Bad Weekend Experience

Had a pretty bad experience over the weekend. Because my agreement with Health Central precludes me from double posting content, I'll leave a link:
Mania and Rage

The moment you think things are going well and you're in control, bipolar disorder can slap your ass right back down to the ground. The disorder likes to make it abundantly clear who is REALLY in charge. All we can do is try to keep our demons happy, so they don't take control.

What Kind of Soul Am I?

I hate these things, but after seeing this on half a dozen other blogs thought I'd take the test out of curiosity. I had no intention of publishing this, but the result was so interesting I couldn't resist.

This was me 10 years ago - pre-diagnosis and treatment. This test nailed it, right down to my wife's personality as a "Peacemaker". I really don't think this captures my true personality these days, my current hypomania has probably temporarily pushed me that direction again.

You Are a Hunter Soul

You are driven and ambitious - totally self motivated to succeed. Actively working to achieve what you want, you are skillful in many areas. You are a natural predator with strong instincts ... and more than a little demanding. You are creative, energetic, and an extremely powerful force. An outdoors person, you like animals and relate to them better than people. You tend to have an explosive personality, but also a good sense of humor. People sometimes see you as arrogant or a know it all. You tend to be a bit of a loner, though you hate to be alone. Souls you are most compatible with: Seeker Soul and Peacemaker Soul

What Kind of Soul Are You?

The Personality Test

A company I interviewed with a week ago contacted me yesterday and asked me to take a personality profile test. What are you going to say? "Thanks for allowing me to take this next step!" These things are useless for me. My results change from day to day, and even from hour to hour. Could anyone with bipolar disorder take one of these consistently? Just once, wouldn't it be fun to ask which personality they want me to use?

Tuesday Shorts

This is a departure, I usually do Friday Shorts. But I didn’t have much to say Friday.

Yesterday was a difficult day. First, so much excitement Sunday night with the kids home for Father’s Day, I had a hard time falling asleep. Normally half an Ambien knocks me out. But last night I was up every 45 minutes, taking half an Ambien each time. I think it was after 2 when I took my last one, and 4 or so before I finally fell asleep. I slept through my workout, and at 7:00 AM when Karen finally woke me I was really dizzy. I stumbled off to work, and finally about lunch time I was doing a little better.

Then here at work we find out a coworker was killed in a water related accident over the weekend. She was the sweetest girl, between her and her husband they had several children. A very bad atmosphere around here. Isn’t it funny that even though I didn’t know her that well, I’m still affected by it. I can’t stop myself from imagining the fear that must have been felt by her and the pain of her family.

But a positive note – Kyle has moved back in with us! We were so worried about him where he was living. One of their roommates was violent, and their next door neighbor liked to shoot up his house with a gun. The neighbor OD’d the other day, but the roommate is still as violent as ever. I’m glad they’re out of that environment. Kyle now has computer access again at our house, so he will probably be reading this. Leave a comment and say hello to him!

Speaking of Kyle, he gave me a Father’s Day card that was the funniest thing I’ve seen in years. A very large man standing in sand, water behind him. He’s holding a huge fish. No caption on the front, but you open the card and it says…
“I was looking for an appropriately sentimental card, but kept coming back to the fat guy holding the big fish. Happy Fathers Day!”

I received a call this morning to set up an interview for a job I applied for last week. I’m a little surprised, the first interview is with the HR person and an executive VP. Granted, it’s a smaller organization, but they must really be motivated to bring in a VP on the initial interview. I’m going to need to swing by the Bipolar and Me blog for a refresher. Kansas Sunflower is a professional recruiter by trade. In amongst the other stuff on her blog, she has some great tips for job hunters.

Well, back to work. I’m going to have to really work at stability for the next few days. I’m out of my routine, I missed workouts the last 2 days, I’ve been sleeping very little, then the tragedy at work. This scenario has depression written all over it.

This Isn't So Bad

When rapid cycling brings me back to this level, life is very good indeed.

Normal?

OK, I’ve never experienced anything like this. In the last 3 days I’ve been manic, depressed, and today I’m great. No depression, leaning slightly towards hypomania, but not significantly so. I just feel great. Refreshed, clear head, ready to take on the day.

I’m completely convinced this “yo-yo effect” is due to lowering the daily dosage of Lamictal, my primary maintenance med. About 2 weeks ago I called my pDoc worried about recent memory loss. He recommended lowering the dosage of Lamictal from 200 to 150 mg daily, which I’ve done.

