none of the meds that you are on are antipsychotics. There are several: seroquel, abilify, geodon(which I liked alot)

Ok
I am not a doctor again but I waould call yours asap!
It sounds as if YOU DO NEED an antipsychotic cause that is what is happening to you.....been there ...done that....
the anti depressant may be contributing to this mania and I think that needs to be cut back or discontinued entirely.
This is why I think you need to call your pdoc.
It is hard for us to be rational when manic...we need to have somebody else tell us.
Last time I was hospitalized...I was "fine" it was my best friend who told me I was manic....that is the word I needed to hear to make myself stop...other wise I would have just kept spiraling higher and higher. It was the prozac that I was on that did that to me....
ok...
just very very concerned....
bizi

The Celexa did bring on a manic episode when they doubled it back at the beginning of September. That's when they started thinking maybe I'm bipolar, but I had had manic episodes before this and relatively recently too, so that is not the sole cause for them, IMO.

I totally hear you that we need somebody else to tell us. That's exactly what I meant when I told Christopher I went to him because I was in despirate need of "grounding".

He told me today that he has been there before with his exes, he thinks these things are normal in some sense- even the "horror movie hallucinations" which I then explained that they are not a matter of being angry and thinking "I'm so mad at you I just want to stab you", but rather having a movie play of horrible things and not being able to make them stop! He also said he did not want to read "the bipolar handbook" (as I said one post up) because he feels he's read many books on the subject and he is Christian Scientist and prefers to not think in terms of "unwell". I can see where he is coming from because I have been studying a lot of the Christian Scientist literature. HOWEVER, I told him that I am in no way able to deal with this through prayer right now. I'm just not learned enough or lucid enough right now. And when he basically refused the book, I was very hurt because it felt like he didn't want to learn about "where I am". He then took my hand and asked me to tell him and he'd be quiet. So I did. All in all, it wasn't a bad lunch and much talked about. I don't feel nearly like I did yesterday, but I still have not called my psych. dr. As I said, I do not have one really. I know I am seeing someone but I forget whom and our first meeting is not until Wednesday afternoon for 2 1/2 hours. Without this, they would tell me to call my primary dr. for a med change, or maybe tell me to contact psych. ER. I needed that last night I guess, but I was so feeling I was "with it", I didn't even think of it. In fact, I saw a man outside with no shirt on (its cold here) - outside Meijer- and he was acting weird and it was dark and I was sure he was gonna attack me if I went out there (I was going to leave) and so I stayed inside, thinking "He's really insane. Glad I know enough to keep my clothes on!" But still, I did go out there after a couple minutes and figured if he tried anything, I'd just beat him to a pulp. I often think about attacking people for no reason.

Gotta go pick up the kids from school now. Back in a few.

He sent me a text message on my phone a bit ago saying "I just wanted to give you a big hug cuz I love you. (((Jennie)))"

Dear Jennie,

(Please excuse any odd characters that appear in this letter. I have to write in Microsoft Word and then copy and paste onto the forum because my computer shuts down unexpectedly when I write directly in forum or email programs. The transposition causes the odd characters.)

Here is a link to a site that describes the various, “mood stabilizers” used to treat bipolarity. The overall site is the best single resource for bipolar information that I have found on the web. As far as I can see, “anti-psychotic” and “mood stabilizer” are phrases used synonymously to describe this genre of meds. “Depakote” would, therefore, be an anti-psychotic. http://www.psycheducation.org/depres...tabilizers.htm

“Celexa” is an SSRI, (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor). While often a godsend for Unipolar Depressives, these meds can have paradoxical effects on Bipolars and send them into mania or depression. If you are not yet stable, my bet is that the fault lies with the Celexa rather than the Depakote.

At the risk of offending Christian Scientists on the forum, it is difficult for me to see how someone of this persuasion could be helpful to people like ourselves. Christian Scientists believe that, since god is all-good, he wouldn’t create anything that is “bad”. Ergo, if we are mentally ill, it is the fault of our perception rather than of reality. In reality, we are not sick. Essentially, Christian Scientists are zealous Cognitive Behavior Therapists. Through prayer and reading the works of Mary Baker Eddy one trains one’s mind to see reality as it truly exists, rather than in the malformed state that our (sinful?) perception takes in.

If it works for you, great. However, my secular view is that the chemical soup in our brain is out-of-balance, and it requires the addition of other chemicals to regularize it.

After reading your posts, it is obvious that you are still very much in control of yourself. The fact that one thinks about flying off a balcony doesn’t indicate that one is about to do so. You are afraid of the confusing, depressing interpretations of reality that your mind is sending you, and justifiably so. But many of us have been there and are still here.

Make an enumerated list of your concerns and the perceptions that elicited them before you see your shrink on Wednesday. He will probably make a medication change of some kind. However, if he doesn’t know the specifics of your reality, he won’t know specifically what to do.

Your mental health is a work in progress, and that is progress itself. Hang in. Most of us have, eventually, found relief. There is no reason that you should be different.

I would like to include some relationship advice. However, in view of my track record, I will refrain.

Good luck.

He isn't saying not to take meds or judging me for doing so. Its ME who is trying to think of things metaphysically and having a hard time when I get too far from reality.

How are mood stabilizers anti-psychotics? Isn't psychosis being out of touch with reality? That isn't a mood issue.

Dear Jennie,

To be honest, I don't know how these meds work or what would distinguish an anti-psychotic from a mood stabilizer. However, I think that your response contains the answer to your question. If you are profoundly out-of-touch with reality, as in paranoid schizophrenia, the drug with which you are treated would be considered an anti-psychotic. Conversely, if you are less out-of-touch, as in bipolar disorder, you might be treated with the same drug, but it would be considered a "mood stabilizer". RISPERDAL (risperidone) is such a med.

It would seem that the description, "mood stabilizer", was coined to assuage those who are frightened of the word, "psychotic". However, when healthcare professionals want to refer to all the drugs in this family, from Thorazine to Abilify, they call them, "anti-psychotics".

Oh please. The last thing I need is to have to guess what someone means in reading about something that is about me not understand my unpredictable world/reality, sometimes! They should say it like it is. I thought mood stabilizers make it so you don't end up exessively up or excessively down. That seems logical to me. Psychosis is not a matter of JUST being "up".

Dear Jennie,

My experience with people diagnosed as bipolar is that it is not unusual for them to manifest symptoms of an illness that is commonly considered "worse", particularly schizophrenia. These folks are treated with some of the same meds that are used for those diagnosed as schizophrenic. My layman's opinion is that all of the so-called "mood disorders", and schizophrenia, and many other psychoses, are instabilities of the same system, and, ergo, amenable to treatment by the same meds. The mood disorder meds are used principally to treat mania rather than depression. If the mania that an individual is exhibiting becomes so extraordinary that it can be considered megalomania or profoundly dilusional, it can as easily be described as schizophrenia. I don't believe that there is any reason for distinguishing bipolar disorder from psychosis other than degree.