let's talk about medication and its wonders. now i know it doesn't work for all people with bipolar disorder, but for me, medication has changed my life. it's almost like there are two eras of my life: before medication and after medication. before medication, i wasn't the best person. to put it bluntly i was kind of a bitch growing up. around 11 or 12 i developed an eating disorder and in order to cover that up i became a compulsive liar. my frequent bouts of depression required lots of lying to cover that up, too, but lucky for me i've had lots of training in acting so i was able to convince people i was happy and had normal eating habits. i loved getting attention from the guys at school (at the expense of my best friend's feelings at times) and all around i was kind of a mean girl. i wasn't a backstabbing bitch; i was very upfront about it. so that's a plus i suppose. anyways, i was a good friend to the people i deemed worth it, but like i said, i enjoyed getting attention and it kind of hurt my friendship with my best friend for a while during middle and high school. two boyfriends i had at separate times in high school (for a very short amount of time each. like DAYS) i started dating while i was completely manic. once i snapped out of it i was like ew, and broke up with each. that was always a pattern of mine before medication; i'd start relationships while manic and then the episode would wear off and i would break up with the person without a second thought or any regards for their feelings. most of my younger bitchiness wasn't bipolar related though. it was mostly just me being immature and mean. it wasn't until i moved college that things really actually took a turn to noticabley (and mentally) wrong. i have full months of memory gaps from episodes of mania before i started medication. i still have memory gaps when i come back from any episode, but they're not nearly as severe. now things are fuzzy and i couldn't tell anyone what i was thinking or why i made any of my decisions whilst being manic (when i'm depressed i generally make bad or weird decisions because i don't care what might happen to me), but before medication i LITERALLY have months where i could not tell you what i was doing, what i was thinking, what i said, what i wore. nothing. and that's scary for me because i have a photographic memory, so when i can't remember entire days or weeks or months of my life it's really freaky and i'm not used to it. anyways, before medication i was thoughtless half the time, not the best friend one could ask for, selfish when it came to ending relationships, wreckless with money, careless when it came to my safety or the safety of my friends who i dragged into bad ideas with me, and overall kind of selfish. nowadays i'm a much better friend! during times when my moods are level my memory is as great as i'm used to, i'm always sure to consider other people's feelings before my own, i'm always thinking of my friends and family and how things i do or say might affect them, i'm careful with money (minus random online shopping sprees, but those are usually an early warning of a budding manic episode), i'm about as safe as any normal 20-something year old who still loves to drink and party and make relatively bad decisions, and i do my best to be selfless when it matters. now that i'm on medication my relationships with both friends and family have improved significantly. i'm not constantly spending and then having to borrow money from people, i don't drag my friends down dark deserted backroads at night because i think we're invincible, i don't lie, i'm not an attention whore, and i never let my love for attention get in the way of my love for my best friend. everyone i've known since before i started my meds has seen a change in me, and everyone agrees that it's for the better. my newer friends never saw the bitchy, always unstable me, but they've all heard stories. i think we would all agree that the after-meds is the better era.
that being said, medication is not all dandy and roses. they come with side effects and these side effects can be a pain in the ass. for the medication i was presrcibed the day i was diagnosed, the pros DEFINITELY outweigh the cons. i've been on it for about 7 years now and haven't missed a single dose. it makes me bruise like crazy, gave me a smaller appetite, makes me extremely prone to frequent headaches, decreased my alcohol tolerance (which is a good thing because i don't have to buy so many drinks when i go out), and makes me drowsy all day everyday except during mania when i'm hyped up beyond all reason. but none of these side effects could deter me from taking this medication because it gave me my life back, and that's so much more important. i drink lots of coffee now and take pain killers pretty often for the headaches, but the other side effects i mostly just deal with. they don't bother me much. the drowsiness and headaches are the only annoying ones. but with all of the other medications i've tried, the cons have outweighed the pros. i've had a rough past couple years due to lots of psychosis and episodes, so i've gone through three or four additional meds that i ultimately didn't stick with. first we tried adding two anti-psychotics to my mood stabilizer (the one i always take) for the psychosis. they helped get rid of the hallucinations but they completely ruined my memory. i started messing everything up at work; forgetting to fill out important forms, forgetting papers to distribute at meetings, forgetting to send reminder emails for important dates, pretty much everything i could possibly screw up, i did. so we cut the dosage of one of the anti-psychotics in half. my memory came back for the most part. not completely, but enough to survive at work again. i stopped getting in trouble on a daily basis and the psychosis was still gone, so