A risk worth taking; a list worth making

Back when I was first diagnosed my dad had what turned out to be a genius idea: to journal about my illness. Every day he wanted me to write down four things: the date, how I was feeling, what meds I took that day, and any side effects I was experiencing. He was determined to figure out what the heck was happening to his little girl, and this little idea was one of the only things he could get me to do which in the end would help in more ways than we knew when I started. After my most recent hospitalization (which was right after we found out I was pregnant with our second child) I had a very hard time bouncing back. It is true that I respond very well to Lithium, but at the time I was adamant about not going back onto Lithium until I was past the first trimester because of the risk of Ebstein's anomaly. In reality, my risk was only about 6% if I had used the Lithium during the first trimester, but I refused. And I am very stubborn. And determined. And I got my way.

But looking back I wish I would have just used the medication which I so desperately need flowing through my bloodstream each and every day. Lithium to me is like insulin is to a diabetic. I know this now.

So instead of using Lithium during the first trimester, my psychiatrist agreed to use Haldol to treat my mania. It is the drug that they inject into my backside when I am hospitalized because I reject all oral medications when I am manic. Lucky me. They would have to use three people to hold me down while the fourth administered the drug. It would start working within fifteen minutes - by that point I'd have been walked back to my room and tucked into bed to sleep and let it work its magic. Once I was discharged from the hospital, I had my oral prescription for Haldol filled and continued on it for a few weeks.

Those weeks were such a huge struggle for me. Mentally I felt as though I could not put my thoughts together in sentences. Simply speaking a basic sentence was so incredibly difficult. I barely went out in public for three weeks because I was so afraid of not being able to hold a basic conversation.

I also had a very hard time writing. I found it hard to journal then, mainly because it was so hard to think let alone use a pen to write down those thoughts on paper. My family blog which was normally filled with descriptive paragraphs of what I had been doing with our son each day, were now filled with just little video clips and some pictures here and there. I felt paralyzed to an extent. It was almost as if I could feel the neurons straining so fiercely to fire off some kind of signal. But the neurons were back-firing. Badly.

The chemicals in my brain were so completely off and I wanted more than anything else to just turn them back on.

My dad had another brilliant idea during this difficult time. He told me one morning when we were talking, to make a list of 10 things I wanted to accomplish that day. They could be as simple as unload the dishwasher, make the bed, fold the laundry, or bake cookies with my little man. This way, I could look back on my day and see all the things I was able to get done. This simple method of goal-setting worked like a charm for me.

I still use this tactic to this day. I love to sit down in the morning and jot down the things that I want to accomplish that day. The weeks that I do it, I feel like I get so much more done around the house. For my family and myself. It's such a great thing to build into your daily routine.

Around week 10 of my pregnancy, fed up from the daily struggle with my malfunctioning brain, I decided to do something about it. I distinctly remember the day I called my high-risk OB-GYN to ask him if I could just go back on the Lithium right then, instead of waiting until the end of week 13. I was pretty much in tears on the phone and he said that I needed to do what was right for me. And that it seemed like I needed it. It being the Lithium. I said yes, and felt an enormous weight lifted off my shoulders when I hung up the phone.

After about a week back on Lithium I began feeling like myself again.

It was a well-calculated risk and one that I was glad that I took. Having to choose between taking a medication while pregnant or struggling with a mental illness that causes you physical stress and trauma is one that I wish no woman would have to make. But sometimes we have to make hard decisions. I was very scared and felt an enormous amount of guilt for having to subject my unborn child to a potentially harmful substance while she was growing inside of me, but if I had to do it over I would do exactly the same thing.

I'm forever grateful that she was born healthy and today is a thriving toddler who pushes the limits every single day. And I'm thankful that I have such a supportive husband and parents who were right there with me every step of the way encouraging me to make the best decision for me at that moment.

Opening doors

Life has been very busy lately. The last time I posted was three months ago, although I've thought many times over the past three months about logging in and typing up a new post. The holidays came, I got wrapped up in everything, then we traveled south to visit my family and I just haven't set the time aside to blog. Shame on me. Definitely feeling guilty about it. This whole project is overwhelming sometimes when I think about my end goal: to publish a book which will be a resource to other women who live with bipolar disorder but also want children. However, when I step back and try to see it as smaller pieces, baby steps towards the bigger picture, I can jump back in. I have to remind myself that over the past few months I have taken some small steps towards moving things along, even if I haven't made any further progress on the actual page count of the draft.

I recently stumbled upon the blog of an inspiring person: meet Ashley of Lil Blue Boo. I was immediately captivated by her life story so far, her writing, her sense of humor, and most importantly, her outlook on life. Her "about me" section mentioned that she loved reading memoirs, of famous people and not famous people. So after writing and deleting four or five versions of an email, I finally just went for it and emailed her asking if she'd be open to reading what I have written so far. She wrote back within 10 minutes. I was shocked. And giddy. She said she would love to, and she'd be honored. Wow. That was so cool.

