Pick Your Poison

It's funny how easily it is for my thoughts to spiral down and get close to being out of control.  It's funny how much a small chemical change in my body can effect my mood.  It's funny, except that it's not.  It's quite frustrating and well, depressing.  The mood changes I'm experiencing are almost tangible.  And although I'm glad to know the lithium helps elevate my mood, I'm still very dissatisfied with the side-effects I experience:  shakiness, lack of balance, poor word recall, foggy thinking.  It doesn't seem right that I should have to sacrifice those things for a good mood.  But why not?  What makes me think anything in this life is going to be right or fair?  It's not, so I just have to pick my poison.  The difficult thing is that whatever I'm experiencing at the moment is the thing I can't stand and want to get rid of.  So when I was on the lithium I hated the side effects and just wanted to get rid of them.  Now I'm rid of the side effects but have the depressed mood to contend with.  And all I want to do is get rid of that. I guess the sooner I accept the fact that my choices are all bad to some extent, the better off I'll be.  But that's depressing in and of itself.

Eeyore Grey

I'm starting to feel a little Eeyore grey.  The back drop is that my health insurance only lets me get my prescriptions from a mail-in pharmacy, and they always take a week or more to get the meds to me.  Well, I rarely am on top of my refills enough that I'm not a little stressed at each refill period.  So this time I needed a new prescription (which I hope the Doctor's office actually called in) and I am now completely out of my lithium.  I had to spread out my pills a bit for this last week, but now I can't even do that. Also, it's a long national holiday, so I either get the meds on Saturday or Tuesday (or later). And here I am, feeling a bit like Eeyore.  It's a subtle change, but my emotional energy is just lower, my patience with my children a little less, and I'm experiencing an increase in moodiness.  I guess the one good thing that has come from this is I know I'm not ready to go off lithium--it is doing me some good.  And even just the hint of depression is scaring the hell out of me.  I am not ready to back down that road.  It's a good juxtaposition in moods for me right now.  Now just get me my meds please!

It works for me. . .

So I think I've made the connection between hypo-mania and anxiety.  With bi-polar II, often the mania end of things looks and feels like anxiety, but how?  I had an experience yesterday that cleared things up for me.  I've been having a fairly good week overall.  For months I've been feeling dysthymic, but after a good talk with my therapist I'm doing a lot better.  Work on my dissertation is actually moving forward (my daily goal is 250 words a day; may not seem like much, but it works for me).  Anyway, last night I found myself feeling a bit hypo-manic, but had no place to put the energy, as I haven't had that type of energy for a while.  Well, with no place to put the enrgy of hypo-mania, it started churning and churning inside of me.  It came out looking like anxiety.  I guess its kind of like taking milk, churning it for a while, and getting butter at the end.  I'm not sure how great of a metaphor this is, but it works for me.  Here's to finding ways to take the hypo-mania and keeping the energy as something positive and something that can make life feel better.