Return -- again
A lot has happened since my last post. So much that details are kind of fuzzy.
A brief break-down:
I hit 141 pounds and was psyched.
I started seeing a psychologist-in-training through my school's Counseling Services. I made a wonderful connection with her and we started talking through some of my bigger issues. The nature of my school's counseling service is that it's short term, however, and so I eventually needed a referral to someone in the community.
The end of working together led to the referral to a community psychiatrist because my psychologist hinted that it might be biological. My poor experiences with the previous psychiatrist aside, we agreed that I'd do best to see a doctor who also does talk therapy, which led to my referral to the psychiatrist I'm seeing now.
No nonsense, I was diagnosed with something in the bipolar spectrum. The lower end, no doubt, because I have not experienced a psychosis, but the mania is definitely there, leading to hypomanic episodes and mixed episodes (wherein I'm depressed but agitated, etc.).
I talked to her about how uncomfortable I am with medication, so we agreed to wait a few weeks in order to get me comfortable with it and decide that medication really was the best response. Of course, I happened to have a hypomanic episode right in between sessions -- went NUTS and really, really wanted to hurt myself after being injury-free since my last post; was shaking and had to have my boyfriend hold me for a couple hours -- so she put me on medication immediately.
250mg of Depakote, once before bed. It hasn't been doing so well for me. I've been low-grade hypomanic since I started taking it. I'm not sure if it's the medicine's fault or if I'd be more manic if I weren't on it, but either way I don't like it. If I get woken up at night, I twitch and can't go to sleep for an hour or so even though I'm dead tired. I have really weird dreams and sleep-talk occasionally. I'm incredibly tired during the day and take 1 hour naps in the late afternoon if I want to be functional. I'm incredibly cranky for no reason at all. I've been even more dizzy than I usually am -- when I stand up suddenly, instead of a moment of disorientation, I feel as if I'm about to fall over. I've been kind of mentally foggy, too. I haven't experienced the weight gain yet, but I'm terrified I will -- I've already gotten up to nearly 150 again.
How the hell am I having that many symptoms on 250mg?! That's less than 1/4 of the typical dose!
She says if I'm still not feeling good on it at our next meeting -- next Wednesday -- that I can go off of it for a month. If I can handle the month, I might be able to go med-free. If I can't handle the month, I get lithium. (Gee, doc, I wonder what I'm going to tell you about how I feel?) Lithium might be Super Effective, but it also requires blood draws WEEKLY for levels and I hate needles, and it also causes some more severe symptoms.
I really want to just drop the therapy altogether. I need to find a way to deal with this on my own. My mother thinks medication might be a bad idea, my professor/adviser (whom I trust very much and who is my idol) who has similar problems thinks it might be a bad idea, I think it's a bad idea, and I don't know what my boyfriend thinks really.
I am going back to anorexic behaviors. I got sick, though. Some cold/flu thing or whatever. Annoying as hell because I was psyched to start going to the gym again yesterday. Felt like utter SHIT, though, and I wasn't about to try getting up early and exercising for 30 minutes feeling like I did, especially since it would've been hard even if I hadn't been ill.
So that's been postponed until after finals.
Working on those in the next week and a half. Have one Thursday, one Friday and one Tuesday, plus 2 big papers to write. I'm really nervous about the one on Tuesday and the paper that goes with it because it's for the professor/adviser that I love who is helping me with everything grad school related. She has a lot of faith in me, she says, but I can't see why. Anyway, 13-16 page paper written from scratch due on Tuesday for that one. Eeesh.
Once that's over, though, I'm going semi-vegitarian and seriously restricting my calories, in addition to 6 days of 30-45 minutes of cardio and 3-5 days of resistance training. I have really got to weigh less. I think if I get more physically active I can cut down on the depression things. The less depression I find myself dealing with, the better able I am to deal with the daily stressors. And holy shit do I get stressed by a lot.
A brief break-down:
I hit 141 pounds and was psyched.
I started seeing a psychologist-in-training through my school's Counseling Services. I made a wonderful connection with her and we started talking through some of my bigger issues. The nature of my school's counseling service is that it's short term, however, and so I eventually needed a referral to someone in the community.
The end of working together led to the referral to a community psychiatrist because my psychologist hinted that it might be biological. My poor experiences with the previous psychiatrist aside, we agreed that I'd do best to see a doctor who also does talk therapy, which led to my referral to the psychiatrist I'm seeing now.
No nonsense, I was diagnosed with something in the bipolar spectrum. The lower end, no doubt, because I have not experienced a psychosis, but the mania is definitely there, leading to hypomanic episodes and mixed episodes (wherein I'm depressed but agitated, etc.).
I talked to her about how uncomfortable I am with medication, so we agreed to wait a few weeks in order to get me comfortable with it and decide that medication really was the best response. Of course, I happened to have a hypomanic episode right in between sessions -- went NUTS and really, really wanted to hurt myself after being injury-free since my last post; was shaking and had to have my boyfriend hold me for a couple hours -- so she put me on medication immediately.
250mg of Depakote, once before bed. It hasn't been doing so well for me. I've been low-grade hypomanic since I started taking it. I'm not sure if it's the medicine's fault or if I'd be more manic if I weren't on it, but either way I don't like it. If I get woken up at night, I twitch and can't go to sleep for an hour or so even though I'm dead tired. I have really weird dreams and sleep-talk occasionally. I'm incredibly tired during the day and take 1 hour naps in the late afternoon if I want to be functional. I'm incredibly cranky for no reason at all. I've been even more dizzy than I usually am -- when I stand up suddenly, instead of a moment of disorientation, I feel as if I'm about to fall over. I've been kind of mentally foggy, too. I haven't experienced the weight gain yet, but I'm terrified I will -- I've already gotten up to nearly 150 again.
How the hell am I having that many symptoms on 250mg?! That's less than 1/4 of the typical dose!
She says if I'm still not feeling good on it at our next meeting -- next Wednesday -- that I can go off of it for a month. If I can handle the month, I might be able to go med-free. If I can't handle the month, I get lithium. (Gee, doc, I wonder what I'm going to tell you about how I feel?) Lithium might be Super Effective, but it also requires blood draws WEEKLY for levels and I hate needles, and it also causes some more severe symptoms.
I really want to just drop the therapy altogether. I need to find a way to deal with this on my own. My mother thinks medication might be a bad idea, my professor/adviser (whom I trust very much and who is my idol) who has similar problems thinks it might be a bad idea, I think it's a bad idea, and I don't know what my boyfriend thinks really.
I am going back to anorexic behaviors. I got sick, though. Some cold/flu thing or whatever. Annoying as hell because I was psyched to start going to the gym again yesterday. Felt like utter SHIT, though, and I wasn't about to try getting up early and exercising for 30 minutes feeling like I did, especially since it would've been hard even if I hadn't been ill.
So that's been postponed until after finals.
Working on those in the next week and a half. Have one Thursday, one Friday and one Tuesday, plus 2 big papers to write. I'm really nervous about the one on Tuesday and the paper that goes with it because it's for the professor/adviser that I love who is helping me with everything grad school related. She has a lot of faith in me, she says, but I can't see why. Anyway, 13-16 page paper written from scratch due on Tuesday for that one. Eeesh.
Once that's over, though, I'm going semi-vegitarian and seriously restricting my calories, in addition to 6 days of 30-45 minutes of cardio and 3-5 days of resistance training. I have really got to weigh less. I think if I get more physically active I can cut down on the depression things. The less depression I find myself dealing with, the better able I am to deal with the daily stressors. And holy shit do I get stressed by a lot.