The most incredible thing about her is that she is has so many things going on in her life right now. She's in the midst of a fierce battle with cancer. She runs a super cool sewing/crafting company. And she has her own family to enjoy and take care of. But she offered to read something I wrote. I feel a little guilty about asking her to read it during the whirlwind of what is going on in her life, but I can only hope that it is a tiny little escape for her as she reads the 57 pages I sent.

I just read a post on a blog that a close friend of hers writes about how they are holding an auction to benefit her medical expenses next month. I immediately emailed the fundraising chair after I finished reading to see how I could contribute in some way. I know this will be huge, and I am excited to be a part of it. It is unreal what people can do when they put their minds to it, even if it is all online and they don't get a chance to actually meet in person. The magic of the internet amazes me sometimes. Doors open.

My daughter just turned 13 months. A few weeks ago I noticed she had this fascination with closing doors. She's a short little thing, so of course she cannot reach the door handle to open it back up once it's closed. But she doesn't seem to mind. She just walks over to the next door, with a big smile on her face, and closes it, giggling. Makes me smile every time. But in the back of my mind I couldn't help but think about how it reminded me of the last time I was in the hospital - right after I found out I was pregnant with her.

I was only 5 weeks pregnant when I suffered a manic episode brought on (as it had been the three previous times) by lack of sleep due to my excitement over finding out that we had become pregnant finally with baby #2. I remember bits and pieces from my hospital stay. One thing that I remember vividly though is opening and closing doors as I wandered around the ward in my psychotic state. I think I became even more and more confused each time I opened another one, trying desperately to figure out where I was and what the hell was going on. Until the meds finally kicked in, I was left to let the mania run its course. And man, did it. Luckily for me, the doctors all tell me that I "respond beautifully" to medication. Not that I think having to be on medication is beautiful. But whatever. I'm just glad that it brought me back to reality, and that miraculously my daughter was born healthy.

This is what it is like living with a mental illness. Yes, I manage it well and have become a model patient in that I take my meds and go see my psychiatrist and therapist at regular intervals. But I will always live with the flashbacks from my episodes and they sometimes emerge from current events in my life which are unrelated at the surface level. I guess they are just God's way of reminding me to stay on track since I am in charge of my own mental health. I've decided to adopt Ashley's mantra of "Choose Joy". She's one in a lifetime. And I am so grateful to have been impacted by her story.

Mommyhood has been good to me

The year after I was diagnosed, I found a support group for those suffering from Bipolar Disorder and I joined. I started attending meetings weekly and got to know some of the group members. Each week there were regulars and newbies. I found the group meetings helpful in my recovery process and my journey to accept this illness that I will be dealing with for the rest of my life. We would basically just go around the circle and each person would take a few minutes to talk about how their week was, how they were feeling, and then the group would offer suggestions on any issues they were struggling with. We weren't supposed to talk about meds, but of course everyone had opinions on them so that often came up. It was before we had started thinking about having kids. I was just trying to figure out what was going on with me and how I could best handle my severe anxiety and depression now that I was out of the state of mania that caused my hospitalizations. The last thing I was ready to think about was throwing kids in the mix, sometimes I felt like I could barely take care of myself. How would I ever be able to handle one baby, let alone the two I had always dreamed of. Yet I still knew it was something I wanted for us, and my husband had said he was ready to try whenever I felt that I was. He was (and is) always so patient about things.

If there is one thing I remember looking back on those meetings, it is this one woman. I can recall her so vividly, and find myself thinking of her from time to time, even though it's been years since I've attended one of those meetings. She was very petite and seemed so frail, often shaking as she spoke during her time to talk at the meeting. She had two kids and if I remember correctly they were about 6 and 9 or something along those ages - a boy and a girl. And she was married too, it seemed her husband was pretty supportive and caring. But it made me so sad to listen to her talk. She was on such a potent cocktail of meds and yet, she was still struggling so much with her anxiety and depression. She often spoke of how she could barely get out of bed in the morning to fix her kids breakfast and get them off to school. I found myself wondering if that would be what it would be like to be a mom who had bipolar disorder and two kids.

I am so lucky. Her situation is the complete opposite of my life as a mom.

Sometimes when I put the kids to bed at night I'll wish it was morning already so I could get them up to play again. Usually as they are walking up the steps to head up for bathtime, I think about how much I love being their Mommy. It's the best job I could have ever asked for and I never want it to end. Today I found joy in the midst of changing a poopy diaper which had leaked. I had my 10-month old daughter all clean and as I propped her up, naked on the bottom half, so that I could wrap up the dirty diaper, she peed all over the hardwood floor while holding onto the baby gate. I couldn't help but crack up laughing. It's the little things. I should have taken a picture, but I was too busy laughing and cleaning up the mess.

