Well, my diagnosis is unspecified bipolar, so it's not technically bipolar, but I've had some experience with clinically recognized elevated moods. My full history of treatment can be read next, but if you just want to see how I'm doing today, you can skip all that and read today's update here, since there doesn't seem to be a group check-in here as of yet. Thanks for reading!

History---
So, I was started truly digging into my problems end of 2016 with therapy. It was recommended that I do see someone who could prescribe meds though because I had gotten to a point of extreme anxiety and depression and couldn't even productively get through a session. So I saw an NP at first. We tried antidepressant and an anti anxiety med for my symptoms. I was doing better and continued therapy. At some point though, I was suggested to try a medicine for ADHD. I remember having poor concentration, and just the way I spoke to my therapist, she had thought ADHD (I was thinking bipolar2). Anyway, so we tried Intuniv. It made me really uncomfortable. I was desperately needing to shake my legs to calm my restlessness to no avail and I had spent the entire night awake with racing thoughts. I was so very tired and yet I couldn't sleep. I was very concerned. I honestly can't remember the details, but I took myself off of that, but I was still very much concerned there was something more to my moods. And I was gathering all of my possible life experiences for my therapist and my NP. The NP saw me in my "manic" state. I mean, I can even recall saying something about how nice she was and very caring in like a super excitable voice like, "oh, you know, you are really nice and cool and stuff!" She gave me the diagnosis of bipolar and we tried Latuda to help with sleep. I liked that, except I had to take it right before bed because it knocked me right out and mostly the problem was the expense. So we tried something else. But around that time, the NP was beginning to think I wasn't suffering from bipolar, I mean maybe yes, but maybe it was something else, like borderline maybe, so she got me an actual pdoc. Meanwhile, I was going through the process of getting ready for a psych evaluation next door. It took them months to finally get me in. And at that point I was diagnosed with G AD, traits of dependant personality disorder, and "unspecified bipolar currently presenting with a depressed episode". Yes, because at that point, I was dropping. Anyway, basically, unspecified bipolar means it's not bipolar but one experiences clinically recognized elevated moods. So I've been back and forth wondering what exactly this means for me and have been posting in both the depression and bipolar forums now. I had gotten off of my mood stabilizer, which was Abilify after the Latuda, end of last Spring, because I wasn't feeling anything really with it, just conti used depression and my depression was being made worse by the weight I was gaining. So I got off that. Have been doing better ever since. Oh, and I subsequently quit both therapy and psychiatry and my GP took over prescribing my AD and Clonazepam (anti anxiety med) But then this year, I had a couple of times, once a month, where my mood would elevate. So I was trying to see if others had experienced similar things as me. I then started to actually feel what I think normal would feel like...

the past few days, my mood had been dropping again...




Today's update---

Today my mood is getting back to my "normal".

So, I observed that it took me 3.5hours with no breaks to go through most of my regular online routine this morning. That's crazy! And that doesn't even include FB or a couple of other forums (although they don't update as much). So, to counter this, I decided to try to stay offline for that same amount of time. Well, I think I did pretty good. Not quite 3.5, but 3 hours is still good. My prior record was 2hrs (while awake and not on vacation), so there's improvement. Still haven't managed to get 3 hours of work in yet though. (cooking doesn't count), um, but I've got a few other things I could still do today...if cooking doesn't take up the rest of my time. geez! it just might!...Well, my self imposed lunch break is about over, so I have to stop writing now.