Trigger Warning: This post briefly discusses suicidal
ideation with no description or specifics.
I wish a certain word existed: one that means better or improved but that does not mean all better. When people who aren't right in the core of it ask me how I'm doing, I don't know how to answer. Better but not all better? I can say a little better, but that seems evasive.
Anyway, I've been taking Abilify in addition to my lithium (now a slightly lower dose), Wellbutrin, and a beta blocker, for a little over a month. Has it really been that long? I know the Abilify has been making a difference. I sleep a little better even though I still wake up every half hour. The sleepiness has finally started to fade out, and I was afraid the higher dose would bring it back. I just started the higher dose a few days ago.
I'm not sleepier yet, but I have terrible blurred vision .When I try to read (or type!) letters disappear, rearrange themselves, and become other letters. Josh got some artificial tears and helped me use them. I never aim properly when I do it myself, so I lay stretched over the armchair and held open eyelids, so he could put in the drops.
Before I started Abiliify, I was having increasing suicidal ideation. My brain was working on that without my mind's permission. It was just there all the time, at the edges of my mind, with an occasional, "Hey! You should think about this!" Hallucinations came back. After I'd started the Abilify, I noticed that I wasn't hallucinating and that my suicidal thoughts were basically gone. I figured just these two changes (my most alarming symptoms) alone were worth the medication.
The suicidal thoughts returned for a couple of days, but at least they weren't a totally random flare up. I was highly stressed, suspicious (which, interestingly enough, is common to people with BSD--bipolar spectrum disorders--and is their version of paranoia), humiliated, ambivalent (the mind and emotions getting yanked in two directions at once), intermittently angry, guilty, and terrified. Still, I had no plan or intention.
Unfortunately, the hallucinations started popping up while I was on 10mg of Abilify. They're still around after the switch to 15mg, but I hope that will change soon. At work last week, I looked out through one of the glass doors and saw a soldier in his ACUs. I looked closer, and he was gone, a tree in his place. In the shower, I saw a shadow on the wall waving at me. Movement happens in my peripheral vision so often (probably even more now with the vision problems). I've seen, for split seconds, old pets on the floor by my bed or watching me while I get ready or do something in the kitchen. Objects so easily turn into something else.
The scariest, though, was yesterday. I was sitting on the floor in the guest room, organizing my stickers (massive collection) when I heard a hissing exhalation like a man shushing me. It was coming from a spot next to me but up, as if he were standing right over me. I thought it was Josh, even though the voice sounded nothing like his. The voice said a word or a few words, but I couldn't understand. So I stopped and looked up to see what Josh wanted. No one was there. Some straggled scream/yell tore out of my chest. I got out of the room and had to breathe hard for a while. I told Josh about it. Then, I went back inside. Without the weird mini hallucinations, I'm afraid to be alone. I don't know what I'll see or how I'll react.
Probably with all this and work stress and other stress, I began feeling hopeless. Well, not began really; I've always had pockets of hopelessness. But last week, I had no desire to live. I wasn't suicidal; I didn't have a desire to die. I just didn't want to go on with my daily life. And I have started inadvertently collecting reasons that people I love would have better chances at happiness without me. I never really understood people's thinking that way, but I do now. And I know that my thinking that way, whether or not I indulge it, is not a good sign.
So I hope Abilify will take all that way--at least that much. My doctor also prescribed me Congentin, which is for Parkinson's disease and now to combat side effects of psychiatric meds. I've had much less shaking, restless and exhausting agitation, and inability to get comfortable. It was becoming really noticeable, and more importantly, it was maddening. I think some of it, at least, was the illness itself--a manic thing. But the doctor thought the Abilify was making it worse. Either way, I'm relieved something is working on something!
The last couple of days, I've felt okay. I know that could (and will) just in a week or a minute from now. But I try to use the gifts of calm while I can. The internal landscape of the moods makes me think of the beach. Sometimes, a storm is raging. The water is dark and ominous, crashing and tossing. Deafening thunder.
Other times, it's sunny, and people are laughing, brightly colored towels and tents are everywhere, and the Italian ice cart just came by. But that doesn't last long. The sun turns to a glare and starts to burn me. My swimsuit straps are driving me crazy. Everyone is talking talking talking, and they are everywhere. Even the water scratches and irritates me. But when I get out, I'm too cold. I try looking for pretty shells, but they're all broken along with bottle glass that the sea hadn't had time to soften yet. I come to a washed up jellyfish that is dying. A cluster of little boys are poking it with sticks. Only one boy comes over, tears in his eyes, and dumps a bucket full of salt water onto the jellyfish. We catch each other's eyes for a moment; I don't know what to do either.
And other times, the sky is bright, but I can still see the lightning in the distance, and a rhythmic devil rain is tapping me on the head and shoulders incessantly. We have an idea: we'll use the sticks to get that jellyfish in the bucket. I carry it, not wanting the boys to get hurt. I walk out up to my knees and toss jellyfish out ahead of me. I walk back, and seemingly moments later, the jellyfish is washing back up toward the sand. I don't know much about jellyfish, but it’s clearly dead. The bucket boy and I just stand there and watch the waves push the jellyfish farther and farther out of the water. We just stand there. It died anyway.
