Bipolar Mom

One Foot Wrong

manicfranic — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 15:18:48 +0000

These lyrics are by Pink. It makes me think of a manic episode. I can relate to it, hopefully others can to…

Am I sweating
Or are these tears on my face?
Should I be hungry?
I can’t remember the last time that I ate
Call someone, I need a friend to talk me down

But one foot wrong and I’m gonna fall
Somebody gets it, somebody gets it
But one foot wrong and I’m gonna fall
Somebody gets it, somebody gets it

All the lights are on but I’m in the dark
Who’s gonna find me? Who’s gonna find me?
Just one foot wrong
You’ll have to love me when I’m gone

Does anyone see this?
Lucky me, I guess I’m the chosen one
Color and madness
First in line I put my money down
Some freedom is the tiniest cell in town

But one foot wrong and I’m gonna fall
Somebody gets it, somebody gets it
But one foot wrong and I’m gonna fall
Somebody gets it, somebody gets it

All the lights are on but I’m in the dark
Who’s gonna find me? Whose gonna find me?
Just one foot wrong
You’ll have to love me when I’m gone

Does anyone see this?
Lucky me, I guess I’m the chosen one
Color madness
First in ine I put my money down
Some freedom is the tiniest cell in town

But one foot wrong and I’m gonna fall
Somebody gets it, somebody gets it
But one foot wrong and I’m gonna fall
Somebody gets it, somebody gets it

All the lights are on but I’m in the dark
Who’s gonna find me? Who’s gonna find me?
Just one foot wrong
You’ll have to love me when I’m gone

Some people find the beauty in all of this
I go straight to the dark side near this
If it’s bad is it always my fault?
Did somebody bring me down?

One foot wrong, I’m gonna fall
Put one foot wrong and I’m gonna fall
Put one foot wrong and I’m gonna fall
Somebody gets it, somebody gets it
Just one foot wrong and I’m gonna fall
Somebody gets it, somebody gets it

All the lights are on but I’m in the dark
Who’s gonna find me? Who’s gonna find me?
Just one foot wrong
You’ll have to love me when I’m gone

Have to love me when I’m gone
Love me when I’m gone
You’ll have to love me when I’m gone, yeah
You’ll have to love me when I’m gone

Bi-polar and Acting

manicfranic — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 16:31:01 +0000

I am currently in a live theater play recreating the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. This is my first play and I absolutely love it. However, the day of opening night I was super anxious couldn’t calm down, and had trouble sleeping. I called my psych and he was out of town. Had to tell another doctor about what was going on. She was reluctant to give me any anti-anxiety meds without me never taking them before, having seen me before, and not wanting them to affect my performance ( by making me groggy). I went another day without additional med help. She told me to call her in the morning if the anxiety wasn’t getting better. It didn’t. She gave me an Rx for Xanax. It ended up helping me without too much drowsiness. Now that we’ve done six shows nerves aren’t an issue. Thankfully, all is well now. Thank God for Xanax. Especially when six in-laws are all staying at our house for a visit-with only one shower!

3rd Anniversary & Faith Musings

manicfranic — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 19:35:10 +0000

Yesterday was my husband and my 3rd year being married. It is so hard to believe we have been together that long. We have had our ups and definitely downs. I am so thankful to have the support of my husband. He stood by me when I was half losing my mind, when I was in the hospital for a week and he took care of our 6mo old the whole time I was gone. I honestly don’t know what would have done without him. I don’t know many husbands who would stick around with all that drama. We didn’t do anything special last night. My husband had to work all day and I had rehearsal. But this Saturday we are planning on going to a vineyard to do some wine tasting (something I’ve wanted to do for a very long time), go out to eat (which is a real treat for us, we are so poor we can barely ever afford to do that) and maybe see a movie. Maybe even see the premier of SNL, too. My parents are taking our daughter for the night. The next morning we plan on getting breakfast at IHOP or something . I am so excited. It’s really the little things in life that make it special.

If I would have married the charismatic, Word of Faith man who I was planning on when I was young I can only imagine what it’d be like today. I would most likely have people huddled around me trying to “cast the devil out of me”. And he would probably be totally opposed to me being on medication for the rest of my life. People in that movement have a huge tendency to be judgmental and tell you that you just need to think positive thoughts, conjure up enough faith to get over it, and confess it over and over until you are healed. I used to be that way; I was judgmental I was thinking people who were depressed just need to think positively and they would be fine. I have an aunt who is Bipolar as well and years ago we went to lunch she was telling me how she was going through a tough time with suicidal thoughts. I gave her the same speech I had heard all my life growing up in the church. I honestly didn’t realized people who were depressed were truly suffering from a chemical imbalance in the brain. I went on to tell her how I too, had suffered with suicidal thoughts and that I got over them and she could too.

