maybe bipolar, or maybe misdiagnosed...

[Libby]

I'm not much for introductions, but, Hi, I'm Elizabeth...people call me Libby. *waves*

I was diagnosed with bipolar a couple years back by my GP. I had been coming in a lot with problems, sometimes physical, like chest pains and such. At first she told me it was anxiety (after exhausting me with xrays and EKGs and other tests), and sent me home with Xanax. There was also sleeping problems that I was having - sometimes I couldn't sleep for days on end because I was too busy or too high strung, and then other times, weeks later, I would sleep for 16+ hours a day. She started asking the typical questions that GPs ask when trying to diagnose depression or bipolar, and she said I showed classic signs. I have to agree, I do have periods where I'm high strung - I go into a cleaning frenzy, I think and talk too fast, I become obsessed with sex, I don't sleep except 2 hour naps here and there... Then, weeks later I feel like I crash. I don't necessarily feel depressed like I'm worthless or anything, but I lose motivation in every aspect of my life. I sleep constantly, the house becomes messy, the laundry gets really behind and I'm lucky if I meet the deadlines for my school assignments. I also get short tempered and withdrawn to the point that my husband gets upset with me. I guess those aren't the only "symptoms" but those are the ones that come to mind right now.

My problem is, I see many people who have it way worse than I do. When I hear about some of my friends girlfriends or parents who are bipolar, and the violent mood swings, or sometimes delusions that they have...it makes me wonder if I'm even bipolar myself, or if perhaps I only have a mild case, if such exists.

I don't suppose that's the only reason that's brought me here. I guess I could live out the rest of my life not knowing for sure, as long as I can figure out how to balance my life out, bipolar or not. The main reason that brought me to CCS is my awful relationship with my mother. There's not a whole lot of nice things I can say about her, yet I can't seem to be able to distance myself from her, because of guilt, mostly. She's a liar and a manipulator who was and still can be quite abusive. Worst of all, when she's not busy trying to make my life miserable (which is about 50% of the time), she seems to be one of the nicest and most giving people I know - but in the blink of an eye she uses that niceness and selflessness to make others think you take advantage of her...she always has to be the victim. Her latest episode with me left me in shambles. She reduced me to the scum of the earth because I couldn't visit her when I normally do, which is on Tuesdays. The reason for that was, a) my brother, who lives next door to her, borrowed my car 2 weeks ago, and b) my husband works, so I couldn't use his car. It should have been obvious to her that there was no way I could show up at her house at noon, and when I told her I could drive down after 4 when my husband returned from work, her reply was "don't bother." Not only that, but she pointed out that I was breaking a promise, that I was always not showing up when she wanted me to ( a lie), and that I was inconveniencing her. When I pointed out the obvious flaws to her logic, she started screaming at me to the point that I can't even paraphrase without expletives...then for the next 2 days after that, she would call, give me the silent treatment, and then hang up on me. I live in fear of my phone...I can't *not* answer it because then she just calls right back...over and over until I answer, and then it's another guilt trip about me not ever answering my phone. In my logic, it's better just to answer the phone the first time and not have to deal with her surmounting wrath, even if that means having to jump out of the shower with shampoo still in my hair. I'm 25 years old, I'm married, and I feel like she runs my life. I can't say this to her though or it's another explosion with the following week filled with nothing but abusive phone calls. I know that I could simply just...cut ties with her, but she's 56 and lives alone because she's already managed to push everyone away from her. I don't think I could live with myself if I just stopped talking to her completely. But, everything else I've tried to do to get her to "cut the apron strings" hasn't worked at all - it's actually backfired on me. The running joke in my house is that she's the one who needs therapy, not me. I know it's not entirely true, as I know I have my own problems that definitely need to be worked out, but she certainly isn't helping at all. Actually, when I told her that I had scheduled my first appointment for therapy, she blew up over that too, saying that there's nothing wrong with me mentally - then she started listing all my flaws that could be fixed if only I started taking all her advice...that resulted in another mini-argument. *sigh* Ok, I think I'm done for now. Sorry for the bombardment, but it was suggested to me that I start in the forums for now until I get to my first appointment, which unfortunately had to be rescheduled due to some bad timing with some bad luck. I also have a problem pacing myself.