Lamictal is so innocuous, it doesn’t have any kind of narcotic effect, doesn’t cause drowsiness, weight gain, or any side effects I’ve experienced. It works slowly, taking months to really make a noticeable impact to mood. If you don’t get the dreaded Lamictal rash, you won’t even know you’re taking it. But make a significant change in dosage and you’ll experience the deceptively powerful impact of this drug. It’s really pretty scary.

Looking Up

The life of a rapid-cycler can be a godsend as often as it is a bitch. While things are not perfect, in fact not even good, they’re not half as bad as yesterday. I went home, applied for 2 new jobs online since my job is a source of anxiety lately, and was in bed by 10. This morning I began my normal routine again, and routine is a HUGE part of keeping me stable.

I’m wondering if part of yesterday’s huge spike was due to lowering my Lamictal dosage about 10 days ago. In order to see if it was a factor in recent memory loss I lowered dosage from 200 to 150 mg daily. This had to be a contributing factor.

In honor of the occasion I’ve changed yesterday’s “crash and burn Calvin” to today’s plain “manic Calvin”.

Thanks to all for your concern, emails, and comments.

Hypomania Watch

Smilin' Bob says the hypomania is still up!

Friday Shorts

Mom, Interrupted at Mercurial Mind Bipolar Blog talks about forecasting a mood swing by our voice and tone. She hit the nail on the head, based on this a change is coming for me. My wife mentioned it to me last night, I’ve been mouthy and sarcastic. Stay tuned, let’s see where this leads…

On a related note, I’ve left some biting and sarcastic comments on some of your blogs. They are not meant to be critical to the blogger who made the post, sorry if they sound that way.

We bought a new bike for my wife the other day. A very nice fitness/hybrid bike by Gary Fisher/Trek. She’s excited to ride, and it looks like she’ll be able to keep up with us now. For anyone who likes to bike, the difference between a Wal-Mart bike and a bike shop bike is HUGE.

Does anyone know if it’s possible to dynamically order a blogroll by clicks or popularity? Now that I ask this, I hear txandi saying "blog tweaks: as addictive as crystal meth."

I was listening to NPR the other day, actually, I listen to NPR every day, but the other day I heard an interview with a guy that wrote a book about understanding philosophy through jokes. It was one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard. Things like:
"3 ladies were sitting on a park bench. The first lady says "oy!" The second lady says "oy!" The third lady says "enough about the children already."
Or:
"The invisible man walks into a doctor’s office without an appointment. The nurse says ‘The doctor can’t see you now’"
I’ll let you know if the book is as good as I think it will be.

Everyone have a great weekend!

Checking In

Thanks to those who sent emails recently. I'm OK, just haven’t been able to post or respond to comments, mainly due to stresses at work and home. Something about stress bottles up my motivation and creativity.

By necessity most of my time and efforts lately have been going to BipolarConnect. When you only have so much time, creativity, and energy, the deadlines there take priority. I have had a couple more posts published on HealthCentral’s BipolarConnect site. You can see them here and here. The last link will accept comments, if you get a chance jump on over and leave a comment. That helps me, and my boss at HealthCentral, a lot.

I hope everyone is doing well, and I’ll post back when I have enough motivation to move after work. In the meantime, if anyone is in crisis out there, somebody drop me an email and tell me who, so I can at least tell them I'm thinking of them.

Friday Shorts

Kyle is my 22 year old son who also suffers from bipolar disorder. Since we paid him for cleaning our carpets over a week ago, he’s been gone. How his girlfriend puts up with it is beyond me. But we just heard rumors that one of his good “friends” had someone OD in his apartment, and is facing criminal charges over that death. We were worried that Kyle was there when it happened, but luckily, it sounds like he wasn’t. He has an appointment to make his application for General Assistance on Tuesday, hopefully we’ll be able to track him down by then.

While I know this is of no interest to anyone else, I’m excited about it so I’m going to brag. After 25 years without a serious workout regime I started working out 3 months ago. This morning I ran 3 miles! Even in the peak of my fitness, my teens, I wasn’t able to run 3 miles. I was pretty fast back then, but wasn’t a distance runner. I love to run, and I’m really fired up about this. I can’t run often, the pounding on my knees is painful, and is physically hard on someone my age. Given this I only run once a week or two, and use an elliptical trainer or bike machine most days. My goal is to run a 5 K race this spring, and it looks like I’ll make it. Also, I broke 195 on my weight! As of this morning, I was at 194.5. The weight is coming off very slowly, less than a pound a week, but it is coming off. Target weight: 185. Dream weight: 175. My weight in college: 165.

My frame of mind isn’t a lot better. I’m not really manic any more, more of a mixed episode. I’m slipping between depression and hypomania right now. At least I’m more or less free of the mania I had recently. That was awful.