Looking back in my life I can now see many signs I was suffering from Bipolar. I had a terrible time focusing, I sometimes wondered if I was ADD. I would get so elated that I felt as if I were flying through the clouds, only to crash down into a deep depression. I wanted to take my own life on more than one occasion. I am so relieved to have found out what was/is wrong with me. I now worry about my daughter. Will she end up being Bipolar as well? I pray to God not. Not only am I and my aunt (on my mom’s side) Bipolar, my cousin (on my dad’s side) is as well. The risk rises up to 30% for a parent passing on the disease to their children. That thought is very disheartening. But there is nothing I can do but hope and pray.

Happy Anniversary to us.

TV Messages

manicfranic — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 14:51:53 +0000

When I was on a manic high, I was so manic I lost all sense of reality. When I would walk by a television I thought everything on it was a message to me. Dr. Phil was talking about family dysfunction and I thought he was talking to me about my family. A sitcom was on and I thought it was put on for me and only me. I even thought the news was giving a broadcast about me. Talk about narcissistic.

Lamicatal, Lithium, & Wellbutrin- Oh My

manicfranic — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 15:11:38 +0000

I am currently on Lamictal and Wellbutrin. My psych just took me off Lithium but said if I have any problems with depression to fill the Rx. I don’t need to see him again for another four months. When I got back from the psychiatrist my mom found out I was doing so well and said, “Maybe you can get off your meds soon.” I am one of those patients who is scared of the consequences of not being on medication. I have been through hell and back before I was on them and I do not want to put myself or my family through that again. I don’t understand why she said this. Especially since she knew the doctors explained the importance of taking medication when I got out of the hospital. When I had told my parents I am off Lithium and only need to get back on it if I am depressed (especially when winter comes) again my dad said, “Well if you know it’s just due to the weather, then you can just talk yourself through your depression.” Right. Talk myself through it. Just tell that to someone who is severely depressed; “Buck up. Just talk yourself through it!”

I believe this is one of the best drug combinations I have been on. When I was in the hospital I was prescribed Seroquel to be taken at night and it made me a zombie. I was so tired in the mornings I felt like I was walking around in a dream. I couldn’t even hear my baby cry in the middle of the night. When I couldn’t wake up in the middle of the night or early morning due to Seroquel, I had enough. Thankfully, I didn’t have to be on it for more than a few months.

I have been depression free since May. I am bracing myself for the worse because it is a very high possibility it will be back again this winter. A Bipolar’s depression is very much affected by the weather. Thankfully, I haven’t had any manic highs since last year either. Only, I have to admit, sometimes I miss the high energy and euphoria. I always seemed to be more productive and it didn’t matter if anything bad happened I wouldn’t let it get me down, which is very much unlike my usual negative self.

I wish I could make people, especially my own family understand what it’s like to be Bipolar. Then they wouldn’t be saying crazy ignorant things to me. But such is life, life as a Bipolar.

Manic

manicfranic — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 15:59:16 +0000

This is a song by Plumb. It describes manic episodes beautifully.

She breaths in
She breaths out
She wakes up
And lays down
She can hardly speak
And so she screams

I won’t give
Cause she does

Nothing I say will wash it away
I’m standing in the pouring rain
You say it wont happen again
You’re manic, manic

There’s a chemical in your brain
It’s pouring sunshine and rage
You can never know what to expect
You’re manic, manic

She loves you
And hates you
You break down
She feels good

She will bleed of insecurity
When will she heal
I love her still

Nothing I say will wash it away
I’m standing in the pouring rain
You say it wont happen again
You’re manic, manic

There’s a chemical in your brain
It’s pouring sunshine and rage
You can never know what to expect
You’re manic, manic

She’s got everything you want
She’s every little thing your not
Yeah-

Nothing I say will wash it away
I’m standing in the pouring rain
You say it won’t happen again
You’re manic, manic

There’s a chemical in your brain
It’s pouring sunshine and rage
You can never know what to expect
You’re manic, manic

Freak Show

manicfranic — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 15:52:49 +0000

It’s been a little over a year now since I’ve been diagnosed with Bipolar. I think I have finally come to terms with the fact that I will be this way for the rest of my life, that I will need medicine for the rest of my life (if I want to stay well), and that I will probably hide this from most people whom I meet. “Hi, I’m Annie, and I’m Bipolar,” tends to scare people away. I’ve only told a handful of people over the course of this year. Some took it well and treated me exactly the same and some have said, “You need to stop confessing you’re Bipolar. Just believe you will be healed and then you won’t have to take your medicine.” I stared at her in shock. I honestly could not believe she was saying this to me. She had acted all cool about it the fist time I told her what was wrong with me, and then a few months later- BAM! She slapped this comment in my face. I know she meant well, but it did not in any way help me how she intended. Such is life. People will be ignorant wherever you go.

