Sapphira wrote:
Hal420 wrote:
I think the combination of Asperger and Bipolar sucks! This is no fun at all. I also have ADD and anxiety disorder. Seems to be a hell of a mixture and it is! I also have to cope a lot of intolerances with drugs making it very difficult for me and my shrink to find the proper pills. I have been a mess since I came into puberty and still am. Maybe I'm now on the right path but I have to cope withdraw symptoms from seven years of wrong treatment meaning that I was swallowing antipsychotics to treat my bipolar disorder but they only made sleep 12-15 hours a day and I said nothing. Somehow I thought this is no problem. Then we started the stimulants again and I was able to identify the problem: you can't do nothing when you spent 12-15 hours in bed per day and then I told my psychiatrist. Since then we try to fix the problem but it became kinda complicated and nobody knows what to do. Right now I do have severe sleeping problems and there is nothing I can do against it. My box is full potent benzodiazepines but I would create just another problem. I am totally allergic to everything related to the Histamin-H1-Receptor so here we go. Seven years of consuming highly sedative antipsychotics have a price and then brain adapts slowly. I have to avoid mania at all cost. I use Lithium and Valproat to do that. For anxiety I take Pregabalin but since the antipsychotic withdraw it somehow lost it effect which totally destroys everything related to sleep. This is my mess right now. I know how to turn amphetamine salts into sleeping pills but I do not wanna go back there. Seems to be sick there and nobody knows the rules in this area.
Not sleeping is such a problem. I had this shrink give me Ritalin a while back. I liked it because I lost weight! But, I couldn't sleep. So she prescribed Lunesta. I don't like taking sleeping meds. I hear you--I just can't have another manic attack--the last one could have lost me my job, apt., dog--life. It was awful.
I'm on Depakote. I started taking Wellbutrin for depression. Feel pretty stabilized.
I used to escape through sleep--not saying you did that--sounds like the drugs made you do it. I was on the wrong drugs way back--thorazine, stellazine--that was when I was in high school. I could barely function. Psychopharmacology has come a long way since then, so I hope you and your doctor find the right mix of drugs.
I'm on Valproate (epilim) at the moment, which seems to be partially working but not enough as I still seem to be having swings. I'm an ultradian (ultra ultra rapid cycler) although I am type 2. I tried lithium but I had the same problem with complete exhaustion all the time where I was also sleeping 12-15 hours a day. I managed to go back to study a little part time, but the exhaustion was a huge hindrance, and I ended up having a massive crash anyway after only two months. I was diagnosed with Aspergers when I was 12 but I've only been diagnosed with bipolar this year. I'm still coming to grips with it all, and trying to learn as much about bipolar as I can.
I think bipolar/AS can be different because I think that bipolar episodes can actually exacerbate Aspergers symptoms, such as sensory overload, plus I think they are expressed differently. I think because AS is such logical/non-emotional thinking, the bipolar irrationality is less - like I still get all the urges and thoughts, but this other part of my brain (the Aspergers part) keeps saying that it's illogical and doesn't make sense. Of course, this is all conjecture on my part, I haven't met enough bipolar people yet, but from the ones I do know of I know that my symptom presentation is somewhat different.
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Into the dark...
15 Dec 2011, 10:52 pm