I hope that my friend from the support group has been able to find a good doctor who found the best combination of meds and therapy for her to improve her situation. Because really, that is what it comes down to when you are living with bipolar disorder. A good doctor, the right meds, regular therapy and a solid support network.

Mental Health Awareness Week

This week is Mental Health Awareness Week. Back in 1990, Congress established the first week of October as such, given NAMI's efforts at raising awareness for mental health issues. I didn't even know until tonight when I was googling mental health ideas in order to come up with something to write about tonight in this post. I guess that speaks a bit to how "aware" the public is about mental health in our society. I read an article recently in the Washington Post about how the mental health of many Americans has been dwindling due to job loss which leads to extended unemployment and feelings of despair and helplessness. I have definitely been there myself in the past. As I read the article, I found myself checking things off that I agreed with - there were so many. How when you first are laid off, you are so sad. Then you feel a sense of excitement as you eagerly start your job search. Then as the weeks and months go on, you start to feel depleted and discouraged. I can totally see how it could lead to severe depression. The article went on to talk about how, even when these people realize that they are in need of mental health services, they no longer have health insurance so they are not able to get the help they desperately need.

I hope that our government can get it together and provide these services to our citizens in need while they are in the midst of trying to find employment during this challenging economic time. I pray that these individuals have a strong support network through family and friends, to help them through this difficult time. And I hope that the holiday season and the new year brings new jobs to those in need.

Edited to add: My husband just asked me to look at the Facebook page of a friend of his (an acquaintance) from high school. She had apparently posted some weird status updates lately and he thought it looked like she might need help. He and I have been so immersed in my mental health issues for the past six years that when something like this comes up, it throws up red flags to both of us immediately. I was almost in tears reading her words. It seems to me she is suffering and is trying desperately to reach out for help from anyone. I begged him to call a few of his friends to see if anyone knew someone who could help her. He's still working on it. I hope that somehow he'll be able to reach someone who knows her and can step in before something tragic happens. Life is worth living and I pray that she'll be able to see that.

He was able to reach one person who knows her, and that person is having lunch with another person who knows her. He asked her to call that person to explain what we've read on Facebook to see if they can help. He's also going to send her a message to ask if there is anything he can do to help. It's the least we can do.

Does my parenting style affect my child's mental health?

I recently read a short article online about how a parent's style of child rearing could affect the mental health of their child. Just the title of the article itself caught my immediate attention and I quickly skimmed over it. The point of the article was that researchers say by matching your parenting style to your child's personality, you can greatly reduce the child's risk of anxiety and depression. I got something else out of it all together. The first thing I thought of was how I tend to erupt sometimes when I get upset about something and the kids witness my anger. I always wish I could erase those moments. Always. I never want them to have to see me mad. I just have a terrible method of coping with my emotions. I have an especially difficult time managing my aggression if I am running on less than 6 or 7 hours of sleep. Something I need to work on. I am working on it.

I never ever take my anger or frustrations out on the kids in any physical way. It's just the tone of voice I use that I am sure is scary to them. For example, a few days ago my son and I were in the bathroom like we are every morning right after he wakes up. I leaned over to help him take his diaper off to use the potty (we're taking baby steps towards potty-training), and my cell phone slipped out of my sweatshirt pocket onto the floor into what appeared to be a puddle of water. I immediately blurted out some choice words in an angry tone, was about to grab a towel to wipe up what I thought was a pool of leftover bath water from last night's bath, when I come to find out that my phone had landed not in water, but a big puddle of liquid baby soap. Keyboard side down. UGH. More angry outbursts. Then I stopped myself.

I recognized that my tone was not appropriate for my son's ears. I realized that I didn't want him to see me mad like that. I explained to him what happened and why I had become upset. Then I tried to salvage my phone before we picked up his sister from her crib and went downstairs to the kitchen for breakfast.

So while I'm glad the title of this article made me think about how I need to control any angry outburst that might come over me in daily life, I think the information the study was able to reveal was even more enlightening. My 3-year old is so happy, inquisitive, energetic, and smart that I'm going to work on allowing those qualities to show through my parenting in order to hopefully give him a stable mental health starting point. There are so many smiles, giggles, hugs, kisses, songs and dances that I love to share with my kids. I'm going to continue to focus on staying positive, supportive, and loving in order to nurture my growing kiddos.

Our liquid baby soap has since been transferred into a pump dispenser so as to avoid another near cell phone drowning.

