Category: Bipolar

BIPOLAR: "There’s no need to ask directions if you ever lose your mind"

There’s no need to ask directions
If you ever lose your mind
We’re behind you
We’re behind you
And let us please remind you
We can send a car to find you
If you ever lose your way

Cake — Comfort Eagle

So, last week, I did it. I dropped Paxil/paroxetine/seroxat completely from my medicines. Seems that other medical issues I am having are aggravated by the stuff, so after 7.5 years, it’s gone.

The withdrawal shouldn’t be as bad for me as it is for most people, as I am on pretty high doses of the mood-stabilizer Trileptal. Still, it should be an interesting couple of weeks.

Cursing the Days Lost

My wife doesn’t understand my fascination with Hunter Thompson. There are only a select few who do.

What most people don’t understand is that living with manic bipolar is living with Hunter inside your head every day. Raging. Screaming. Shooting at the peacocks while the sun rises. Spraying my optic nerve with a rogue fire extinguisher. Delivering calla lilies to soothe me when he has stepped over the line, laughing at me, with me, simultaneously.

That screaming vitality that HST lived every single day is bottled inside me, caged, rattling the bars, threatening to call a 450-pound Maori solicitor to beat some logic into my skull, from the inside out. The highly-attuned vision. Echoing sounds of madness. Inability to pay attention to the droning emptiness of my work life.

Some would call this a nightmare. Some days I do. Most days, I rock back on my heels, scratch my chin, grin, and smile. I know that the world around me is always in his sights, ranting, providing a constant commentary, arms waving manically, Chivas spilling on my synapses, another typewriter brutally blasted in the snow.

Hunter is the model of what rages inside me. The echo of a life restrained, held in check. Cursing the days lost.

The Joy and Stigma of Burnout

Today, the sun is shining and I am working from home, so things don’t seems as bad.

The last few days have been interesting, as I have become more aware that the my work-related anger and dissatisfaction does not originate with the people at work, or the place I work, or the work itself, but from that beast that so many white-collar professionals suffer from: burnout.

Burnout is not sexy. In the US and Canada, it is seen as a sign of weakness, a lack of the American Work Ethic. NPR had a great discussion of burnout this week, and New York Magazine published a cover article on it this week.

Listening to NPR on Monday, there was a story of how the US armed forces are punishing soldiers who return from Iraq and are diagnosed with PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) [here]. The successful soldiers see the soldiers (what defines success for a soldier?) with PTSD as weaklings, people who should be punished, pushed out onto the streets, stripped of their American citizenship as cowards and traitors.

I do not claim that PTSD and work-related burnout are equal; my focus here is on the stigma that the US culture places on doing the job, regardless of what the job does to you.

You can do the job. Good. What kind of person are you?

I am a rebel. I do not fit the US success criteria. I don’t want a title. I don’t want a box on an org chart. I don’t want to have the biggest bank account. And I have no respect for people who worship at the temple of US success until they show me that they can do something that I respect.

Today. I wrote an email to my manager and VP stating that during my Christmas break this year, I will be completely unreachable for anything work-related.

Unreachable for EVERYTHING work-related.

It is likely that I will be seen as “letting the team down”, as it is not only end-of-quarter, but end-of-year.

You know what? I don’t care. I am more important than my job. If the company I work for now doesn’t recognize that, I will find a new company.

You know who the most successful people I know are? My friends who “dropped out” of the corporate world, moved to Maine, and are slaving, day and night, to get their under-funded winery project off the ground. While raising three kids. While renovating and repairing 200-year old farm buildings.

Success does not come from money, power, or a title. I comes from having the respect of the people around you. I comes from a desire to get up in the morning and do something that completes you, fills a void inside you.

Right now, when I get up, I step into a void.

Burnout. It’s here to stay.

All in the Family

Time to put the manic energy I have this morning to use.

One of the most interesting things about Bipolar is that genetics plays a substantial role in determining whether you will have it. In my case, my family is a disaster when it comes to mental health.

On my father’s side, there is a long and glorious history of schizophrenia and bipolar, including at least 2 grand-uncles, and their children. Two of my father’s cousins have committed suicide.

My grandfather committed suicide in 1978.

Everyone says that this was out of the blue, there was no reason for it. He left no note, or showed any indication. But as I learn more about this condition, this state of mind, I realize that the suicidal depressions can often swamp you, flood you, to a point where a person who appears fine will take the final action in the next minute.

