I don't think this was in my yearbook aspirations

I don't even know which to pick.......

-I just got very frustrated and grumbled "I hate this brand of lithium", indicating I have now developed a preference for a brand of generic lithium pills.  (I went to a different pharmacy and even though they are divided they are nearly impossible to snap in half.  And my pill snapper is not in reach and therefore doesn't exist).  Yet really?  Not only do I have a strong preference for one form of lithium over another, do I know precisely what lithium level makes me feel good and which makes me sicker than a dog who ingested too much lithium, but now I apparently care who manufactures it.

-Dr. Mind is not a specialist in bipolar, but he did have experience with it when he started treating me.  Success with me seems to cause you to gain a reputation as good with hard patients and also leads to more bipolar pts.  I've known this for a long time, that after some of the techniques he developed to help me worked so well he started getting more referrals for bipolar/difficult to treat patients.  And my doctors actually refer among one another on the basis of "hey, you helped Jen, you must be good".  It's been humorous to see this little net develop, but it has and it has been because of me.  Apparently I am/was so hard to stabilize that I'm kind of the measuring tape.  Which really makes me laugh.  But anyway, Dr. Mind told me today that he was talking to someone this week about whether they might be bipolar, and one of the objections of the family was "but it changes so FAST".  Dr. Mind said that there were other times during this session that he was thinking of me, but that when he heard that he said "well, I treat one person who changes so fast I can watch it happen several times in an hour".  The person is now pursuing definitive diagnosis of bipolar, Jen style.  I used to see a term "ultra-rapid cycling".  It's not a medically accepted term but a generally accepted one.  For some reason I hated it.  I don't really know why now other than it just didn't describe the hell that was my life at that time.  I knew it was a term that applied to me, and I knew my cycling was so rapid it was beyond most descriptions, but I felt like it was a competitive term, like "rapid cycling is one thing but I ULTRA rapid cycle".  And it wasn't until I got to the point that I understand I often cycle ever 3-5 minutes, really even to some extent when I'm stable, that I got it, that it's not a competition but that it is nearly impossible to describe.  Dr. Mind years ago as he was first able to see it happen tried to describe it to me and still sometimes will tell me what little thing he saw as my mood changed, but it wasn't until he made an effort to help me see how fast I changed that I really understood my own illness and why I was so hard to treat (beyond the allergies to meds).  Because even as he would take a moment to tell me about a change, whether it was smiles to frowning, a change in my eyes, often my posture, a change from fidgeting and wiggling to sitting upright and still, or sometimes even I'd be laughing and my laugh changed.  That happened a lot in fact, still does, but now I hear it.  It's hard to explain, even if you've seen someone rapid cycle before because I can go through a mood every minute or two.  I'm trying to remember, I know once Dr. Mind tried to count but without making it some big thing so that he wasn't very focused on it.  Even then I want to say 30 changes in like 40 minutes? It's not that bad now, most of the time, but it is helpful when trying to explain why I often seem to have multiple opinions or "overthink" things; I see them from 10 angles in 10 minutes.  In the same way back in college my roommates used to laugh at me because they thought I was just crazy smart because we'd be talking and I'd say something that made no sense to them and then 3-4 conversational steps later they'd catch up and it would be funny.  It wasn't that I was smart, it was that my brain was thinking so fast at those times that I just got ahead and didn't know it.  Now I monitor where OTHER people are in a conversation and say fewer strange things, but still, I am now the posterchild for hard patients AND the ultimate description of extreme rapid cycling.  Go me!  (Actually I'm glad.  Doctors that understood the rapid cycling is how I finally got diagnosed and an explanation was given of how I could have severe bipolar and work.  A protocol for rapid cyclers was my first real treatment intended for bipolar, and while it wound up being something I didn't tolerate well it started me on the path to success; 2/3 meds were with me for years; I weaned off of one of those wow 3 years ago now after Seroquel XR was clearly successful all by itself, but for the intervening years that med (depakote) was a huge  reason I made it.

And now I must sleep or I won't have the energy to finish my paperwork in the morning.  I just can't tonight.  I feel like I'll be asleep in about 3 minutes at this rate........