Comfortably Numb

 That's all I want to be right now. Tired. Very tired of fighting my inner demons.

Cult of Personality

Look in my eyes, what do you see?
The cult of personality
I know your anger, I know your dreams
I've been everything you want to be
I'm the cult of personality

Bipolar Epiphany: Being Alone is OK

I realized tonight that there is something to be said for solitude. Sitting alone at my daughter's play made me think about what being alone was really like.

There are a lot of pros and cons to being alone. When I'm depressed, I can fall into being alone quite well. I simply don't care to be around people, not even my family. Hell, not even myself.

Homeland: A portrait of bipolar disorder?

So I've been looking for movies and TV shows about bipolar disease or with bipolar characters to validate some of my personal struggles with this mental illness. Now I've been sucked into Homeland, the TV series with Claire Danes as a bipolar CIA agent. Psychology Today, in the article linked below, says that it is an accurate portrayal of a high-functioning person with bipolar disorder. I guess I question that.

Bipolar Disorder and Self Care

What does self care mean to you? For normal people it means regular hygiene, eating balanced meals, getting a good night's sleep, etc.

But if you've experienced the severe lows of bipolar depression, self care can be tremendously difficult if not impossible to maintain. It can be so bad that nothing seems to matter. Ask yourself these questions and see what the answers are.

Numb

I'm tired of being what you want me to be
Feeling so faithless, lost under the surface
I don't know what you're expecting of me
Put under the pressure of walking in your shoes
Caught in the undertow, just caught in the undertow
Every step that I take is another mistake to you
Caught in the undertow, just caught in the undertow

The more things change ...

The more things change, the more they stay the same (or worse).

I've been on my new medication (Abilify) for about a week and a half. Thought it was helping but now I'm not so sure. Bad mood swings even when coupled with all my other meds and anxiety medication (taken "as needed" every day).

Goodbye Latuda, Hello Abilify (aripriprizole)

Finally decided to say fuck this to the Latuda. Dropped it cold turkey. Doc wasn't real happy about that. Was off of an anti-psychotic for about two weeks. Just started on Abilify this week. Will keep you posted on the results. Crosding my fingers. 

Latuda (Lurasidone): Pros vs Cons, My Personal Experience

I started on 40 mg of Latuda (lurasidone) some months ago with no ill side effects. It wasn't quite doing the job, so my provider and I agreed to bump it to 80 mg per day. It was good for a month or more but then I started experiencing jaw tension and grinding teeth out of my control. After another month or so, this activity began to generate pain in my left ear. After enduring that for a couple of weeks, I finally decided that the pain wasn't worth the benefit from the medication.