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i'm bipolar, been diagnosed and on meds since i had my initial psychotic break, live here on byob! this winter has been a poo poo, i had a rough depression time that is slowly lifting and i'm trying to get back into the swing of things more or less successfully. some thoughts: if your brain won't shut up use your body. therapy is good and helpful but is a tool to be used not a lifestyle to opt into. medicine is good, even stuff that drs don't prescribe but be careful with those. i'm on olanzapine to prevent or mitigate the manic episodes and as long as i take it it works. marijuana has been very helpful in managing my brain but i do not see a point in my future where i'm off scripts permanently. no big deal. i wear glasses every day, same sorta thing. coming back to byob and making sometimes funny posts with smart funny people has been good therapeutic activity. it goes without saying but clearly everyone posting here uses comedy as a tool to manage themselves and i think it's one of the most productive ways to process negative feelings. i love you have a good day be nice to yourself.
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Jun 21, 2022 17:37
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 12:00 |
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i know the feeling of regretting an outburst but that's a very reasonable thing to feel angry about. Sherbert Hoover posted:it's funny how everyone here feels guilty for their bad brains but it's always such a pleasure to read your thoughts one of the most powerful statements about mental health issues i've encountered has been said a million times by marcus on last podcast on the left which is "it's not my fault but it's my responsibility." i used to feel extreme shame and guilt over being bipolar because of the hurt it's caused people around me, and even now i'm not free from that guilt but i recognize the distinction between what i'm actually guilty of and what is a result of my disease. this guilt is good though because i know i can prevent the most destructive events by following a few fairly simple rules, and now when i have a slip up i'm mad at myself not so much for how i acted in those times, but allowing myself to get to that point. anyways it is good to ramble about brain stuff thanks bff for the thread (did you know your SA initials also stand for best friend forever/was this intentional)
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Jun 22, 2022 20:39
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baka fwocka fwame posted:im sort of flat & depressed instead of psychotically sad and regretting a lot i dont think hospitalizing myself was a good move at all. it may have not been a good move but i doubt it was a bad one
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Jun 24, 2022 23:18
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a big part of my mental health recover process or whatever you want to call it, has been forcing perspective. my brains may suck but i never got lobotomized, etc. sometimes lateral progress is to be praised, just cause it isn't actively negative.
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Jun 24, 2022 23:19
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i vacillate between thinking "man it would have been nice to live in the past and just have been some sort of mystic monk sequestered in a cave, going through highly productive periods and depressive states unmedicated" and realizing "no, the present is honestly the best time ever for this sort of thing buddy, you're quite lucky"
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Jul 12, 2022 21:26
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teen witch posted:post in my experiences with the black dog lucidity about the desire for change means you are on the right path, in a way? when i've been at my lowest i rarely even realized it because i was reduced to basic animal instincts of survival. it's only when things start to get better that i can recognize i want to improve my situation even more. the desire to stay on the straight and narrow, meds and behaviour wise, is something i understand very well. not actively loving things up can be such a relief that keeping your wheels in the rut is a viable option. personally the greatest risk to my mental health is romantic failures, so for the past few years i've been actively single and avoiding thoughts of fancy because i needed time to get back on my feet. i'm starting to think about putting myself out there because humans have an intense need to pair bond and i kind of want kids, but it's a pretty scary idea because of the potential consequences to my mental health. anyways hey don't you all love it when friends and family point to extremely successful people with your specific mental illness and are like "look they succeeded why aren't you writing a novel?"
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Jul 13, 2022 19:15
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Bright Bart posted:So my life is fairly messed up right now. Presumably from an outside perspective it's in shambles. I've wasted a lot of opportunities some of which the average person might kill to get. fingers crossed, and the past is only an indicator of future behaviour, i wouldn't be so hard on yourself. sure you may have folded dealt other hands but that doesn't mean you will this time. Allie posted:hello fellow psychotic bipolar sufferer. it sure is fun leaving the forums for years stretches during times of both depression and stability, and returning like a bright, shitposting comet during hypomanic and manic episodes. sometimes i wonder what my baseline mood state actually is. i don't think i know anymore. i just go from episode to episode of varying intensities these days. even with meds and treatment. the manic depressive mind is mercurial and maddening i've come to realize that attempting to figure out a baseline for my mood is like trying to determine the baseline for temperature outside. you can average out every days but that number is not going to be an accurate gauge. my brain has seasons, and finding ways to mitigate the damage done during fallow periods and emphasize the benefits in the more productive times has been the goal of my past, i don't know, decade of life.
