Not Manic, Hypomanic

I went to see my psychiatrist today.  It’s something you have to do now and again when you’re bipolar with OCD.  Something about monitoring the medication.  Whatever.  I was actually anxious to see him (when I told Hot Joe that he turned it around.  “Anxious, huh?  Is that a symptom?”  Funny guy) because I’ve been struggling a bit lately.  Aside from the regular family stuff, forgetting to register Noah for soccer and having a glass kid, for a little over a month I haven’t been able to turn off my brain.  It’s very annoying.  I’m thinking, planning, preparing, reviewing, singing and dwelling 24 hours a day.  I’m falling asleep quickly but waking up soon after.  I’m tossing and turning all night long.  I’m not really sitting still and I’m clenching my jaw so hard day and night that I have constant muscle spasms with pain in my ear and  down my neck into my traps.  I can barely open my mouth half the time.  Hot Joe says I have too much on my plate but I disagree because I’m so super organized (pretend like that whole soccer thing didn’t happen because that was random).  Yes, I work, have two blogs, runstreak, keep a house and sell Scentsy but all in their own time.  I still have time to watch television with my family at the end of the evening.

I told Dr. Gray everything that was going on and the first thing he said was, “Noah needs to see a pediatric orthopedist.  This doesn’t seem right.”  He gave me the name of an ortho I’ve heard of before, so I was excited!  “Yes!  I know of him!  He has a fantastic reputation!  I will call him today!’  He’s dead.  So…

The second thing Dr. Gray said was I was hypomanic.  I shouted, “I KNEW it!” and fist pumped, both in my mind.  Bipolar 1 is when a person goes from suicidal to thinking they can fly or run from Southern California to Northern California on a whim, in flip-flops.  This change can literally happen in a fingersnap.

Bipolar 2, which is my lovely disorder, means sometimes I’m depressed and sometimes I’m irritable and a little hyper and pretty much what I described above, but mostly I’m pretty even-keeled.  He decided to adjust my meds, which is an ongoing struggle with this disorder, often based on my lithium levels on blood work.  He cut my Lexapro in half.  Lexapro manages my depression and OCD.  Then he added Seroquel to my regimen, which is used for both schizophrenia and bipolar.  In my case, because I’m hypomanic, it will help me fall and stay asleep.  Then he described how the two adjustments will work in a cool analogy.  He said, “Imagine you’re driving downhill, and your speed is accelerating.  You take your foot off the gas to slow the acceleration.  That’s the Lexapro reduction.  We’re taking away a little of what actually lifts you up.  Then you step on the brake to actually slow down.  That’s the Seroquel.  It’s putting the brakes on the mania.”  I totally saw myself driving down the Conejo grade from Newbury Park to Camarillo.

Dr. Gray is awesome (except for the part where he recommended a dead doctor to take care of Glass Boy).

Look out blog-readers!  I might actually start focusing and making sense soon.  Woohoo!!

Information on bipolar disorder can be found here.