Posted by mellow on November 2, 2011, at 23:26:28
So I think I may be in remission or at least close to it. I haven't thought about killing myself in at least 3 weeks so I think that is a sign that I am healing. I don't know what the hell happened to me this summer but it was the second year in a row that I just fell apart after my spring time mania.
My current cocktail is as follows:
3mg risperdal
150mg lamictal
50mg Topamax
1000mg D3
High Energy Multi VitI need to buy some more fish oil but at this point I will just get the cheap stuff and use it for cardiovascular health because I never saw much improvement of my depression with the really expensive high EPA stuff.
I have really been focusing on doing less. I found that I was spending a lot of time doing stuff I didn't necessarily want to do because it was socially expected. Now that I've lowered my expectations of what I want to achieve each day I'm feeling a lot better. Something as simple as going the dentist can be all I need to get done. Some days I just do a little school work and spend the rest of the day goofing off. If I sleep in on my day off work I don't flip out. I just get up and use what's left of the day to have fun.
It seems as though I got in a huge hurry this last year and put way too much pressure on myself. I was obsessed with productivity and refused to accept that I might just need to chill out and smell the roses. I'm considering quitting my job in August and going to school full time if the cards fall right.
I am a little worried that I'm taking 3mg of risperdal when I'm not actively psychotic but if that's a trade off to sleep as well as I do and function this well then I'm willing to take the risk associated with taking AP's. My pdoc says tardive type disorders would be odd at a 3mg dose although not impossible. I'm looking out for the signs vigilantly.
Many of you helped me immensely through these last months with your comments and I am so grateful this forum is here. I actually had to take a brief babble break and stop checking the site everyday for awhile just so I could get out of the obsessive mentality I had about my meds. I've decided I am not going to tweak my meds anymore for a long while. I'm done tapering and trying to find the magic cocktail. I accept the fact that I will take meds the rest of my life...whether or not I am organically ill or have just altered my brain chemistry and incapable of tapering them is a moot point now. I give up.
It seems odd but each time I get really sick the next phase is a little better. I learn something spiritually from each down cycle and it just feels incredible to smile today.
peace...mellow
Bipolar II
Lamictal 150, Topamax 50, Risperdal 2, Mag Citrate 325, D3 1000, Fish Oil 2000, High Potency Multi, Mega B stress"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
poster:mellow
thread:1001550
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20111027/msgs/1001550.html