6 weeks

Okay thank you so far to every one ;-)... I am almost at the 6 week spot with this brand new disease. Well new to me any way. Sorry I am kinda like feeling so crazy today. I have been taking the meds like a good girl. Although I realy think I can do this with out meds. But I made a promise to my dr that I would take all meds. And I like to try to live up to my word. Even though there are times I go a little too far and get into trouble with how I have lived up to my word. LOL Okay I just wanted to say Hi, and that I am trying to live with something that has me afraid to think now.
I know that this will be a working thing for the rest of my life. I had to learn that the hard way with the diabetes almost 3 yrs ago. But here I am now taking my meds trying very hard to eat right. And live each day to be as peaceful as I can be. Sorry. I seem to not beable to stop sometimes. Hey does any one eles feel like that or had felt like in the beinging?

I've been afraid to think. It's like what ever I think up i have to analyze to see if it's some weird manic thing or a depressive thing. i also have a problem with boundaries and tend to say the wrong things to the wrong people.
I know it's tough to get used to the fact that this is a life long battle. i would love to think that as long as I'm feeling okay i can stop the meds but I know better. The only reason i feel good is because of the meds.
As for keeping your word, good for you. A promise like that is worth keeping.
I know that I don't actually know you but I am proud of you for hanging in there. I know how tough it is sometimes.

I agree, tough it out and make sure to stick with your meds. It doesn't always feel that way, but bipolar is a very real medical disorder. Its one of those mental disorders like schizophrenia, there is a real biological basis for the disorder and it has to be treated with medications.

Its a struggle, but you'll make it.

In my NA (narcotics anonymous) program the first thing I have to do in order to work in a direction of recovery is to admit that I'm powerless over my addiction and that my life has become unmanagable. Same difference I am powerless over my bipolar condition and it does make my life unmanagable. The only thing that gives me some kind of control is working well with my pdoc and tdoc about where I'm at in my bipolar recovery/remission program. The meds being kinda balanced gives me a sense of a remission and I can live life manageably and without the meds and the docs my life goes to hell very very quickly. I've become aware of symptoms and obsessive compulsive thoughts or lack there of to tell them in order to help my treatment. I can wake up in the morning and judge my mania by how many watts are beaming from my eyes. It's a condition I dont have to control nor couuld I if i wanted to, its not my job. Thats why the docs go to school for as long as they do is to tell me what to do to live a better life. It's my choice to listen or to take control back and go back to the hells that they brought me out of. It is so treatable, make yourself take the meds thats a good thing and a great promise. When they get the mixture right (which sometimes takes a few tries) you may be like me and go "wholly shit" you mean it was me that made my life hell and I caused all that pain and chaos to everyone around me. We need to have alot of compassion and understanding to those who have to deal with us when we are winding up or spiriling down, its hard on them too. For the people that I love and that are around me I listen to the dr as if they were God himself. God saves people and so do the dr's. Thats been my experience with it. Hope thats helpful.

you mean it was me that made my life hell and I caused all that pain and chaos to everyone around me.
Maybe that was not meant to be taken the way I did. But it hurt my feelings to think I could have caused this crap to my self, or to some one else I love. I did not mean to hurt any one. And thats how I now feel..like I did this on propose. I have often fely as thou my life has had no meaning. And felt I was a screwup, that all the bad this where brought on my self. Like being beaten, or raped, or abused. So now I feel like yeah I have done it all to my self, and i feel like what the hell. Now I am moody. And I have not yet learned how to deal with this. I will not post for awhile if again. I may give it up and just track the moods so hopefuly I want cause any more pain to the ones I love or to my self.

Dixie
That's not what Kamy meant I'm sure. If you've been beaten and abused it is NOT your fault. I'm sure Kamy didn't know about those things and only meant that some of the stuff we do, like over spending or bugging our spouses into telling them they love us twenty times a day is our fault. The things you talk about have nothing to do with being bipolar. We sometimes hurt others because of our disease but the hell in your life is not your fault. Being abused and raped is not your fault. I can't say that enough. It's also nothing to do with bipolar. Please understand that she meant it as encouraging. She was only talking about the bipolar problems we all deal with and encouraging you to stay with your doctors.
Please understand and keep posting.

I have a 12 year old son named Kody. His definition of bipolar disorder is when mommy is nice one minute and yelling the next. When I read that in the statements he made to the police I didnt have an understanding yet of what the people around us go through. Now that I know a little bit about a little bit of it, we talk about it together. I cant believe some of my actions and dont remember alot of it because I was in a manic phase. When I talk in here and share with people like me, I'm sharing some of my own personal experiences with my bipolar. I did make things around me chaotic and I did hurt people. I cheated on my husband (a few times), I spent money we needed for food maybe, I acted irrational, I could not be depended on, when depressed I didnt even get out of bed to get them ready for school. I know what kind of hell I caused people. The things that happened to Dixie are outside forces out of her control and there is no way do I think she deserved anything like that. Sometimes we are a little hard to make sense of with our obsessions, compulsions and rash decision makings. Someone told me the other day, and I never thought of it this way, when people would ask me what was wrong I would always say nothing. I couldnt identify what was wrong, if something was wrong really, or was it the imbalance rearing its head again. This is such a complicated but simple disorder if we get the right people in our corners its so livealbe. Sorry if I offended at all, but I was speaking on my experience.