[Jennifer]

Hey
Glad that you posted and hopefully you will keep your appt coming up, please confirm that .

As far as your bipolar disorder going to table that one for a bit because no you cannot have it alittle and it does sound as if your mom is the issue here. Have you ever heard of borderline personality disorder? Look it up and see if your mom fits the diagnosis. I think you will find that it does. That might help you understand some of what and who she is and why she does what she does.

[Libby]

Yeah, that actually sounds a lot like my mom. My aunt was just telling me the other day how mom has started ignoring her ever since she started talking to my uncle again. Mom had 5 siblings (4 now), and she's never seemed to be able to be on talking terms with more than one of them at a time. She also acts like she plays favorites between me and my brother, which can get tiring for both of us because one week my brother is a perfect angel and I'm scum, and then the next week she switches. Is that typical behavior for borderline personality disorder? If so, how do you even begin to cope with that type of behavior?

[Jennifer]

yes, borderlines are love/hate relationships and there is no really good way to deal with them except to protect yourself and understand where the behavior is coming from. remember this is not about helping her deal with you, this is about you dealing with her. you will not be able to cure her but you can get healthy and protect yourself so she does not control your personalty the way she probably has been up to this point.

[Libby]

Wow that was fast!

So, is it possible that all the things that have led my doctors to think that I have anxiety disorder and bipolar is actually caused by my poor relationship with my mom? I know she's hard to deal with, but I'm hesitant to place any blame for my shortcomings on her. That's exactly what she does when she talks about her mother. I'm not exactly sure whether the stories she tells me are true or not, but according to her there was lots of abuse. My aunts and uncles have told me otherwise though...

[Jennifer]

from your first post you state that you know many people that have been diagnosed with bipolor disorder which would lead me to believe that there is some craziness around you.

no, please do not disregard what the doctor's are saying because of the little blurb that i just said. you will get a more indepth look at yourself and figure out what is what. It would be nice for you to break the cycle of your family and come out the healthy one and glad that you are making steps to do that. do you have children?

[Libby]

Ah, no I don't know anyone directly that has bipolar, other than possibly my older brother. He said he was diagnosed with it a few years back too, but he was seeing a psychiatrist, not a GP. He later said he didn't think he was and ended up tossing all his meds away. He's extremely moody and sometimes violent, so I wouldn't be surprised if he really is. That's also how I found out that it's possible for it to run in families. The other people that I know of are just girlfriends and relatives of people I know. I've never met them but I hear about some of the things that go on.

Nah, I wasn't going to disregard my doctor, but I do realize that GPs aren't specialists either. My doc said that I may be able to 'compose' myself better than most people with bipolar because of my history with my mom - I wasn't allowed to show any extremes around her. If I cried, it was either "I should be the one crying" or "keep it up and I'll give you a real reason to cry," and things like that, so I guess the emotional factors are a bit more repressed with me, and I learned how I "should" act at an early age.

I don't have any kids - yet. We've been talking about starting a family soon though...

[Jennifer]

okay, thxs for the clarification. have you been to a specialist to get diagnosed yet? you would want to know for sure before you start a family so you can get your hormones in order. bipolar disorder is when you have a chemical imbalance in your brain and you cannot get your emotions back on track after you are either low or high. People that say they are depressed take a day and be depressed then feel better. People that are bipolor stay that way until their chemical imbalance evens out.

glad to hear that you are taking it all iwith an open mind and learning about you and your family.

[Libby]

Yeah, I guess you could say I've been stalling on seeing a specialist. I'm not a big fan of face to face situations. I usually clam up, which I'd assume isn't very helpful for a therapist. That's probably the reason I started looking to see if there was such a thing as online therapy to begin with.

I've read the descriptions for bipolar and I guess I know a bit about it. From what I've read, if anything, the description for type II fits. The only thing I'd say doesn't really fit is that I don't feel sad, hopeless, etc. I just don't feel like doing anything, even with my hobbies, I sleep way more than I should for weeks/months, I don't eat much so I start losing weight, and I tend to let my hygiene go a bit, when normally I shower/brush teeth every day. I've been told that depression doesn't always come with strong feelings of sadness or hopelessness though and sometimes it's more of a physical thing. My old GP had me on lithium and wellbutrin, and while my husband said he noticed big improvement, I felt kind of "off" while I was on them. My new doctor said I needed to see a specialist though before he could renew my Rx's since I was a new patient. That was about 6 months ago, and I refused to see a therapist at that time, so I tapered myself off of both drugs. Oddly enough, he was ok with renewing my xanax prescription, go figure heh.