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Jul 18, 2022 01:09
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Bright Bart posted:I still feel like my disease would be a super power if medicated the way it might be in a decade's time. Not that I was ever a genius who used the ups to compose symphonies or make breakthrough discoveries. I just wrote some papers. But it's more productive than my lazy self usually is going to be. Plus being so happy drugs can't hold a candle to daily experience made me at times feel sorry for people who are just "normal". How can they go around not knowing what it feels like to be on top of the world? So ecstatic that you want to scream? Being the dude from American Beauty crying at garbage bags floating in the wind? It was a shock when my psychiatrist in the UK told me that most people can only hope to be Content. i feel that. the solution to this that i've found is talking to the people around me about how i treated them in those times. people would admit, yeah you were more charming, more eloquent, more productive - but also more manipulative, more arrogant and more hurtful. sure i could write thousands of words, but most of them weren't that good. sure i romanced women i'd longed for but i left them in the dust. it would be nice to have a drug that kept me in the hypo-manic state permanently, but i honestly believe my body and brain would burn out from the overclocking at like 50.
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Jul 18, 2022 01:19
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Bright Bart posted:lamotrigine. looking into this. i'm currently on a 7.5 mg daily dose of olanzapine. why are so many mania suppression meds just off label use seizure meds. is mania just a brain seizure that last a long time? i may give this drug a shot, even though my current regimen works at keeping me functional. interesting.
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Jul 18, 2022 01:55
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yeah the only annoying side effect of my olanzapine is that it makes my restless legs way more restless
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Jul 18, 2022 02:11
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Bright Bart posted:The standard for olanzapine would be to add paroxetine as an antidepressant. But please don't take anything I say as medical advice. I *was* a doctor until I messed my life up in a series of bad decisions. Right now I'm just a guy who had an excellent time on lamotrigine: It was the first drug i took where hypomania wasn't followed by depression. And that's what it has good evidence going for it: preventing depression in BP. Honestly if something made me half as functional I would be unstoppable. the thing about depression is i only gently caress up my own life, versus mania, where i gently caress up EVERYONES life. i've never really bothered any chemical treatment for depression but i really should. an interesting point about mental health i have heard is that you are basically in recovery, constantly, even without another addiction. with this in mind always trying to better treat ones condition makes sense. being medicated enough to be functional shouldn't really be my goal, i should be seeking to thrive, not just survive.
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Jul 18, 2022 02:14
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baka fwocka fwame posted:i'm probably gonna ask my doc about switching to haldol, just cuz ive heard it feels better than this. anyone have any stories of horror or otherwise? asked my friends with brain medications and none have been on it, but none have heard any horror stories, nor have i.
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Aug 3, 2022 18:35
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Bright Bart posted:Glad this thread is still here. I'm still doing poorly. have you considered some non chemical means? i have heard good things about modern electroshock, but have not experienced it myself. my bipolar management regimen is just olanzapine, and it's not perfect as i've discussed but it softens the most destructive periods. baka fwocka fwame posted:literally my best techstrat is goin outside it works so well but i'm already starting to get worried about winter.
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Aug 7, 2022 00:04
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Bright Bart posted:Also, anhedonia sucks. It's a big improvement over the past few weeks I can even browse BYOB. yeah it's a hell of a time when literally nothing is enjoyable. i've lost a lot of weight this way in bad times. i'm 5'10 or whatever and at some points was down to under 120lbs. i feel you, i'm sorry you're there right now.
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Aug 7, 2022 00:20
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i'm around. if you need an ear my pm's are open. you can still fix problems tho', it's just... a lot slower and less elegant in normal brain state.
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Aug 7, 2022 00:24
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oh yeah i have opinions about how we pay strangers to listen to us when we used to have cheifs or priests or something that's whole deal was listening to us. there is real value in getting outside perspectives. when people ask me how i'm doing these days, in regard to my brain, i don't even tell them how i think i'm doing. i talk about the concrete pieces of evidence for how i am doing. i am doing well because i am productive, i am doing poorly because i am letting things slip. we are so tied up in ourselves it's hard to accurately gauge things. plus normalbrains are fairly freaked out by these things. most people i know have never seriously considered suicide, and bringing that subject up with folk is a minefield. it's nice to have fellow sufferers to commiserate with.
