Passing For Normal

I was diagnosed as bi-polar after the birth of my son. At first they put me on Lithium, but I had the unfortunate side-effect of puking my guts out. They told me to stay on it for a week, it would go away, but after three days I said ENOUGH. They changed me to Depakote. Looking back, I'm not sure it worked. I still had mood swings, but they weren't as dramatic as they had been, so maybe it did something. Unfortunately because I'm on Medicaid there was only one place I could go to for psychiatric help and they had a rotating cadre of doctors. One of them added Paxil to my regimen for anxiety. But when I got a job and started making too much money to qualify for Medicaid, I went off all medication. That was around 2004. I've been off ever since.

I still get mood swings and yes they can be dramatic. But I've noticed that my suicidal thoughts are practically non-exisitant. I attribute that to my kids and to finding fandom. I think finally finding a place where I belong had helped enormously. And I'm okay with my mood swings. I write in both manic and depressive phases, they just effect what kind of things I write.

So all in all, I think I would prefer to stay off meds, I like it that way.