the most part, but there are some signs. It's pretty obvous that I've got some severe hypersexuality going on, which is a symptom of the manic end of bipolar.
I feel pretty damn good for the most part. It's just this crazed sex thing that is (pardon the pun) fucking with me. I don't have the insurance or the money to do anything more than keep an eye on things, read up more, and keep taking my vitamins and eating better, which is really helping a lot in the past few months. My physical health is far from perfect, but it's made a big jump in the right direction lately, and I know that's helping the chemicals balance a bit better.
"Hey baby. Can I buy you a drink? Say, my doctor says I have bipolar disorder, with symptoms of hypersexuality. Seems the only effective treatment is continuous oral sex. So, your place or mine?"
Love,
Dougie
posted by: onebadjen (reply)
post date: 02.27.06 (8:22 am)
this worries me... my kid is supposedly adhd, and his meds fuck with him bad...
posted by: MidnightEpicure (reply)
post date: 02.27.06 (8:27 am)
whoa! i'm bipolar with add and my name is doug too! i took anti depressants, and they completely killed the sex drive. idk, i believe meds are only good to stabilize. once youre okay on your own, get off of them. but, im no doc.
posted by: eraserhead667 (reply)
post date: 02.27.06 (8:37 am)
reply to onebadjen:
You should get a second opinion. And a third or fourth. He may very well be ADHD, but it does get misdiagnosed often, and frankly, these people do not have a great track record of matching the problem with the appropriate treatment. go read message boards and groups for people with these illnesses, and you come away with serious questions about the medical industry and their priorite.s Not to say they aren't trying to help, or that they often don't get good results, but there's enough discrepancies in thought about these disorders to make me believe little of what I'm told without doing a LOT of extra reading.
What does your kid experience while taking the meds? The stimulants seemed to make all the bipolar shit (which I didn't know about for a couple years after starting on the stimulants) a lot worse. When I got on lithium, it made a big difference, and I might go back on it, but it certainly wasn't very effective last spring when I was out of my goddamn mind during the divorce. I told the psychiatrist I saw recently that I was bad about remembering my second dose in the evening, but he said that shouldn't have made things as bad as they were. Of course, I'm ot sure HE knew what he was talking about either.
posted by: eraserhead667 (reply)
post date: 02.27.06 (8:39 am)
reply to MidnightEpicure:
I'm trying to simply eat better, drink a lot of water, take in a LOT less sugar, and take two multivitamins a day. I went to a shrink about this and he said that might be every bit as good as taking the drugs. It's still early, and I've only been off the lithium a few months. We'll see.
posted by: Spooooooooooooooooooooock! (reply)
post date: 02.27.06 (3:07 pm)
My parents put me on ritalin for a while when I was a hatchling. They took me off it because they said they didn't recognise me any more. I'm very firmly of the opinion that it seriously fucked with my brain chemistry. I won't say what other people should or shouldn't do, but no child of mine will EVER be medicated into submission.
posted by: eraserhead667 (reply)
post date: 02.27.06 (4:01 pm)
It's a perfectly legitimate drug, but it is VERY overused. It's fucking speed for Christ's sake. The attitude seems to be "Let's try this shit and see what happens." Which would be fine if they'd spent more than THREE FUCKING MINUTES with the person in question. I fucking despise the medical and pharmaceutical industry in this country. They are far more about money than about treating people, far more about plastering voer symptoms than getting to an actual cure. This shit makes me mad, because I have to live with it every goddamn day.
posted by: DayTripper7 (reply)
post date: 02.27.06 (4:21 pm)
Oh, you.
posted by: eraserhead667 (reply)
post date: 02.27.06 (4:49 pm)
You!