Intro: Part 2

Fast forward to January 2015.  

I was tired.  Completely drained.  I didn't want to do anything.  Everything annoyed me beyond measure.  I didn't want to pretend anymore.  I couldn't hold a job to save my life.  But I felt it was necessary to go shopping on any day ending in Y.  Needless to say, I got my family into a very bad situation financially and emotionally.  I decided it was time to visit my physician and maybe change up my antidepressant.

Over the next couple of months, I was put on Prozac.  I thought that I had found my answer.  It was obviously just the antidepressant that I thought was working before that was the problem!  I was so happy on Prozac!  It was amazing!  I wanted to be involved in things again.   I was a backstage manager for our church play and was beyond excited to be back helping with a stage production!  Everyone who saw me, commented on how happy I was!  They loved my enthusiasm and the energy that was radiating out of me.  I was joking about everything and just loving life.  I had finally found the solution to my problem.  Those stupid doctors had no idea what they were talking about a couple of years ago!  

Then in May, someone flipped a switch.  I was annoyed with everyone and everything.  I had nothing good happening in my life (from my point of view).  For the first time in my life, I actually started thinking, what's the point in living?  On a drive home one day, I actually thought about how I might kill myself if I were to do it.  And it didn't scare me.  That was when I knew, something was very wrong.  I am the girl that is scared of death.  Suicide had never even entered my mind before this.  So I went back to my physician.  I told her I just wanted to go back on my antidepressant that I knew would keep me sane.  The antidepressant I had taken for years.  So I went back to it.  I told myself everything would be fine now.  But it wasn't.  

The depression just got worse.  The irritability was through the roof.  I was just yelling at everyone for everything and my marriage was really hurting.  I didn't know what to do.  This medicine that had always helped was no longer doing anything.  I couldn't take it.  

So, just a few weeks ago, I decided that it was time to see an actual psychiatrist again.  I took their survey and was informed, once again, that I was struggling with Bipolar Disorder.  I completely broke down in the office.  I had such a stigma in my own head of what Bipolar was.  I thought I was doomed for life.  He proceeded to tell me that this was not a death sentence. This was a good thing.  Once my medication was figured out, I would be a new person.  Happy and able to participate fully in life.  

That didn't sound so bad.  

So I started this blog, to journal about my ups and downs with this disorder.  I want a place where I can just air out everything I'm feeling with no judgement.  I'm ready to accept this part of myself and to try to maybe help others like me in the process.  

The only advice I have, since I'm at the very beginning of this journey, would be DO NOT listen to the stigma that comes with Bipolar Disorder.  It's not a cookie cutter illness.  Everyone experiences this differently.  You are not crazy.  You are still you.  Just because you have Bipolar does not mean that you are psychotic.  I will say, I do wish they would come up with another name for mood stabilizers besides anti-psychotics though.  That doesn't really help that stigma.  But I digress.....

Thank you for taking the time to listen to my story.  Introduce yourself if you have read this far!  Would love to meet as many new people as I can!  Have a great Sunday everyone!