Please hang on Dixie. Nobody wants to scare you away. I see where you could take it wrong, but I think she clarified herself and I get what she was trying to say. I also get where you are in your journey right now and that is why we can help. So don't run, I have to tell you, hearing this stuff and reading it will hurt and sting for a long time. It is going to take a lot longer then 6 weeks to take this all in. I'm working on 4 years here and I have come a long way but I still have miles to go. You can try to do it alone or we can help.

Please let us help.

Dixie,

I hope you don't leave...it's so important to find others that are going through what you are going through in some shape or form.

Sometimes I feel so frustrated, guilty, lazy, exhausted, crappy, full of misc high speed crap and like a darned baby whose husband has to take care of her AND the kids. I NEED to know that people like you are out there and that I'm not even crazier than I already think I am!

Take what works for you and leave the rest -- don't let anyone else define your experiences for you. I can see what Kamy meant and in a way she is right...every time we ignore a direction, we are making a choice. Have you ever been depressed and then someone says something funny and you want to laugh or smile but you won't or you refuse to even if you can? Part of us has been going through these cycles for so, so, so many years that we don't know how to stop the cycles. In a way, many of us don't want to because it's a departure from what is safe, and known territory. We may think we don't want it, but it takes less energy to give in than to fight. The literature says that on average a person will go 10 years between first bipolar signs and an effective diagnosis.

I think it's a really really hard balance of working hard for and on ourselves to do what we CAN do for ourselves but also know when we MUST give control to someone else and let others know when to interfere when we can no longer take care of ourselves but cannot recognize as much.

Your manic spikes are so much like mine...let's compare symptoms!

Peachy wrote......Your manic spikes are so much like mine...let's compare symptoms!
Okay, Today I woke and seem tobe still in a baseline phase. It may stay it may not. I have days well not all day that I crazy because I feel helpless. That my husband does not deserve this crap. He has a child from his frist wife that requires when she is home consent care all the time. Some one has to tell her when to eat, when to shower, to put on deorent. shoes,socks..I mean she is like a small child and she will always be like that. She is 14. My frist husband died 6 yrs ago and left me with a 9 and 10 yr old. I began to drink to cope. I am 2 yrs sober with the help of AA and my HP. I have been trying my best to put frist things frist.
My daughter who was 10 when her father died is now 16 (OMG) and thinks she maybe pregant. Her and the now ex are making me nutter than normal. I keep thinking how could I help her take care of a child when most days I feel like I can't care for my self.
My 9 yrs old is now 15. And mind you these kids will be 17,16 and 15 is Sept.(17). Oct.(15) and Dec (16). He has ADHD and anger Issuse.I have a lot on my plate.
I live on a 5 acre farm. It is hard engough to take care of the food I am growing, the goats, ducks, chickins, geese, and soon to be 2 cows.
No things will not always be easy. Even if I did not have bipolar. I don't need anyone to remind me that there realy are hills and vallays in all our life. But when I wake each day. The frist thought I have is let me check my blood suger and get out side. My diabetes has become the frist thought of each waking day. And at most times it is the thought at the for thought of every thing. When I am checking on the goats,walking the fence line, chacing the ducks back to the pond area. Not that I am bipolar and that is me for the rest of my life.
I have other things to worrie about. I am not a spender. I drive for hrs I hate to spend money. My husband braged about that one time, LOL.
I am not a sexer either. I clean the house from top to bottom. I have even went out side before and took a tooth brush and cleaned the out side of the house. (maybe a little crazy huh?)
I guess I have made a new life around the bipolar part of my life.
I was raise in a rough house. I became at times a rough preson to love and deal with. I am who I am. I am a very sentive preson. I don't know where that came from. But it is who I am. Sometimes I want to stand up and fight, and others I leave and am not seen for days.
I am sorry if my words are mispelled. I am a high school drop out. And no I don't care to get a GED or go back to school. I have my fram and I am happy growing my own food. I will say this now.
I AM TRUELY SORRY IF I HURT ANY ONES FEELINGS WITH THIS POST. LIKE I TOLD A FRIEND ::: THIS IS WHO I AM THE SOFT AND LOVING PART AND THE TOUGH HARD PART. You can take me for who I am or you can leave it. This is me. Thank you for reading my post!!!!!

Thanks for coming back Dixie! You sure do have a lot on your plate. Be kind to yourself and hopefully we can keep supporting you.