i was just diagnosed with mood disorder.
yesterday, my psychiatrist told me that my condition belonged in that category and because i am predisposed to having it, the fact that my younger sister already has bipolar. he did not specifically say what i had, and there are at least nine specific conditions under this. All he said, in order to get me back in the line, he should be able to stabilize my moods first.
I told him the longest in my long-term plan is up to June of this year, because i would be taking the board exam. I didn't say my plans end in June and that i might be dead after; he was to jolly-looking to be told sad stories. so he went on and scribbled divalproex sodium (on extended release, in my case, Depakote ER) and olanzapine (Olavex). I mentioned i was on Zoloft and Epival 15 years ago. He said I was given Zoloft because i was depressed but this time, he said, olanzapine would address my problems with "racing thoughts at night" and help me get the sleep i want. The "racing thoughts", i said, was not there 15 years ago. So olanzapine, it is, he said -- "just to make sure you don't spiral downward to bipolar disoder."
That was disappointing. i repeatedly mentioned i was just having severe anxiety attacks, and therefore wanted to take only something to calm me down, not things to address my mood swings. i really thought i've gotten rid of the depression from 15 years ago, that now this is just pure anxiety and panic attacks. it's disappointing to be diagnosed with the same thing again.
My diagnosis in 2003 did not come as a surprise. the whole family was just recovering from my sister's bipolar breakdown, at Christmas, and so with all the perfect cocktail of stressors that is a known component of any a breakdown from mental illness, i was a perfect candidate. I was with my sister from the time she was rushed to the the small psych clinic in the middle of the rice paddies, so late in the night, to the time of her discharge late in the afternoon of December 24. I was her assigned caregiver from then on. It was justifiable for me to have a mental breakdown of my own. because, why not?
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very few people knew about my condition. my mother knew because on the third night i was losing sleep, i asked her what to take to reclaim my sleep back. she gave me clonazepam, which she said i should start by taking "1/4 tab, before sleeping and that i could try to increase the next day when i feel 1/4 was not enough." i did not tell my psychiatrist that. Clonazepam did make me groggy but never gave me the deep sleep i wanted. when i woke up the next day, the resentment, the anger, the racing thoughts and the thoughts of suicide, they were still there.
when i walked out the clinic clutching the prescription, Rene was the first person i texted. He was also the first person i texted in June 2017 when i went home to Antique to have a breakdown. Though my family is always accepting of mental illness running in the family, it is still a difficult issue to open up with them, mainly because i did not have money to feed the illness. it would always mean at some point in time, i would be scraping somebody for money to get the pills. that is the saddest part of this.
my husband doesn't know. because i never told him, and i don't plan to. he already expressed his being a non-believer in the idea of mental illness and when i opened up the possibility of me having it, he just handed me the blame, that i wasn't trying harder to fight it off. If i fought harder, i would end up dead. But i guess people like him, who only see the world from their own view, will never understand mental illness, even when it happens to their relations, because of the belief that all of these are caused by our love for drama. what i am sure of is that, when the day comes my husband sees me hanging from our rafters, dead from a broken neck, he would simply say, "she was a coward," and give me to the cleaners.
yesterday, my psychiatrist told me that my condition belonged in that category and because i am predisposed to having it, the fact that my younger sister already has bipolar. he did not specifically say what i had, and there are at least nine specific conditions under this. All he said, in order to get me back in the line, he should be able to stabilize my moods first.
I told him the longest in my long-term plan is up to June of this year, because i would be taking the board exam. I didn't say my plans end in June and that i might be dead after; he was to jolly-looking to be told sad stories. so he went on and scribbled divalproex sodium (on extended release, in my case, Depakote ER) and olanzapine (Olavex). I mentioned i was on Zoloft and Epival 15 years ago. He said I was given Zoloft because i was depressed but this time, he said, olanzapine would address my problems with "racing thoughts at night" and help me get the sleep i want. The "racing thoughts", i said, was not there 15 years ago. So olanzapine, it is, he said -- "just to make sure you don't spiral downward to bipolar disoder."
That was disappointing. i repeatedly mentioned i was just having severe anxiety attacks, and therefore wanted to take only something to calm me down, not things to address my mood swings. i really thought i've gotten rid of the depression from 15 years ago, that now this is just pure anxiety and panic attacks. it's disappointing to be diagnosed with the same thing again.
My diagnosis in 2003 did not come as a surprise. the whole family was just recovering from my sister's bipolar breakdown, at Christmas, and so with all the perfect cocktail of stressors that is a known component of any a breakdown from mental illness, i was a perfect candidate. I was with my sister from the time she was rushed to the the small psych clinic in the middle of the rice paddies, so late in the night, to the time of her discharge late in the afternoon of December 24. I was her assigned caregiver from then on. It was justifiable for me to have a mental breakdown of my own. because, why not?
----
very few people knew about my condition. my mother knew because on the third night i was losing sleep, i asked her what to take to reclaim my sleep back. she gave me clonazepam, which she said i should start by taking "1/4 tab, before sleeping and that i could try to increase the next day when i feel 1/4 was not enough." i did not tell my psychiatrist that. Clonazepam did make me groggy but never gave me the deep sleep i wanted. when i woke up the next day, the resentment, the anger, the racing thoughts and the thoughts of suicide, they were still there.
when i walked out the clinic clutching the prescription, Rene was the first person i texted. He was also the first person i texted in June 2017 when i went home to Antique to have a breakdown. Though my family is always accepting of mental illness running in the family, it is still a difficult issue to open up with them, mainly because i did not have money to feed the illness. it would always mean at some point in time, i would be scraping somebody for money to get the pills. that is the saddest part of this.
my husband doesn't know. because i never told him, and i don't plan to. he already expressed his being a non-believer in the idea of mental illness and when i opened up the possibility of me having it, he just handed me the blame, that i wasn't trying harder to fight it off. If i fought harder, i would end up dead. But i guess people like him, who only see the world from their own view, will never understand mental illness, even when it happens to their relations, because of the belief that all of these are caused by our love for drama. what i am sure of is that, when the day comes my husband sees me hanging from our rafters, dead from a broken neck, he would simply say, "she was a coward," and give me to the cleaners.