that was cool. i swore i'd never stop taking anti-psychotics again because being rid if daily hallucinations was so wonderful. the main side effect of them was extreme sleepiness, but i decided to take them before bed and that problem was mostly solved. but then my friends, sisters, and mom all started noticing i acted different. i didn't laugh at things anymore. i wasn't singing in the car or in the shower. i had constant driving anxiety and drove as little bit as possible, and as my best friend put it, my light had dimmed. i didn't like it, but i didn't feel like i had a choice. now that i'd gotten rid of the extra voices that apparently aren't normal, i didn't want them to come back. but then i got severly depressed, so i got an appointment with my psychiatrist (he was booked so he squeezed me in during a lunch break. he's pretty wonderful) and he decided to stop one of the anti-psychotics and replace it with an anti-depressant. so now i was on my usual mood stabilizer, one anti-psychotic, and the new anti-depressant. cool. the only problem was i had to eat at least 350 calories with the newest medicine, but my original medicine decreases my appetite like crazy so it's been a few years since i ate big meals on a regular basis. i only really eat full meals when i go to restaurants and snack the rest of the days. i decided to try to make it happen anyways, but it was so freakin' hard to make myself eat at least 350 calories in one sitting that it was legitimately stressing me out. not only that, but every time i took this medicine it made me feel disgustingly nauseous for about 45 minutes to the point where i had to lie down and not move because it felt like even the slightest movement would make me throw up. so i emailed my doctor and he suggested i split it in half and take one half in the morning and the other at night. so i did, but it didn't help much and only made me have to eat 350 calories or more twice a day instead of once. my mood had improved, but this hassle really wasn't worth it. now i'm ashamed to say that there was one more factor in my decision to stop this anti-depressant. it's a horrible reason and only my best friends know it was the icing on the cake that made me request going off this medication, but i couldn' drink with it. no rum, no vodka, not even the slightest bit of wine. i couldn't handle it. it made me so sad not to be able to drink that i just said fuck it and used the nausea as the sole reason to request the stop of this medicine. i'm not an alcoholic by any means, but i do really love to drink. pretty often, actually. and more in each sitting than i admit to my doctors. but whatever, it is what it is. anyway, once i stopped the anti-depressant i was down to just my mood stabilizer and the one anti-psychotic. but then i found out i have high blood sugar, and a common side effect of this anti-psychotic is increased blood sugar and you're not supposed to take it if you have that. so after many breakdowns, lots of advice from my best friends, and a very tough decision i decided i'd rather deal with my psychosis than run the increased risk of getting diabetes. so i emailed my doctor once again and we made a plan for me to decrease and eventually stop taking my anti-psychotic. i changed my diet and made some other lifestyle changes to decrease my blood sugar again. so now i'm back to my original meds: the mood stabilizer that has been my saving grace. i was SO so anxious to stop the anti-psychotic and get the visions, voices, and other psychotic symptoms back again, but so far it hasn't been too bad. there are actually some perks to it! i'm cheerful again, i laugh at things as much as i used to, i'm no longer terrified to drive, my personality is back to normal, my memory is mostly back to normal, and my best friend said my light has come back. so maybe going off the anti-psychotics wasn't such a bad thing. there is one other medication i take as needed and it's for anxiety. it usually kicks in within about twenty minutes and makes me feel like i'm high and floating. i get completely relaxed and all traces of anxiety go away, which is wonderful. the only problem is it knocks me out every time i take it. for a while i had to take it at work almost everyday, and during that time i felt like a walking, barely-talking zombie. for the most part i do my best to only take it before bed, and only when i have to.
overall i love being on medication. do i like the fact that i have to take it to even somewhat control my emotions? no. i absolutely hate that. i abhor the fact that i have to take a medication daily for the rest of my life to feel even remotely okay. i hate that i'm scared to get pregnant because i know i'll need to go off my meds once/if i decide to start trying, i'm terrified that without my meds i'll get postpartum depression and not be the mom i'd like to be, i hate hate hate that the first thing i do every morning is reach for my water and bottles of pills just so i can get through the day without something going horribly wrong. but it's worth it. it's so worth it. the stigma of being medicated gets in my head pretty often, but i have to do what works for me, and for me i need my happy pills and i'm not afraid to say it. i'm pretty damn fond of my meds, actually. i feel like they complete me. which sucks, but i've grown quite attached to these little bottles of pills over the years. sometimes, when i don't have to go anywhere, i put off taking the pills for as long as possible so i can pretend i'm normal and don't need them. but i've been trying not to do that because it only reinforces the idea that i can't be normal and on medication. also when i wait too long into the day to take my pills i start feeling horribly sick like i have the actual flu. so there's that. but i really do know that my pills have saved my life, and for that i am forever grateful.