[Jennifer]

yeah, go figure, he must have a relationship with the xanax drug rep. There is no one way to describe depression and yes it can come in physical symptoms. i know that you said that you felt "off" when you were on the pills but maybe that is how you are supposed to feel and just never realized it. the things that you described don't sound so good and i'm sure they interfere with your life.

baby steps are okay and online therapy rocks! and it is no less of a form of therapy than face to face in my opinion.

It is hard to maintain your mood without medication if you are bipolor, just food for thought. It might have been a good thing that your doc wouldn't renew the scripts because it pushed you into therapy options.

[Libby]

You must be the queen of multitasking! I swear my email dinged me like 3 minutes after I posted saying that you responded. Anyway, thanks for spending time with me on the forum.

Well, I can say for sure that the xanax definitely helps - especially when I'm spending the day with mom or if she's having one of those days where she has to call every 2 hours and I'm ready to start breaking stuff because of the things she says.

It can get kind of aggravating because I'm either not being productive and responsibilities slip way behind, or my husband gets irritated with me because he wants to go out and do stuff and I'd rather stay at home. Even at home it can be a challenge because he'll try to get me to watch a movie with him, he'll start listing off movies trying to get my approval and my response is mostly "bleh" to just about everything. Last time I was really up in my moods though, I kind of enjoyed it. I didn't sleep much (I might have slept 5 or 6 hours once every 2 days) but I was keeping the house super clean and I was coming up with new artwork just about every other day. I don't think I've done any artwork outside of class assignments since then, which was quite a few months ago.

[Jennifer]

just happen to be by the computer today, mood swings are okay we all get them, but if they interfer with your daily functioning is when you can get into trouble.

xanax is great but is also can be habit forming meaning, okay going to mom's need the xanax, it is wonderful and i'm not saying to stop it just giving you an example of how it works.

art is great, have you tried anything else since then? what else do you do to relax?

[Libby]

I'm pretty careful with xanax, I think. I've had it for over a year and on average I take it 2-3 times a week. Sometimes I'll get a lucky streak and I don't need it for a while, but that doesn't happen very often. =/

I'm in school for video game art and design, and I've been sketching/painting for probably 10 years or more. Sometimes my stuff sells, but not often. Mostly I do portrait sketches since I get requests from time to time. Other than that, I play computer and console games, and I'm really into astronomy. I have a telescope and I like reading about space science and physics. I haven't pulled out the telescope in some time now...I got tired of getting strange looks from the other people in my apartment complex lol.

I'm not sure if the mood swings are impairing or not, since I don't really have much going on that can be impaired, aside from maybe school. I can pretty much stay at home 24/7 if I want, so in that regard my life can pretty much flex to fit my moods. I don't have much of a social life since most of my friends are hours away. I have trouble staying in touch with them most of the time, or I'll just straight up ignore their phone calls because I go through periods where I don't feel like talking to them. There's a few that have stopped trying altogether I think, but I have one or two that are stubborn enough not to let me ignore them for too long.

[Jennifer]

how about your relationship with your husband?

[Libby]

I'd say our relationship is a very good one. He's been in my life since I was 14, and we were high school sweethearts, so he knows me quite well, and we're not quick to throw that history away like some couples are. He's very understanding, especially when it comes to when I'm having a hard time with my mother. He was there when I was diagnosed with bipolar, so I think he takes that into consideration too, and he actually wasn't all that surprised either. Before that though, we'd get in a lot of arguments because I'd try to be left alone and he'd constantly bother me...at least that was my perception, so I'd become short tempered with him. Nowadays though I try to avoid taking things out on him. He's very patient and unusually sensitive for a guy, so I feel really guilty when something I've said or done has hurt his feelings, because I know it must have been really bad if it got a reaction out of him.