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Aug 7, 2022 01:15
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Fart Dumbass posted:stuff i'm gonna preface this with i do not give a poo poo about any other board beyond this one. it is not impossible that you've burnt bridges and made people very unhappy but i feel the need to tell you we aren't lying. if you post here we will not tell you to stop. i don't care about reputations that precede and i don't think anyone else here does either really. we are more than willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and if you are chill and nice and funny (honestly, in that order), you'll fit right in. i know what it is like to be in the depths of darkness, and fully believe that i was worthless, better off dead, a burden on my family and friends. it's a lie. i wish i had someone to slap me out of it and tell me it's a lie. you exist, and you deserve to keep existing, and you deserve to have a life that you like. maybe i'll regret posting this when some cspam person pm's me a .pdf of all your terrible posts but honestly i doubt it. we all grow, we all change, we all deserve second, third and forth chances (outside of stuff we all recognize as unforgivable). how many times should i forgive my brother or sister? not seven times, but seventy-seven times. i believe this. when someone is suffering we should try and help. attempting to determine if the sufferer is worthy of our help is loving nazi poo poo. quantifying human suffering and saying "this person deserves a hand and this one doesn't" is wrong and cruel.
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Aug 11, 2022 01:37
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if you think that's the best choice i'm not going to argue with you but it is important for me to tell you that you have value as a human being regardless of posts. sometimes i think about shutting down all my pro-active internet use so i kinda get it.
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Aug 11, 2022 01:46
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i am pretty glad mental illness exists because in the reality where it doesn't i bet some people just have hosed up brains and die after stresses.
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Aug 13, 2022 16:15
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Bright Bart posted:I feel like depression is really taking a number on my cognitive abilities. Words barely come to mind and I'm forgetting basic things. I'm not even posting any advice in the Goon Doctor right now. Wouldn't be proper. it's scary having a flowers for algernon sort of situation. most people stay the same level of smart their whole lives, but mental illness can really shift things in either direction. i don't think i become dumber or smarter depending on where i am, mental health wise, but my priorities and amount of energy vary drastically. when in the pits of depression i may not feel creative but i sure as hell find ways to survive and hide which is some sort of animal cunning. while manic my brain shifts into high gear but starts making a lot of mistakes, which due to the speed of brainstuff, can compound into bad thought patterns and actions like a train engine derailing, then getting slammed into by a hundred cargo trains loaded with high explosive. it is good you are lucid. i am kind of in the same place, i've had a lot on my mind and i've been slipping in some really basic ways. movie nite on saturday i completely brain farted and spent time hunting down and making a post about a movie, forgetting one was already picked. i've hosed up in some other basic and minor ways but ways i wouldn't have if i was doing better. not that i'm doing bad, really, just not great. on sundays we usually do a family dinner thing at my aunts but i messaged her explaining that i needed a bit of a break, that i'd had a lot on my mind, etc. she totally got it, was glad i was cognizant of my faculties enough to know when i need some time. this is a long rambling post but i always feel that reading about someone elses struggles (mine) helps process your own (yours)
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Aug 29, 2022 14:13
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Fart Dumbass posted:i should shut up this doesn't matter i don't matter on the off chance you swing by this thread again i should inform you that the opposite of what i posted about happening (someone pm'ing me a pdf of "bad posts") happened. a friendly goon sent me a very kind pm describing their understanding of the situation and expressing hope you were doing okay. people are better than we give them credit for, usually. i hope your brain is doing better. Bright Bart posted:You're not rambling Papps and I appreciate you posting your experience even if it is different than mine. In fact I look forward to your posts in this thread. honestly me too, because me making an effort to manage my poo poo is so much better than trying to bury it.
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Sep 2, 2022 00:42
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Bright Bart posted:More news incoming that may tip me over the edge if it is bad as I see it. Really worried about myself. Last time I went no contact for two weeks barely leaving the flat. Or my bed. i'm very sorry to hear that. hopefully you can tell some people what you think might happen, so someone could check up on you. isolation is a self repeating pattern, you need something from the outside to break it in my experience.