On my mother’s side, my grandfather medicated with rye. As well, he had amazingly manic states; at least, that’s what we would call them now. He passed the genes along to two of his children, one of whom is my mother.

Over the last 10 years, my mother has degraded to a point where she lives alone, rarely goes out, is socially inappropriate, and has tried suicide at least once.

When I speak with her, it is hard to stare into the face of what I might become, what I must be aware of, what the costs of this condition can be.

So, I was doomed from the start. My father, a man who was challenged by his own demons, married a woman who is a wildly cycling bipolar II.

My family is lucky. As far as I can tell, I absorbed all of the bipolar genetics, leaving my brothers to conquer the world in their own ways, without the chaos that tears my mind apart. I am sure that they look at me and wonder why I am so nuts. I am sure that I am not alone in being the odd family member in a sea of normals.

So when you are in the depths of your misery, or at the heights of your mania, try to step back. Ask your parents, siblings, grandparents, cousins, uncles. Try and find the thread, the trail that leads through your family. Somewhere along that trail, likely in many places, the “characters” or “eccentrics” or “troubled souls” will leap out at you. These are the people who suffered, and revelled, in their condition, and passed it to you.

And realize that you can’t lay blame. You can’t transfer your woe and misery and mania to someone who is likely long gone. You just need to understand that you are the current carrier of a torch that originated long before you were born.

What do you mean you don't think this way?

One of the lengthy conversations I have had with my wife as I work my way through understanding how my bipolar works and affects my life focused on how I think, and see the world.

I am just now coming to terms with the fact that the filters I process my world through are radically different than those that most people use. This is a breakthrough for me, as I assumed that everyone saw the world as I did and do.

A lot of this comes from my family. Both sides of my family are rife with bipolar and schizophrenia. My mother has it; my father had it to a lesser degree. My family was unusual because of this. Not dysfunctional; just differently functional.

My wife filters the world in a logical, linear way. Imagine one of those orderly mass protests you see on the news. Lots of people, lots of noise, but everyone moving in the same direction, headed for the same goal.

Then there’s me. I filter the world as if there was a riot going on. People running everywhere, throwing rocks, Molotov cocktails, screaming. Troops in vehicles rushing through spraying water cannons. But occasionally, one side or the other gathers enough strength to achieve a small tactical victory, push the other side back a little.

When you step back and look at those of us who have bipolar, remember that we see your world very differently. And it is your world, designed to preserve order and organization, protect you from the “madness” in our minds.

Canada: Mother

I visited my mother on this trip to Canada.

To some, this would seem like a natural. However, my relationship with my mother has been strained over the years for a number of reason which I won’t get into here.

I was glad that my youngest brother and his family were there as well, or I would have cut and run a lot sooner than we did. This trip reminded me that my brothers are my family, despite the feelings I may have for (or against) my mother.

It’s always your relationship with your parents that make life interesting. They shape you, twist you, bend you, and sometimes break you. For me, the goal has been to try and escape the orbit my mother’s gravity pulls me toward. I see a lot of her in myself, and it scares the hell out of me. I know that I have to work hard to try and be my own person; but the baggage of my upbringing and genetics makes it a hard slog sometimes.

Seeing her reminded me that I have to continue to work, struggle against the pull, escape the potential disaster.

Paxil/Seroxat Used as Loss Leader

Link: SocietyGuardian.co.uk | Society | Revealed: secret plan to push ‘happy’ pills.

I love reading stuff like this about Paxil/Seroxat, as it is the SSRI I have been taking since 1998.

A half-life is the scientific term for how long it takes for the
concentration of a drug to drop by 50 per cent in a patient’s
bloodstream. The company suggested Seroxat’s short half-life meant patients could come on and off the drug easily, compared with those on Prozac, even to the extent that they could take ‘treatment holidays’.

‘There was an argument that a short half life was really good news,’
Brook said.

For those of you out there who may have tried to stop taking Paxil/Seroxat, you may have encountered a few of the withdrawal symptoms.

It is best to consult a physician before discontinuing SSRIs. Stopping taking SSRIs such as Paroxetine (Paxil, Seroxat, Deroxat) suddenly may cause discontinuation effects, or withdrawal symptoms, including:

  • dizziness
  • vertigo/light-headedness
  • nausea
  • fatigue
  • headache
  • insomnia
  • abdominal cramps
  • chills
  • increased dreaming
  • agitation
  • anxiety

When I stopped, I encountered all of these. The only one that I liked was the return of my vivid dreaming. But I finally had to go back on them. You have created another addict for life; thank you GSK.

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