It's been a lot of trial and error- countless hours of research, days watching videos and lectures, hours and hours of reading, a lot of confusion and some clarity.
My bipolar is different because I'm 80% mania, 10% depression, and 10% mixed moods. The severely manic spectrum isn't usually where people fall. They tend have manic episodes but generally tip the scale more toward the depression side. I don't. I get depressed, terrible bouts of crippling depression when they happen but I mostly stay manic which is strange. I talked about this to a degree in my other post Clean Cup, Clean Cup, Move Down, Move Down!
I realized I was mostly mania right before that post. I didn't have a fucking clue.
With that being said I've fucked up hard core recently.
I have given myself Serotonin Syndrome. I had every symptom and I had them bad.
I haven't been able to get back to my psychologist back in Richmond so I went to a general practitioners office to get my ADHD meds and something to handle my mood swings when my period starts to hit. She asked me about all my meds and I told her I was taking St. John's Wort and she told me to go off of it immediately. But with that and my Lamictal I've been doing so great! I'm not taking that completely out of my regimen, what did she know? She's just a doctor......
She put me on Seraquil XR to help with my lady time mood swings. I researched it to see if St. John's Wort would interact with Seraquil. None of the lists had it on there so I figured I was in the clear.
The fist period I had since given the Seraquil I went off the St. John's Wort just in case- give me time to do my research. I did my research- it wasn't listed as something that interacted with my home herbal remedy. That period went over without any incident. Awesome.
I should have done my research properly.
So much little shit can contribute to an instantaneous decline in mental health. I haven't been right for a while but the worst part is I haven't noticed how bad I have been getting.
That's what scares me. I want a light like the oven has, whenever it's preheating there is a little red light that comes on, when it's done it turns off. I want a little light on my forehead that turns on whenever my chemicals are out of line.
Once again I knew something wasn't right and everything around me was falling apart despite my efforts. I also had the Gluten incident so that threw in another monkey wrench.
I have been losing my shit. Paranoid, full of anxiety, and a burden to those around me. I just thought it was period stuff and the Seroquil had stopped working. I knew things were bad but only at their most extreme. I'm learning all the warning signs and red flags but it's hard when you're on the path to a bout of depression or pure mania to realize it. This is normal for me. I've always thought this way..... I fell back into it. It happens slowly and the parasite latches onto things in my real life- I'm not just making up these emotions out of no where.
I've been having inappropriate emotional responses and I failed to realize it.
Seroquil directly effects my serotonin levels, so does the St. John's Wort. I've over loaded the serotonin in my nervous system. It's caused a lot of behavioral problems, set my bipolar into heavy rapid cycling, and as an added bonus there have been bad physical problems as well. Seroquil even looks like the word serotonin- obviously there's a fucking connection. Why brain? Why do you do this? This shit isn't funny.
St. John's Wort causes mania. Too much Serotonin causes mania. As a beast comprised mostly out of mania- this is a really really bad situation destined for failure and self destruction.
The symptoms that get me the most are confusion, headache, nausea/vomiting, and muscle twitching. I've had all of these and some of them pretty severe. I don't know why I didn't pick up on this. Like I've said before- I knew something was wrong but that was all the information I had. I'm never nauseous- ever. I have amazing balance and I workout a lot, I've never had bouts of nausea or needing to puke out of the blue. I've had the feeling to vomit a lot and I've thrown up twice out of nowhere. I've had mind splitting headaches almost daily. My heart rate monitor was giving me strange readings that weren't normal during my runs and I would be doing nothing and my legs would start to spasm like crazy.
The worst part has been the confusion. I have been terribly confused about everything lately. I've been telling johnny for weeks that I keep getting confused but when I'm telling him I'm already in a cesspool of emotional garbage. How can you discern what's real, what's symptoms of something else, and what's just the bipolar talking? I don't blame him for pushing me away. I was terribly confused about everything and I understand confusion is going to be associated with this dissorder but never like that. I'm never crying or losing my shit and shouting out "I'm confused."
I had been for weeks.
I didn't notice how bad it got until yesterday.
On an off chance I looked into the possible connection between St. John's Wort and the TYPES of medication it effects, not just the list of brands it effects.
Found it. It messes with antidepressants and any medication that effects serotonin levels.
Seroquil was never on any of the medication lists but I should have done my research better. I know better but the trial and error part hurts the most.
NOT TO MENTION THE FACT IT'S CALLED FUCKING SEROQUIL!!!!
I need something to call these moments. Before I use to label that person as Bloody Mary but I'm trying to find healthier ways to go about recognizing this shit as well as giving it it's own name- something that isn't associated with who I am but what is effecting me.
Thank you for reading
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