I was just recently dx with Bipolar II after years of confusion, hurt, anger, rage - just about every emotion and now understanding why. I was always a very moody child and this progressed into my young adult life. In college I was dx with depression and given Prozac after my roomates sat me down and said they just couldn't live with me anymore, my moodiness was too much for them to handle. This pushed me into what I believe to be my first manic experience. Looking back, I now recognize it, but at the time I didn't. I did alot of things that were completely out of character for me and made alot of really bad choices and decisions that still to this day bother me if I dwell on them. But my roomates and friends at the time thought the new me was great.
After quitting Prozac, moving out into a place of my own and getting a job, I got back to my 'normal' self. The bad experience with the med and the psychologist that I saw at Student Health stopped me from seeking help for about 10 years. Those years are mostly a blur of ups and downs. I pushed alot of people away and had unhealthly and verbally and psychologically (and sometimes physically) abusive relationships. I became a very bitter person.
When things got really bad and the anxiety was high that I was literally worrying myself to death, I was avoiding all contact with new people and become the opposite of what I was, I finally seeked help from my GP/Gyn. She put me on Paxil. It worked well enough. I could get out of the house, things (ie - certain people) at my job just didn't bother me anymore, it was nice. But at the same time, my mind was racing so fast that I couldn't keep up. Sometimes I would talk so fast that I know that I didn't make any sense (this happened frequently, especially if I was just meeting the person. I can only imagine what they thought when they walked away.) I stayed on it for 2 years. Within that time I met and married my husband. When I finally made the decision to go off the Paxil at first I tried to do it alone by tapering down. It didn't work, so I sat down with my doc and we wrote out a plan. It took me about 4-5 months to finally quit.
Within a year, I started thinking that I needed something. I was up and down and I was driving my husband away. The beginning of 2005 brought with it chronic persistant migraines. At first 4-5/week and now 2-3. My GP/Gyn tried in all Lexapro, Wellbutrin XL, Cymbalta - all with horrible results. The Lex and Cym made me so sick I was bedridden to 2 weeks for each. Clearly, AD's was not the answer. (We thought at the time that situational anxiety from work (the coworker again) and holding in alot of things for 10+ years was causing alot of the problems that I was having). She referred me to a neuro. I had the MRI done - normal and was put on Topamax and sent home with a bag full of triptans to try. It soon became clear that triptans made me sicker than the actual migraine. All the while, I was taking Percocet to help with the pain because nothing else even touched it.
about 6 months later, I dumped the neuro because all he pushed was Topamax, which was not working. A month before that I took medical leave from work (Aug). Sometime in there I went on Effexor - didn't work at all. In Sept I was referred to the Psychiatrist. After talking with him for 2 sessions, he announced what I had always suspected - Bipolar II. What a relief at first. Then I started to look back at my life and saw the 'patterns'. It was so clear. He put me on Lamictal (my little wonder drug) and Xanax as needed - I have taken that off and on being really careful - I'm terrified of addiction. Later we added Paxil back in, at a low dose. I don't think that it is working so we may dump it. Eventually he also added Seroquel to help me sleep - paranoia, voices or conversations previous or future, and mild hallucinations that I had always had, was getting worse as it did in the past sometimes.
With the exception of the migraines which I am working on with a new neuro
, which is in a thread in the migraine section, I am feeling better than I have in a long time. I feel stable. I still have bad days, but things are finally looking up.-Jen
Dx: BPII (and everything that comes along with it), Chronic Migraines
Current Rx: Lamictal, Paxil, Lyrica, Seroquel (prn), Xanax (prn), NuvaRing
Past Rx: Prozac, Paxil/CR, Lexapro, Cymbalta, Ambien, Wellbutrin XL, Effexor/XR, Topamax, Neurontin, Trazadone, Klonopin, array of triptans (allergic) and lots of pain meds