The work situation is difficult, and that is contributing to my marginal frame of mind. Last summer I left a salaried job I enjoyed to move to a competitor through a consulting company. I was to be a consultant for 3 months, then if my performance was good I’d be hired on permanently. My performance was good, but right after I started the competitor announced a merger. All hiring, of course, was frozen. After the initial 3 months it’s been a series of month to month extensions. Finally they told me they’d like a 6 month contract then evaluate the situation at that time. Well, I don’t like this at all. I have to admit, as a contractor I’m making more money than I’ve ever made. BUT: My expenses are much higher. My family is not covered by insurance, and I’ve already paid several thousand dollars out of pocket for medical emergencies. I have to tell the family we can’t take a vacation this summer because the consulting company doesn’t offer vacation time. Because of medical bills I can’t make several necessary household repairs that must be done. Damn, I hate money problems, and I hate instability.

My girls have been begging for a pet. They’re in the unfortunate position of being the 4th and 5th of our kids. We’ve done the pet thing, many times in the past, many different critters, and have no desire to do it again. My youngest daughter has been writing stories about little girls and pets, not to get us to buy one, but because that’s what was in her heart. Well, through their persistence and downright cuteness, they won out. We now have a black and white bunny named "Lilly". It’s hardly left the arms of the girls since then.

Well, enough for now. I’m going to try to make it around to everyone’s blogs this weekend, hopefully my frame of mind will allow it.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Checking In

Hey all! I haven't posted for a while, not even my favorite "Friday Shorts" the last couple weeks. Thanks for the comments and emails asking if I'm OK. I'm OK, in pretty good shape all things considered. What I've been able to write recently I've sent to BipolarConnect, and they have exclusive rights to anything I send them. And when I only have so many words I can squeeze out in a week, something has to give. I've started a new personal blog for family, political, and more controversial posts, but I haven't been prolific enough to do anything with that either. Just a typical bipolar move, start a project I can't follow through on.

I haven't made the rounds to blogs recently, I'm still a little emotionally shell-shocked. I can't read your blogs without being pulled in a little emotionally, and right now I just don't feel I can take on that load. Sorry if that means I'm turning my back on my friends, I do feel bad about that.

Thanks again all for the thoughts and messages, and I'll be around to your blogs before too long.

Friday Shorts

Not much to say today. Physically and mentally I feel great – as good as I have for years. But emotionally I’m a little shell-shocked. So pardon me if I don’t make it around to read and comment all your blogs for a day or 2, I’m worried about triggering something I’d rather not live with.

I haven’t heard from Kyle for over a week, but I’m not particularly worried. We’d hear if he was in trouble, and I think he’s feeling self-conscious about not working. This is too bad, because I REALLY enjoy his company, working or not.

It’s boring for everyone when I keep talking about working out, but I can’t say enough about the HUGE benefit it’s bringing to my mental health and frame of mind. I knew there would be a difference, but I never imagined it would be this significant.

Michael Vick, the Atlanta Falcons quarterback, was recently arrested for trying to smuggle marijuana through airport security. Here is an SNL video that is the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time. Don’t worry, you don’t have to be a football fan to appreciate it:
SNL Michael Vick clip.

I have a new post up on my Bipolar Connect blog. It’s one of those "you know you have bipolar disorder if…" type of things. It’s all original, I didn’t steal it off the internet, knowingly anyway. If you like it, leave a comment.

I’m a HUGE NPR fan, and Juan Williams from NPR did an excellent interview with President Bush. Whenever Bush opens his mouth you want to cringe, but take a look at this paragraph:

The Iranian people have got to know that this government and the United States bears no hostility to them. We're just deeply concerned about a government that is insisting upon having a nuclear weapon, and at the same time, rewriting history – the history of the past, and regards, for example, the Holocaust. It troubles a lot of people in this world, and I'll continue to work with, you know, friends and allies to send a clear message.

It’s just so typical, you can understand what he’s trying to convey, but he’s just not making it happen. How about this "Bushism" from above: "…rewriting history – the history of the past…"
Find the complete transcript of the interview here.

Did anyone catch the Law and Order episode from a while back? It dealt, none too sympathetically, with bipolar disorder. They talked about someone overdosing on "Depaquel".
Update: Due to all those landing on this post by Googling "Depaquel", it should be pointed out that Depaquel is a TV invention. Thus, my tongue-in-cheek reference. The name most likely comes from a contraction of the words Seroquel and Depakote, both legitimate medications used to treat bipolar disorder.

Well, for having little to write about, I managed to stretch this out. Everyone have a GREAT weekend!