Feeling Better????!!!!

I think the worst is over. That was a fun 3 months....ha. I still have one more increase on the Lamictal starter and then that's over. Hopefully it won't cause mania again, because moving my antidepressant dose again would be a pain in the butt.

I saw my regular doctor today for my thyroid check. He asked how I was doing and I told him I'd been having a rough spell. He then noted my rather impressive number of med changes since I last saw him in February. I guess it has been a lot: I added lithium, added lamictal, changed my antidepressant dose, changed my provigil dose, and I think went off some other mood stabilizer.

Emotionally I still have a lot to work out, but it feels like the mood whirlwind is subsiding, which will let me do my thinking. I finally do not feel so hopeless. For so long I've felt as hopeless as I've ever remembered feeling, and that scared me. I've also been so afraid. Now those things aren't so magnified, and I think with time, and of course the psychologist I've chained to my wrist, I can find my way through the scary parts.

What is so hard is that for so long I thought if I tried hard enough there would be plenty of areas of my life unaffected by bipolar. Until last summer I thought I could make myself appear to be "normal". The psychologist won't let me continue that because that's what leads me to trying to do things I can't do. Fine. I then tried to go about life trying to isolate the parts that were affected by those that weren't. I tried to decide what would and would not be affected. That didn't work so well either. These last months I have been working so very hard and trying so very hard and well, it did not work. I've been exhausted and depressed and thinking I can't. Truthfully, if this is the way it is, I can't. But if I can work without so much force involved I can. For the last few months I've been operating on this "something must give" feeling, yet barely managing to glue things together. Now I have to sort out how to relax in different ways different days so I can have a more balanced life. I wasn't great at that before I was so sick last year, and I have become truly hideous at it since.

So finally I'm getting my break. I'm so grateful for the sunshine. I'm sure that alone has a great deal to do with this.

And in true bipolar fashion, now I just have to hope it lasts.