Hey everyone! As some of you know, I have been diagnosised with bipolar disorder for 3 years. It's been awhile since I've been here and I need to vent about my recent "voluntary" hospitalization. When I first signed in, I read the fine print and if I wanted out, I had to sign some papers and wait 24 hours for a doctor and therapist to either agree or not. That made me nervous, because I thought admitting yourself voluntary meant you could leave when you felt better, not when the doctors thought you felt better. Anyways, I should start from the beginning. Two weeks ago, I became depressed and lashed out on my fiance whenever I could. I felt horrible, but I wasn't in control. I was just reacting and I soon felt suicidal. Then my fiance came back from visiting his parents and he was suddenly suicidal and attempted it twice. The last time, he went driving with a head full of pills and got arrested for an OWI. This happened Tuesday night and no one knew where he was. I frantically called the state police posts and different county posts, to no avail. This is when I started cutting myself. When I found out he was okay but in jail, I blamed myself and went from being slightly depressed to full blown depression with suicidal ideations. I knew I needed help so I went to my university's health center and was told that I needed to be hospitalized. I agreed and was placed in the crisis center, which was scary as hell. The next day, I was transferred to the stress center, where I became worse than when I was first admitted but hid the depression from the doctor and therapists. It wasn't too hard, since I saw them for maybe a total of 40 minutes in 4 days. My pyschiatrist declared that my bipolar disorder was in remission and I was suffering from Depression NOS (on my release papers). However, once I got out of there, depression hit hard again. I am still tempted to cut, but the only knife available just scratches and doesn't really draw blood. I know this isn't healthy so I take klonopin from an old script, which helps stop the urges. I am not suicidal (I'll never admit that to a doctor unless I can go somewhere besides the hospital I was at) but I still feel lonely, unloved, and futureless. I sleep too much and don't eat enough. I have an appt with my regular psychiatrist Monday, so hopefully seeing him will help lift the depression and finally address the cutting issues. I just want to get better. Any suggestions on dealing with depression? Anyone go through the same thing? Peace and love
in my opinion, the issues you and your bf have make a relationship a bad idea. any relationship that amps up your depressive and self-destructive issues is a really bad idea right now. you will need to focus on maintaining emotional stability in order to improve your situation. be 100% honest with your psych about your self-destructive thoughts. you need people in your life who will strongly support your desire for emotional stability rather than adding to the problem. i would suggest that you ask your psych if there is a local support group for BPD you could go to that maintains a focus on recovery. best wishes and good luck.
Actually, my fiance is my biggest support b/c he understands the demons of bipolar disorder. It may not seem like a healthy relationship to people who don't know us, but we help each other through the hard times. My depression was set in motion before he was suicidal and my medication was not at the right level to help me. Now, hopefully both of our medication is at helpful levels and we can put this stage past us. He no longer is suicidal and wants to be healthy for me and our future children. I don't see how that is unhealthy. Maybe you could explain your comments about our relationship. I would appreciate that. Peace and love
for the answer to your question, re-read paragraph 2 of your first post while pretending that someone else wrote it. maybe then you'll understand where i'm coming from. you seem to be a little too close to the subject to see that you and your bf are plainly triggering each other.
Are you a doctor? How can this be so "plain to see" when you don't know the whole situation? Maybe if you had some omniscient powers I might listen, but you don't. How can you say that I'm too close to the situation? Because I know the reasons why we were suicidal, and they had nothing to do with each other? I guess you must know more than I do about why I was suicidal. BTW, my original post asked for help dealing with depression, not analyzing my relationship with my fiance. I deal with enough bullshit from family members (who, in fact, WERE the trigger of my last episode) so I don't appreciate the comments you made about our relationship. Peace and love
i didn't expect to be appreciated. but i said it anyway because i felt you needed to hear it. i hope you find what you need.
What I need is some advice on defeating this depression that is holding me down. Not criticism on the one thing that keeps me going, the love of my life. Like I said, anyone close to me, especially family, triggers my mood swings more frequently and more severely than my fiance. Are you suggesting that I should end my relationships with them because they "plainly" trigger my moods? I just want to feel normal again, not like a burden on my family and friends. I want the thoughts of harming myself to stop. I'm crying for help because I'm drowning in a sea of depression. Peace and love
Sister, I was diagnosed as bipolar 12 years ago, and the only things that helped me were: 1) Meditation 2) Breathing Exercises 3) Yoga 4) Organic Vegan Diet 5) Calming or Happy Music, especially Reggae 6) Calling on Jah Ras Tafari, The King of Kings, and God of The Bible, who I've been told by very wise men that He is the Creator and Resolver of all Polarity... meaning opposites. Bipolar Disorder is an imbalance of the two opposite poles of the mind, the thinking and feeling functions. If you learn meditation and breathing exercises, and call on The Most High God, you will in all likelihood be able to get control of your situation.
