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Re: Cyclothymia??? I don't know » Thripity

Posted by Ripley Snell on June 16, 2006, at 17:02:16

In reply to Cyclothymia??? I don't know, posted by Thripity on June 16, 2006, at 1:31:21

>I just recently was diagnosed with Cyclothymia.

*Welcome to the Bipolar II community! (The drawing of the line between the two syndromes is a semantic exercise.)

>mine only usually lasts a day or so for each the depression and hypomanic aspect.

*Cycling is extremely variable in rate, frequency, and duration. Jim Phelps at psycheducation.org has re-published a wonderful, graphic representation of three qualities--let's see if I remember them--mood, drive, and energy. It's quite elucidating to see this graph, because a measurement of those three qualities seems to be able to -- in me, anyway -- get better insight into my illness.

> Also, the aspect about being more creative is only somewhat true for me.

*This is unproven. The creativity thing is for Bipolar I, primarily, and is anyone counting all the incredibly creative people who are NOT Bipolar?

>When I am hypomanic, I have tons and tons of ideas but no focus to sit down and work on anything.

*This is why the medicines for ADD are *excellent* when you're hypomanic. Many pdocs would scream and jump up and down at the idea of giving a stimulant to someone hypomanic. But in me, as in others, it works really well to *focus* the energy and put it to work. I have found that taking a small dose of Seroquel with the stimulant prevents adverse effects--rage attacks, irritability, etc. This idea is very, very new, but if you can find an empowering pdoc you might discover a real benefit to the cycles!

>When I'm depressed, I simply don't feel up to working on music, and if I do work on something, I immediately decide that it sucks.

*Yep. And the ADD meds are much less useful here--I find that I just spend twelve hours fantasizing about how bad I feel and what a numbskull I am.

> Another thing is that when I'm really depressed, like at the lowest point in my depression (which only lasts about a night usually) my arm starts to shake, and there are voices in my head that make it hard to hear what people around me are saying to me...but I can't usually make out most of what the voices are saying..it's just a big bunch of noise.

*Some pdocs say that these sorts of pseudo-psychoses come with Bipolar II (I've never heard them described with cyclothymia). Yet another reason to add in one of the new antipsychotics to the mix.

> I don't know if I actually have Cyclothymia or something else. Does anyone else have similar symptoms to these??

I hope I've established that I do, though my "diagnosis" is BP II. I've got some symptoms you don't--my rage attacks are usually accompanied by mild delusions. ("This waiter is *out to get me* so unless I make a huge fuss he'll go on abusing me and others like me!") This aspect endears me to my friends. :-) You didn't go into your hypomania much more, but watch it. It can just slip under your radar as a "good mood." Two nights ago I was in a really good bookstore for the first time in a while. I got into one of my good moods, and, telling myself I wouldn't be near this particular store again for many months, woke up the next morning with five hundred dollars worth of books in my house. Fortunately, I could return them--but my point is my judgment deserted me and at the time my reckless spending behavior seemed totally rational.

Please check out alt.support.depression.manic and alt.support.depression.manic.moderated.


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poster:Ripley Snell thread:657495
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060610/msgs/657714.html