Posted by automatedlady on June 3, 2002, at 18:53:56
In reply to Re: rediagnosis: bipolar II, posted by bonnie on June 3, 2002, at 1:13:08
I've only ever taken ADs (i don't think UK doctors are quite up to bipolar yet), and they have never worked for me.
I tend to feel better quite quickly and have a few weeks of feeling like my old self (sociable, optomistic, able to enjoy life) and then I just crash and although I'm not miserable particularly, I just don't have any energy or interest in anything. I stop bothering with things and after a while my life gets so empty and narrow I start thinking I might as well kill myself. At that point I realise I should just stop taking the drugs and see what happens.
I stop the drugs and within a few weeks the anxiety kicks in. At first it seems preferable to the lethargy of being on the drugs but after a while it gets unbearable (or I move from that into a stage of obsession with some depressing thought and get paralysed by it) and then I start thinking "hmm, maybe I am better off on the drugs after all.."
I'm at the "thinking of going back on them" stage now. So, to get back to my original question, what is the difference (in effect) between a mood stabiliser and an AD? I mean, personally, what does it feel like?
tHANKS
poster:automatedlady
thread:108402
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020602/msgs/108567.html