So you've been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
What now? What next?

I am a 46 year old female. I have children, but my kids are grown and living on their own. I am thinking about buying them both t-shirts that say "I survived my mom's bipolar disorder". I remember struggling with feelings that were not normal most of my life. In the 1990s, before bipolar disorder was “invented”, I was treated by a psychiatrist for anxiety and depression. From the time my children were born, I was also on a perpetual search for relief from PMDD (premenstrual dysphoric disorder). Well, what do you know? I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in November, 2006. Specifically Bipolar II.

What is the difference between Bipolar I and Bipolar II?

To put it very simplistically, a person with Bipolar I in a manic episode will be likely to go on a drunken binge, a gambling binge in Las Vegas, or participate in, or organize an orgy. Their highs are really high.

A person with Bipolar II is primarily depressed and has more hypomania than mania. I like to say it is mania tempered with some common sense. Hypomania feels good, but not too good.

Then there are mixed episodes. It is possible for a person to be depressed and hypomanic or manic at the same time. Uh huh. It is. Talk about an emotional roller coaster!

I also have ultra radian rapid cycling. Cycling is what happens when we go from a depressed episode to a manic episode, or from normal into a depressed episode or from normal into a manic or hypomanic episode. A rapid cycler will do this several times a year. Personally, I can run through the entire gamut of emotions, fear, paranoia, anxiety, depression, anger, rage, happiness, ambition, elation, several times in an hour. That is ultra radian rapid cycling. Unmedicated, and with the right triggers, this typically happens to me about once a month for two or three days at a time. I call it “trick cycling”.

I was sure that what I had was really bad PMS. So sure, in fact, that I told the doctor she was mistaken when she diagnosed me with Bipolar II. She told me ok and gave me a provisional diagnosis. (I later learned there is no such thing as a provisional diagnosis, she tricked me!) But then I realized that pharmaceutical treatment for PMDD includes - guess what? - antidepressants and antipsychotics!

In fact, many years ago, I participated in one of the first studies of the effectiveness of prozac for treating PMS, and it worked really well for me for a long time! I had 18 months of blissful relief from the “PMS symptoms”!

These days, I can no longer tolerate prozac, and I suspect that the duration of the time I took it contributed to the worsening of my symptoms now. More on that elsewhere. As it turns out, typically, whenever I stop taking any medication for any reason, usually I cannot resume taking it, because it simply won't work or I get really bad side effects. Hence the reason I can no longer take Prozac. I am also very sensitive to side effects at the therapeutic dosage of most medications. So everytime I have to change medications, I feel like I am playing a game of roulette. It is not uncommon for a certain medication to work very well for a period of time, and then suddenly stop working. Or to not work at all, but it takes a few weeks to convince a doctor that it isn't working.

And that is why I started this web site.

People accuse us of stopping our medication because we feel better and think we don't need it. I am willing to bet that is not true most of the time. The treatment for bipolar disorder can be as crazy and frustrating as the disorder itself.

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