And the weather could change at any moment, for any duration, to any extreme.
I wish a certain word existed: one that means better or improved but that does not mean all better. When people who aren't right in the core of it ask me how I'm doing, I don't know how to answer. Better but not all better? I can say a little better, but that seems evasive.
Anyway, I've been taking Abilify in addition to my lithium (now a slightly lower dose), Wellbutrin, and a beta blocker, for a little over a month. Has it really been that long? I know the Abilify has been making a difference. I sleep a little better even though I still wake up every half hour. The sleepiness has finally started to fade out, and I was afraid the higher dose would bring it back. I just started the higher dose a few days ago.
I'm not sleepier yet, but I have terrible blurred vision .When I try to read (or type!) letters disappear, rearrange themselves, and become other letters. Josh got some artificial tears and helped me use them. I never aim properly when I do it myself, so I lay stretched over the armchair and held open eyelids, so he could put in the drops.
Before I started Abiliify, I was having increasing suicidal ideation. My brain was working on that without my mind's permission. It was just there all the time, at the edges of my mind, with an occasional, "Hey! You should think about this!" Hallucinations came back. After I'd started the Abilify, I noticed that I wasn't hallucinating and that my suicidal thoughts were basically gone. I figured just these two changes (my most alarming symptoms) alone were worth the medication.
The suicidal thoughts returned for a couple of days, but at least they weren't a totally random flare up. I was highly stressed, suspicious (which, interestingly enough, is common to people with BSD--bipolar spectrum disorders--and is their version of paranoia), humiliated, ambivalent (the mind and emotions getting yanked in two directions at once), intermittently angry, guilty, and terrified. Still, I had no plan or intention.
Unfortunately, the hallucinations started popping up while I was on 10mg of Abilify. They're still around after the switch to 15mg, but I hope that will change soon. At work last week, I looked out through one of the glass doors and saw a soldier in his ACUs. I looked closer, and he was gone, a tree in his place. In the shower, I saw a shadow on the wall waving at me. Movement happens in my peripheral vision so often (probably even more now with the vision problems). I've seen, for split seconds, old pets on the floor by my bed or watching me while I get ready or do something in the kitchen. Objects so easily turn into something else.
The scariest, though, was yesterday. I was sitting on the floor in the guest room, organizing my stickers (massive collection) when I heard a hissing exhalation like a man shushing me. It was coming from a spot next to me but up, as if he were standing right over me. I thought it was Josh, even though the voice sounded nothing like his. The voice said a word or a few words, but I couldn't understand. So I stopped and looked up to see what Josh wanted. No one was there. Some straggled scream/yell tore out of my chest. I got out of the room and had to breathe hard for a while. I told Josh about it. Then, I went back inside. Without the weird mini hallucinations, I'm afraid to be alone. I don't know what I'll see or how I'll react.
Probably with all this and work stress and other stress, I began feeling hopeless. Well, not began really; I've always had pockets of hopelessness. But last week, I had no desire to live. I wasn't suicidal; I didn't have a desire to die. I just didn't want to go on with my daily life. And I have started inadvertently collecting reasons that people I love would have better chances at happiness without me. I never really understood people's thinking that way, but I do now. And I know that my thinking that way, whether or not I indulge it, is not a good sign.
So I hope Abilify will take all that way--at least that much. My doctor also prescribed me Congentin, which is for Parkinson's disease and now to combat side effects of psychiatric meds. I've had much less shaking, restless and exhausting agitation, and inability to get comfortable. It was becoming really noticeable, and more importantly, it was maddening. I think some of it, at least, was the illness itself--a manic thing. But the doctor thought the Abilify was making it worse. Either way, I'm relieved something is working on something!
The last couple of days, I've felt okay. I know that could (and will) just in a week or a minute from now. But I try to use the gifts of calm while I can. The internal landscape of the moods makes me think of the beach. Sometimes, a storm is raging. The water is dark and ominous, crashing and tossing. Deafening thunder.
Other times, it's sunny, and people are laughing, brightly colored towels and tents are everywhere, and the Italian ice cart just came by. But that doesn't last long. The sun turns to a glare and starts to burn me. My swimsuit straps are driving me crazy. Everyone is talking talking talking, and they are everywhere. Even the water scratches and irritates me. But when I get out, I'm too cold. I try looking for pretty shells, but they're all broken along with bottle glass that the sea hadn't had time to soften yet. I come to a washed up jellyfish that is dying. A cluster of little boys are poking it with sticks. Only one boy comes over, tears in his eyes, and dumps a bucket full of salt water onto the jellyfish. We catch each other's eyes for a moment; I don't know what to do either.
And other times, the sky is bright, but I can still see the lightning in the distance, and a rhythmic devil rain is tapping me on the head and shoulders incessantly. We have an idea: we'll use the sticks to get that jellyfish in the bucket. I carry it, not wanting the boys to get hurt. I walk out up to my knees and toss jellyfish out ahead of me. I walk back, and seemingly moments later, the jellyfish is washing back up toward the sand. I don't know much about jellyfish, but it’s clearly dead. The bucket boy and I just stand there and watch the waves push the jellyfish farther and farther out of the water. We just stand there. It died anyway.
And the weather could change at any moment, for any duration, to any extreme.
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