I'd be looking for a support group. You need to hang with people who are going through the same crap. Talk among yourselves. Trade ideas. As for cutting yourself, maybe you need to change weapons? If pain is the idea, get one of those little short whips called a flogger. Like a leather cat o nine tails. You might get one in an adult shop or mail order. It isn't likely to do you any real harm and you can still get your dose of endorphines while you vent out the negative energy across your back. x
Hippie Sister, I am going through the same kind of thing as you are, except I'm all alone. I would much rather have someone else there, even if they were struggling too, though it is true that people can trigger one another. My mom and I do it to each other all the time, and I wish it wasn't like that. At any rate, I'm sorry for preaching to you... I'm just telling you what worked for me when I my bipolar disorder became so severe I started having a total mental breakdown. The only thing that saved me was running into some hippies at a One Love show, and they were telling me about Jah Love, which is what Bob Marley used to sing about. But, putting that aside... I hope you can benefit from that information about biploar disorder being an imbalance between the thinking and feeling hemispheres of the brain. Meditation, visualization, calming music, and breathing exercise can help balance your mind back out. I wish I still had the energy to do all of that stuff, but I have just been too depressed. A lot of people have turned their backs on me when I started struggling, and the ones that didn't, I drove away with my erratic behavior and hostility. Now I'm all alone, and it sucks... but at least you have someone to love you as best they can. I'd give anything to have a woman in my life, even if I had to take her to the hospital and deal with her struggles... that's what life is about, teamwork, and sticking together, no matter what. Regarding Klonopin... that's one of the best meds made, and I use it myself to stay sane. Marijuana used to help, until it started making me very paranoid and lazy. Anyway, I hope you feel better... life is not easy, but it sounds like you're doing a pretty good job dealing with what is. May all peace, love, healing and joy flow your way. Blessings.
Thanks for your replies. I am trying meditation AGAIN, because I have a really hard time maintaining ANYTHING, like yoga, meditation, writing in a journal, Buddhism, hygiene, etc. I have a pattern of getting into something, doing it for a week, maybe a month at the longest and then it just disappears from my life. I wish it was easier for me to start something and stick to it, but I realize it's a day by day kind of thing. Keep trying until it becomes a habit (actually a good one, I don't have too many of those, but plenty of bad ones!) Is this just part of the disorder or is this something to do with me? Peace and love
I went through that too, until I realized that these activities are lifestyles... things you have to keep doing in order to live and live well. The rewards will be more than worth it. Instability of habits and identity is very common while someone is discovering who they are. As you keep learning who you are, integrate those likes and dislikes into your identity, and do what you have to do every single day to stay stable. After a while, it won't seem like a chore, it will become easy, then you'll start to enjoy it, then you won't be able to imagine yourself living without it. You'll love it, because you'll see the benefits in your life... those good habits will bring you joy, peace and balance. All human beings develop habits... patterns of behavior that we repeat without really reflecting on first. Sort of like auto-pilot. All you have to do is make one small change every day, and then maintain that change... in other words, keep that good thing you added as a constant in your life, and don't compromise on it. I personally believe it is impossible to eliminate a negative habit directly... because that space and time has to be filled by something. The best way to eliminate a negative habit is to just add in one positive habit into your life, one at a time, until pretty soon, all the negative habits are just slowly and almost unnoticeably pushed out. Doing it that way eliminates the pain of trying to "quit" or "eliminate" something. Don't quit anything... just start doing different things... better things that you know will help you. Do that consistently, and your whole life and quality of life will change will very little difficulty or pain. You can do it Hippie Chick. We have faith in you. Yes, seek it within, and you will emanate it to those around you.
I understand what you are saying about habits. I just have a lot of trouble with "cycling," as in, finding something I really enjoy, doing it for a while, dropping it after around a month, and I'm back where I started. One example is yoga. I really love to do yoga, but I never do it anymore. I don't know why because I got really into it. Then the interest kind of vanished. I just wish I could stay with something longer than a month. My fiance has the same issues with jobs. He hasn't been able to hold a job for longer than 3 months. I am trying to make an effort to replace bad habits with better ones, so I'll see how I carry on day by day. Peace and love
I do that too... get interested in something, have my fill of it, and then move on. The only solution to that is to keep replacing those discarded good habits with new good habits. Nothing in nature stays static... we are either growing or decaying. Growth leads to happiness, and decay leads to misery, so choose to keep growing and learning in a positive way, and the mood swings will go away.
