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“Hope is a desire with an expectation of accomplishment.”  ~Author Unknown

Recently, I read a memoir by Joan Didion called The Year of Magical Thinking.  (I noticed on Amazon that it’s now been made into a play).  In it, Didion describes the the loss of her husband and her experience of grief, and at one point she discusses the difference between grief that passes and that which never goes away (though in much more beautiful terms).  I recall her saying that the only people who don’t recover from depression are those who are unemployed.

An article I read in the New York Times online likened the effects of a recession in 1983 to that of the Depression of the 1930s: “Depression mentality is an attitude characterized by psychologists as being one that converts economic loss into a strong feeling of personal loss, often combined with an irrational sense of guilt and anxiety about the very fact of survival. . . Behavioral experts say economic and job loss can be linked directly to a greater incidence of psychological depression among individuals” (Nelson, 1983).

As I spend each day sending resumes, writing cover letters in which I simlutaneously promote and humiliate myself, I have to wonder again: how much of how I feel is situational and how much chemical?  It’s certainly a blow to my self esteem to send out these pieces of myself every day–education, work history, skills and all–and feel like I’m baring myself to nothingness. I think I need to start doing something differently.

Nelson, Bryce.  “Despair Among Jobless Is on Rise, Studies Find.”  newyorktimes.com.  2 April 1983.  17 June 2008.  http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html res=9F0CE0DC1139F931A35757C0A965948260&sec=health&spon=&pagewanted=2

Read a great review of The Year of Magical Thinking by Kristin TIllotson at http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/11377341.html?location_refer=Bios

There is a “virus that is a thousand times more powerful than any microbe: the idea that one is ill.”
~Marcel Proust

It’s been about a week since I’ve been off the Geodon and the Lexapro, and I’ve been experiencing head rushes every time I stand up and a wierd feeling many times a day that’s like my brain blinking.  (It’s hard to explain, but it’s almost like my brain is a fist that squeezes for a second and then lets go).  Also, yesterday I couldn’t get my mind off the fear I have about my family’s future (all due to money), and when we were ready to go out, I felt like sleeping and didn’t feel like socializing, so I stayed home alone. 

Factors that could be contributing to my feelings of being unwell other than the change in medication are that my temporary job teaching online classes just ended (and I don’t know yet whether they’re going to rehire me), and I haven’t heard anything back from the many resumes I’ve sent out.  I feel a bit aimless, which for me is definitely disheartening.

I’ve been really pleased with how I’ve been feeling in the morning while off the Geodon (waking up at 6:00, getting up at 7:00 feeling pretty good), but last night I took some at about 8:30 and didn’t get out of bed until 9:30.  Again, part of my staying in bed was related to the fact that I have nothing to do when I get up.  What’s the point?  I don’t want to call my doctor because I know he’ll be annoyed that I’m messing with my medication.  I’m not sure what to do.

So, this is about day 3 or 4 without Geodon or Lexapro, so all I’m taking is Wellbutrin and Vitamin B Complex (and Ambien to sleep–unfortunately).  I’m getting about 7 1/2 hours of sleep and waking up feeling fairly rested (although with a headache that only two cups of strong coffee can resolve).  It’s hard to judge how I would react if any stress were introduced into my life, because right now I’m working at home, online, and barely have to interact with people at all.  I’m applying for jobs with some trepidation. I have to say that I feel less agitated than I did when I was taking the Geodon, and I like not having to keep my eye on the clock to take a med, or worry that if I forget to take it, I won’t sleep.  I’m feeling more productive, too (though I’ll admit that these positive effects could all be imagined rather than true results of freedom from those medications).

I’m definitely not advocating cutting medication for anyone but myself.  I have just continually wondered whether medications (especially Geodon) contributed to such things as agitation, poor complexion, and high appetite (truly a gnawing hungry feeling in my belly–not just eating for pleasure or out of boredom).   In the past, I’ve gone for close to a year on only antidepressants and no mood stabilizer without having any manic episodes.  I’ve also had experiences (many years past) where I was on only Zoloft and did have manic episodes–but again, those were during periods of my life where my job was extremely stressful and stimulating.  We’ll see how this phase of my life goes.  

“The trouble with normal is it always gets worse.” ~Bruce Cockburn

Trying to figure out what is “normal” is one of the hardest things about being bipolar.  Things in my life aren’t at their very best right now, so what is “normal” anxiety and what requires medication?  Everyone’s healthy, yes, I have a place to live, enough to eat, and so on; but my life is kind of hanging in the balance.  I quit my job of eleven years teaching high school because I felt that psychologically, I couldn’t handle it anymore.  The behavior of some of the students was out of hand, and I got no support from administration.  I felt guilty when I wasn’t working.  I took a job teaching elementary and middle school at a small private school, and felt like I was losing my mind.  I had to quit.  In the meantime, my house was in foreclosure, we were facing bankruptcy, and none of that has changed.  I’m just trying to push my way to the end of the tunnel, hoping that there’s some new start that my family and I can make.  So, how can I judge whether I’m feeling normal, with all this anxiety about my present and my future?

“TRUE! nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why WILL you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How then am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily, how calmly, I can tell you the whole story ” ~Edgar Allan Poe

So, I’ve stopped taking Geodon; it’s been only two nights.  The first night I slept poorly, but the second night (despite a few scary dreams) was alright.  What I find bothers me when I don’t take it is I have this edge of agitation in response to noise.  I just read in relation to hypersensitivity for Asperger’s Syndrome patients, “the simple solution is to try and remove the offending source of the sensitivities” (Yessuh 2008).  But what if the “offending source” is your child?  It’s hard as a wife and mother to get any time to oneself.

“I don’t wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.” ~Pearl S. Buck, author of The Good Earth and Peony

6:47 a.m.
Yesterday was a better day–perhaps because I’d taken enough medication to sleep well the night before.  Last night I did not take any Geodon, so I slept poorly, but the good thing was I woke up on my own at 5 a.m., and started to work, instead of my usual practice of forcing myself out of bed at the last possible moment.  I feel antsy, yes, and a little tired in my head, but inspired instead of groggy.

 ”Only those things are beautiful which are inspired by madness and written by reason.” ~Andre Gide, author of The Immoralist

I was inspired to begin this blog by having an extraordinarily rough day yesterday–one of those days where I hate everyone and everything and my only relief is to sleep.  It’s been years since I’ve had any kind of group therapy for manic depression (and then it was during a crisis, so I barely remember it), but I sometimes seek out other bipolars’ posts on the web, mostly to see if what I’m experiencing is “normal” or a side effect of my medications.  My latest (and best) doctor says that medications are not miracle drugs. (”Some of that is just you,” he says).  That’s hard to accept.  I’ve been to more than a half-dozen therapists, and even the good ones haven’t been able to help me feel my best.  Medication can control mania; of that I’m sure.  But without a tinge of mania, I don’t feel creative, energetic, emotional–in essence, I don’t feel like me.  Does anyone out there know what I mean? 

Please share your comments.  I’d like to know what other people do to survive.