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Sep 8, 2022 21:01
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today's my birthday. i am thirty five now, i guess. i have a weird relationship to celebrating birthdays because we moved a lot when i was young, and being the new kid and then immediately having a birthday doesn't really lend itself to parties. also a girl i loved dumped me two birthdays in a row when i was 18 and 19. ANYWAYS do i think i am doing that well lately? no, not really. am i doing extremely poorly? no, not really. i don't know. my sister asked me what i was going to do to celebrate my birthday and i told her that because i have no obligations or responsibilities every day is like my birthday, and i wasn't really sure how to make today more special, and that i was mostly worried about nothing mega negative happening that makes today suck as opposed to making today extra good or whatever. i am at the point with my mental illness where the ways i can do better are all known to me and at my fingertips, and now it's a question of how good of a life do i even think i deserve. for some reason, and i am not alone in this i know, i don't feel like i deserve a good life. being born white and male and cis is already a huge advantage and i need to remember that i'm allowed to want a life that i like and is good. i don't need to suffer for mine or my ancestors sins. anyways i spent most of today talking to friends and family and that was really nice. when i moved here, and the pandemic started, i really drastically closed ranks. i hate facebook but i went from having the maximum amount of friends from some work with an arts collective and a life lived, to like 80 people i actually know and love, and of that 80 or whatever i regularly talk to maybe 7? i am an introvert by nature so living in isolation is what i like and have aimed for, but i am starting to think i've folded inwards too much. i don't really know a lot of people in my town, and am afraid of knowing more people because then i am no longer free of responsibility and obligation. some thoughts. even if i'm not posting in here i am reading every new post and thinking about them, and spending a portion of my energy hoping for a better future for all of us. Bright Bart posted:Song stuck in my head but I don't play it because it wouldn't hit right. i have this same relationship with certain stories. in the wrong time they would be bitter to my tongue.
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Sep 16, 2022 00:40
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Bright Bart posted:So I want to say that I have received excellent news regarding my return to work and as a consequence I am now... almost... HAPPY! whats your current jam?
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Oct 6, 2022 21:31
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Bright Bart posted:Justice.  i heard this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mtd24QIBJ5Y recently and now have a whole band to look into
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Oct 6, 2022 21:41
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started a job, night shift, blah blah blah. i was and am worried the upset to my sleep schedule will gently caress up my brain situation. it hasn't yet, but it's been two weeks. i think i'll get into a grove and it'll be fine, but stuff is weird these days. my grandmother is declining pretty quickly and won't be able to stay at the facility she's in after my uncle leaves. my uncle came from alberta to stay for a month or two and be the primary caregiver for my grandmother at the home during the days, which is the only reason she's able to stay there. i am fine with death. i will miss her, but mostly i'm worried about how this affects my family more broadly. i know it's weighing on my father, and my siblings, living six hours away and not really being able to come if needed. my brother came to visit the day my grandmother went into the hospital for a week or so, and could only do a window visit with his boys, and that was sad but just a matter of timing. anyways i woke up at like 3 pm and am gonna go to bed, i dunno, not later. try and wake up normally in the morning and do some visiting and errands. blarg.
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Oct 8, 2022 21:43
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i find the change of seasons from summer to winter pretty rough. vibrating in harmony with my posting pals.
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Oct 9, 2022 00:40
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i feel you bff. i think i have posted in this thread even that sometimes i wish i was alive a thousand years ago and was just some mystic hermit living in a cave or something, and people would bring me offerings of grain and spices to hear my visions. that maybe would have been nice. but also, i dodged icepick lobotomy by only a few decades so the whole past thing is a crapshoot. i hope the future things get better in regards to mental health treatment but part of me thinks that the conditions that put pressure on the human psyche are only increasing. there is this catch 22 where mental health services are most available in the worst places for the mentally ill to live. i can't imagine trying to live in toronto on odsp, rent is more than the max they give each month. i gotta see my doctor and just get a general health and brain checkup.
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Oct 17, 2022 23:32
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teen witch posted:if anyone does know of some cool self-calming tactics or exercises I am all goddamn ears. I don’t want to bottle up rage, that is for depression and anxiety ONLY. i don't know how well this would work for other people but the rare times my rage reaches a boiling point i grab an axe and go into the woods and find some dead trees to chop down. after i've felled a few i usually feel a lot better. people say to exercise to work out anger but if i'm pissed i'm not getting on a treadmill or picking up weights, but making a physically exerting activity that is also destructive works really well. hell i think even just buying some cheap plates at a thrift shop and smashing them would be effective, and that isn't even physically taxing.
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Oct 20, 2022 23:55
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help when my energy ramps up i freak out thinking it's hypomania doing it's thing just kidding i am doing fine(?)
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Nov 18, 2022 00:56
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Viginti Septem posted:Thanks for letting me vent i explained my mental illness as "i am the same as everyone, people have ups and downs. the only problem is my ups are way higher and downs much lower than most people. everything kind of makes sense but is given outsize significance, from what you are used to." and the people i was talking to nodded and seemed to understand.
