Advice from anyone with bipolar please.

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I need some advice from anyone who has been diagnosed with both aspergers and bipolar. I have a very confusing mental health history that has just got even more confusing lately. A couple of months ago I was hospitalised for 4weeks. I had begun taking Lexapro 3 weeks earlier, specifically to treat OCD. The medication seemed to be having no effect (and I wasn't depressed), then suddenly I was in hospital for suicidal thoughts and self harm.

While I was in hospital the dose kept being put higher and higher and I became more and more out of control. I had WAY too much energy, was running around talking to everyone (very unlike me) and had persistent urges to lash out and hurt myself. I was enormously agitated, easily angered, sleeping little and full of energy. But suicidal.

After leaving hospital I was taken off Lexapro and I seemed to be myself for a week, but then in the last week I feel like I have suddenly crashed into depression.

I am having a lot of trouble communicating what is going on to health workers. I have had long periods of depression since I was a teenager. I am less sure about hypomania/mania, though there are periods that I have achieved far more than I normally could and behaved very erratically and out of character.

The issue is that I have fairly unstable mood/coping anyway, because of the aspergers I think. I can be ok, highly agitated, overloaded, depressed in the space of a day very often. I think it has a lot to do with the effects of sensory/social overload but it is very hard to be sure as I struggle to see clear patterns in when I will feel ok and when I won't.

And then on top of this daily shifting mood/coping I have these longer periods of depression and intense agitation (maybe hypomania or mixed state). They can last weeks or months. And sometimes for months/weeks they are not there at all and I just feel like my normal aspergers self.

I don't know what to think. Everyone is hesitant to diagnose me, I think because I already have an aspergers diagnosis. And I feel like I am confused so much by my own chaotic layering of issues that when I explain it they are only ever getting a small part of the story. I am unsure if my unstable daily mood could be ultradian cycling bipolar rather than aspergers (which may explain why it is very hard to pinpoint what is triggering my overload). And then how do I explain that I have both quick changes (several a day) as well as longer (weeks/months/years) cycling?

I know that SSRIs can trigger hypomania/mixed state, but is that a reliable time to be assessed for bipolar, clearly because meds were a trigger?

So confused. Thanks for reading. I really need some advice... Any advice of what to do now.

When you were taken off Lexapro, did you slowly come off that med, or did the doctor cold-turkey you? If you were cold-turkeyed, I'd be finding another psychiatrist, and filing a complaint against your psychiatrist, and the mental hospital where you were abused, with your state's medical board.

You are correct in assuming that SSRI's can trigger bipolar disorder. I would be discussing alternative treatments with your new Psychiatrists (namely, fish oil, niacin, and other supplements), rather than any other treatments offered by Big PHaRMA.

In addition, have you had any sessions with a Psychologist? If not, I'd be asking for a referral from your new Psychciatrist or Primary Care Physician. I would be asking for a Psychologist that is trained in working with ASD, as well as bipolar and OCD.

print out your original post and give it to your psychiatrist. it's clear and to the point and sounds like bipolar as you suspect.

I'm diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder along with aspergers, which is basicly bipolar with schizo episodes thrown in. For anyone on medications they will react different, even from somebody with the same diagnosis. Psychology is actually a vague science.
If the pills aren't working for you the most important is to tell your doctor right away.
I am on 4 meds now and they work well, but it took years to get it right.
I also researched meds on my own to help recommend which types I felt would be better for me.
Read up on what symptoms they treat, rather than diagnosis, because someone with my same diagnosis could have a horrible reaction to my meds.
Read the side effects too, and research anything you take.

I've noticed psychologists are better than psychiatrists with autistic spectrum disorders because a psychiatrist only talks with the client where they psychologist does actual tests, which is necessary for someone who has trouble communicating clearly. Personally communicating feelings is the hardest part of it for me. I cannot explain or often even know what's going on but other people point it out frequently.

Thing is, if you are bipolar, it's pretty darn easy to trigger a depressive or manic episode. That's what's so...Scary about being bipolar. You just never know when the tables are about to turn. A slight stimulus can knock you to one extreme or the other- and medication changes can ABSOLUTELY do it- messing with the chemicals in your brain is a surefire way to...Well, mess with the chemicals in your brain. It should go without saying, but I feel like it needs said anyways. (Does it make any sense, or am I just losing my mind? What I'm trying to say is that because meds for mental illness are designed to deal with brain chemistry, it could knock something off-kilter up there.)

It sounds likely that you could have bipolar disorder, if that's what you're asking. (Sorry, my brain is not working the greatest, as I'm sobering up from a long night of drinking.)