I recently told another friend of mine who didn’t respond at all. I told her why I couldn’t breast feed my daughter longer than six months, because of the meds. I explained why I was taking meds and she literally just sat there. No response, she just changed the subject instead. It was weird. It’s not the first time this has happened, though. I prefer someone to be negative about it, rather than completely pretend what I just told them doesn’t exist.

If I didn’t have Bipolar, I don’t know how I would react to a person’s revelation of their sickness to me, either. I hope I would be supportive and caring, but the sad thing is most people haven’t the faintest idea what Bipolar is. Some think it’s having a split personality, some think it’s just intense mood swings in the span of 10 min. I just wish they would ask me what exactly it is instead of just standing there, dumbfounded like I’m part of a freak show.

It Might be Hope

manicfranic — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 00:59:49 +0000

This song is one of my favorites. It seems to give me hope when I am having those “down days”.

By: Sara Groves

You do your work the best that you can
You put one foot in front of the other
Life comes in waves and makes it’s demands
You hold on as well as you’re able

You’ve been here for a long long time

Hope has a way of turning its face to you
Just when you least expect it
You walk in a room
You look out a window
And something there leaves you breathless
You say to yourself
It’s been a while since i felt this
But it feels like it might be hope

It’s hard to recall what blew out the flame
It’s been dark here since you can remember
You talk it all through to find it a name
As days go on by without number

You’ve been here for a long long time…

A Life in Moods

manicfranic — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 22:51:33 +0000

This is an excerpt from An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison

Many years of living with manic-depressive illness has made me more philosophical, better armed, and more able to handle the inevitable swings of mood and energy that I have opted for by taking a lower level of lithium. I agree absolutely with Eliot’s Ecclesiastian belief that there is a season for everything, a time for building, and “a time for the wind to break the loosened pane.” Therefore, I now move more easily with the fluctuating tides of energy, ideas, and enthusiasm that I remain to subject to. My mind still, now and again, becomes a carnival of lights, laughter, and sounds and possibilities. The laughter and exuberance and ease will, filling me, spill out and over and into others. These glinting, glorious movements will last for a while, a short season, and then move on. My high moods and hopes, having ridden briefly in the top car of the Ferris wheel will, as suddenly as they came, plummet into a black and gray and tired heap. Time will pass; these moods will pass; and I will, eventually, be myself again. But then, at some unknown time, the electrifying carnival will come back into my mind.

These comings and goings, this grace and godlessness, have become such a part of my life that the wild colors and sounds now have become less strange and less strong; and the blacks and grays that inevitably follow are, likewise, less dark and frightening. “Beneath those stars,” Melville once said, “is a universe of gliding monsters,” But, with time, one has encountered many of the monsters, and one is increasingly less terrified of those still met. Although I continue to have emergences of my old summer manias, they have been gutted not only of most of their terror, but of most of their earlier indescribable beauty and glorious rush as well: sludged by time, tempered by a long string of jading experiences, and brought to their knees by medication, they now coalesce, each July into brief, occasionally dangerous cracklings together of black moods and high passions. And then they, too, pass. One comes out of such experiences with a more surrounding sense of death, and life. Having heard so often and so believably, John Donne’s bell tolling softly that “Thou must die,” one turns more sharply to life, with an immediacy and appreciation that would not otherwise exist.

Feeling Funny

manicfranic — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 16:12:06 +0000

My doctor told me if I was worried about weight gain (who wouldn’t be??) to stop taking lithium for awhile and keep taking Lamictal instead. I was really nervous to try this because I didn’t want my moods to go wacky again. But I finally did try it. The results? I was fine for a few days until yesterday. I got a little funny. I started feeling anxious, restless, like my mind had a fog over it. I couldn’t concentrate, I left my keys in the ignition when I was in the store. Had to go back out to my car because I left my paycheck to be cashed in the car. Um, yeah. When I got home my husband asked if I was okay. I admitted that I wasn’t really. Feeling fat and defeated I took a couple lithium. We will see how today goes. So far so good.