My team is slowly starting to grow as I begin to branch out. I recently started a blog, and I’m hoping to start conversation there. It’s a bipolar blog with stories, educational pieces, and motivational pieces, http://manicviolet.com/blog/ Please check it out and give a comment.

Anyways my boyfriend has been a huge supporter of mine, and has always been supportive–through a lot including hospitalizations, doing irrational things, blaming him for things I was paranoid he was doing to me, and calling him every name possible. I always had a theory, I even thought he hired my doctor. From A-Z my mind has come up with. I used to live in a prism…lab…created into a book…life was a book…anyway,

My doctor is who I can really say anything to and who doesn’t say anything judgemental back, or get angry. Even if he works for my b/f I really like him. i can be honest, I can get feedback on a behavior, if he can figure it out, and I meet interesting characters in the waiting room. I thought one guys face was peeling off once. We’ve been through a lot together too. A few years back I was manic all the time, rapid cycling, and everything was so chaotic. So psychiatrists/psychotherapist I think is key.

Also key are friends, co-workers, support system, and just people, honestly I don’t have much or really any. But I’m getting a PT job, starting RN school, and going to try the local Nami chapter group, and a writing group. That should be a lot of help. I can’t wait until I’m an RN. Life will be paradise, it feels like.

PEOPLE are great! Visit my site, I’d more than appreciate your comments too. Can’t wait to make a few friends, how utopia that would be for me!

Just the b/f, my doctor and a quiet blog today. School and work are on their way.

No team - Hear Bipolar and I no longer exsist as a person of intellect, seriousness, stabliltiy

Thank you for sharing–here is my account of over 23 years of rapid cycling.I hope this helps others understand what Rapid Cycling is like and how its managed. I have been cycling for decades. I noted a pattern of 4-6 week cycles for years split between depression and mania.Then diagnosed w/bp.My med therapy for the next 18 yrs.was a combo of lithium,tegretol,& bupropion. Now I am using lamotrogine alone F/oil that helps with cycling. I thought I could go it alone. I lasted drug free from one spring to summer by taking high levels of omegas w/epa level 1500 mg,but that changed in Sept. Even though fish oil wasn’t the natural wonder it still holds true today that lithium and /or omega III’s help protect the grey matter of the brain which bp contributes to deterioration of grey matter. Going back on lithium then became far less effective and the “kindling effect” may have contributed. By going off lithium for almost a year resulted in less efficacy when I resumed it. Any way I really wanted to try lamotrigine with or with or without lithium this time. It seemed to make sense for bp and most important to me,Rapid Cycling. Lithium always affected my cognition so I weaned myself off lith/lamotrg combo and went solo on lamotrg currently 200mg. My bpII depression coexists with seasonal affective disorder. As I aged the sad has become more relevant and the hypomania is much shorter lived,a few days only and the depressions are predominant (fall to spring). I have never used light therapy–I am afraid it will induce the mania side which will counter affect the mood stabilizing properties of lamotrogin which also has an anti-depressant effect without inducing mania to an unmanageable level. However being that I live in the north east–I should finally give it a try (light therapy)in small regulated doses.
My pdoc for years has always said rapid cycling is the hardest to treat. I do consider myself fortunate when at the age of 29, the very first therapist I sought out–suspected bp when there was not as much info as there is today, and sent me to a reputable bp pdoc–whom was lecturing in nyc re: bp, as well as practicing, and prescribing combo-drug therapies (fairly new at the time) of lithium/tegretol back in the early 1980’s. We did add wellbutrin which often induced an agitated mania when coming out of a depressed phase which needed to be closely regulated.

I have tried relatively few different drug therapies over the years compared to most and although I am not satisfied with the med treatment options available for bp–and especially rapid cycling,…. I am still here.

I consider myself an expert patient–granted probably not on the same level. I have educated myself reading a few books (living well, and Mind Moode and Medicine-Wender & Klein)and intense research on the internet by which I found John M’s web site as many others.I have developed a good understanding of this illness. My pdoc and I together regulate my meds–and always shares updates re: bp as to what is available even though we have basically stuck to only two different regimens of therapy over the years.

When I first met my pdoc on the very first visit he showed me a book he contributed to regarding a graph depicting rapid cycling–it was so reasurring to see at that time that I wasn’t going crazy. The road to managing our illness is to have it diagnosed correctly and to know you are not alone.
I have been probably like so many men have kept my illness to myself–only my wife and one sibling knows of my illnes. In fact this is the very first time I ever blogged period as well as sharing my experiences. I hope this give others some relief that knowing those of us who suffer silently and do manage.