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Nov 18, 2022 01:48
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Viginti Septem posted:I will take note of that as I feel similar, thank you i hope things settle, but also, getting a diagnosis is valuable. i am biplolar, not rapid cycling. it's possible you are the same, but also, even if not getting something to work towards managing is extremely helpful. if i still didn't know what my brain was doing, honestly i'd be dead.
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Nov 18, 2022 02:23
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"why yes, internal dialogue, i do have a personal responsibility for, and obligation to fix, global warming."
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Dec 1, 2022 00:01
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i got covid and spent a full day freaking out about everything i could have potentially hosed up at my job and also life and literally nothing bad happened to anyone but me
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Dec 1, 2022 00:12
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barclayed posted:Currently at the ER about to be Baker acted? I think is the term? And man some of these people are scary. I know they have mental health issues and I'm trying not to judge- I know what it's like to be scared and confused, and believe me I have my own poo poo too- but it's a little overwhelming. Does anyone have any advice? Hospitals are not my thing at all. i got put into the hospital in ontario in what is a similar sort of thing, a 3 day stay in a mental health facility i did not have the choice to say no to while they attempted to figure out what was wrong with me. do whatever they ask, be as compliant as possible, do not pace in the hallways. keep to yourself, tell the doctors you'd like as much privacy as possible and again do what you are told to do. if you step out of line in any way, show that you are aggravated (which is justifiable given circumstances), or make any staff feel threatened you will be isolated and restrained. i spent 2 days of my 3 strapped to a bed and shot up to keep me from flipping out. the medium and good end to this is you get a diagnosis and some help to move forward without enduring any significant trauma, and this is more than achievable. my stay was neither medium nor good but it was only three days. i can manage just about any situation for just three days. godspeed, hopefully you get to keep your phone and or use a computer. i'm pulling for you.
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Dec 2, 2022 02:53
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baka fwocka fwame posted:honestly my friends are saying i’m doing way better than normal even the ones i blow up on whenever people ask me how i am doing i have a hard time answering because i don't trust my opinion.
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Dec 13, 2022 02:54
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baka fwocka fwame posted:blegh how’s everyone else doing i fully believe that people are supposed to have cycles related to nature and i'm currently in my death and pre resurrection phase where i'm planning stuff out for when i have any degree of ambition. it's past the solstice, but holy gently caress when you work a nite shift and wake up at noon at the sun sets at 5 that is rough beans. i haven't completely lost my poo poo but i was both busy and bummed to the point of not even posting in byob for a while. it wasn't extremely dark times, it was a full half and half "i'm really sad and i don't have free" time sorta thing but still. chatting with a pal recently i noticed that i was typing out a lot of alliterative sentences and that is my first stage pay attention alarm for mania, and have slightly increased my medicine dosage and have don't some self care to bring me back to baseline. a second older lady co-worker asked me if i was single tho', so clearly i am doing well enough that some of my co workers are thinking of introducing me to their nieces or whatever so i must be doing okay.
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Jan 16, 2023 04:03
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i had a good long cathartic session of uncontrolled weeping last night which is kind of a good sign, in my experience. also, re: dsm talk. you can't control something you don't understand or have a name for. i understand my experience is unique, but also, i'm not some singularly formed from crystal being of absolute light. other people have been through what i have been through. the specifics may be different, but the broad strokes are the same. no two hallucinations have ever been the same, and lightning usually strikes in different places. this doesn't mean that talking about the similarities between folks with hallucinations is useless, or that lightning rods are. winter is rough. the solstice is past. days are getting longer. i'm gonna be okay.
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Jan 30, 2023 02:37
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thank you for the reminder i gotta make a docs appoint to get my script renewed or whatever, gently caress
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Feb 1, 2023 20:14
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i'm pretty lucky in that if i miss a few days of olanzapine i might have more trouble sleeping and start to feel speedy, a bit, but it's not like the chains come off and i'm immediately manic. i have learned my lesson about not taking it and am usually very on the ball about keeping tabs on the supply but i had a pretty bad january and some things fell thru the cracks. there are at least 5 or 6 tablets at my work, in my mail box thing, locked up, so i even have slightly more than i thought. called the pharmacy, no refills, they faxed a thing to my doctors office, which i also called. asked them to keep an eye out for the fax and scheduled a visit with a dr. small victories i guess.
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Feb 1, 2023 20:32
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