Getting back on track

I'm feeling extremely guilty for not having blogged in three weeks. When I initially started this blog, it was my goal to write a post a day and that has definitely not happened. Life happens, and unfortunately for me, sometimes gets in the way of my goals and ambitions. After I started the blog, I had a long weekend with my high school girlfriends, a trip with my kids to visit my parents while the hubby was on a business trip, then came home and got packed up for my trip to California with my husband for a cousin's wedding. Then our little man turned 3 and we threw him a birthday party with friends and family. So yeah, we had a lot of stuff going on that made it difficult to keep up with my lofty goal for this blog. But hey, I'm back at it now, so I have to at least give myself credit for getting back on track.

I've noticed recently that I am the type of person who gets started on an involved, long-term project, gets really excited about it and dives in with exuberance, only to find that my dedication dies down slowly over time until I'm no longer working on the project at all and have instead moved on to the next big idea. Kind of frustrating to say the least. I feel like I have lots of big ideas in my head which I've only just begun to scratch the surface of their potential. Part of the problem stems from my bipolar disorder, and the fact that when I become hypomanic I tend to feel like I can conquer the world so that is usually when I start something new and as the hypomania dies down, my interest in the project tends to decline as my mood winds down. But another big piece of it is the kids and the time and energy that they both require on a daily basis.

Don't get me wrong - I absolutely love spending time with them and doing things like reading to them or taking them on walks to the playground. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't sometimes wish for just four straight hours to dedicate to a project or a hobby like writing or sewing. Luckily for me, my wonderful husband sometimes will take the kids on a Saturday morning to give me some "Mommy free time" which is awesome. We'll tend to do that for each other - since it's football season he enjoys having time on Sundays to watch the games, so when he takes the kiddos on Saturday, I'll get them out of his hair on Sundays. It's our way of pampering each other I guess.

I definitely want to get back on track - with my writing and with my exercise regimen too. My 5k is coming up in less than two weeks (13 days to be exact!) so I'm aiming to get as many workouts under my belt as I can before the race. And if I'm not able to keep up with a post a day, I'll at least try for 3-4 a week. So my attempt to solve my "dwindling dedication to long-term project" syndrome is to modify my goals. Good place to start I guess.

Do you ever feel like your bipolar disorder causes you to lose focus? If so, how to you cope?

Can friends double as therapists?

I find myself wondering why my condition is so difficult for people to talk about. I am someone who wears my emotions on my sleeve, and when I feel a need to talk about what I'm thinking or what I've gone through in the past regarding my bipolar diagnosis, it's sad to me that I usually feel completely alone. My husband is of course always here and will listen whenever I need a shoulder to cry on. And I do feel as though my support system is strong. But sometimes I wish that more of my girlfriends would show an interest in what I have been living with these past six years. It almost feels like a dirty little secret. Except it's not dirty, and it's not even much of a secret anymore. I guess that people are just uncomfortable discussing mental illness. And that makes me sad. What got me started thinking about it was my drive home this weekend. My high school girlfriends and I had planned a girls' weekend to catch up and unwind without the stress of having to chase around toddlers, change diapers, and do naps, baths and bedtimes. (Our husbands graciously all agreed to our request for some R&R and amazingly we were able to find a weekend that worked for everyone.) Except the weather decided not to cooperate and instead of the beach for four days of sun, sand and cocktails, we were forced to choose a different location. One of the girls had just sold her house, and she was in the process of moving out so we gathered some air mattresses and crashed there for three days while Hurricane Irene wrecked havoc all up and down the East Coast. Luckily for us it was not much more than a bad thunderstorm with heavy winds by the time it got to our area.

I guess a part of me was hoping that at some point over the weekend I'd get a chance to talk with everyone about my hospitalizations, my recoveries, and my hope that I can somehow change the public's perception of bipolar disorder and postpartum psychosis by telling my story and the lessons I've learned. But our conversations seemed to revolve more around our kids, work, and family life in general. Don't get me wrong, I had so much fun getting to catch up and spend time with some of my friends who I have known for the longest time. The memories we made this weekend were priceless. I should probably get back to seeing my therapist regularly again instead of trying to turn one of my friends into my own personal Carl Jung. It's on my to-do list for tomorrow morning.

Postpartum psychosis - how it happened to me (Part I)

I was online this afternoon and came across a story in our local online newspaper about a woman who had experienced postpartum psychosis after the birth of her second child. She stopped her car in the middle of DC afternoon rush hour traffic, took off all her clothes, and was running along the shoulder of the road towards a bridge over the Potomac River. She was convinced that she needed to be baptized in the water because the world was ending. The details of her story are eerily familiar to me. I feel for her that she had to go through something as embarrassing as stripping down naked in public. Could you imagine?

But at the same time I am so incredibly proud of her for standing up and telling her story - publicly. She is a brave woman and I truly respect her. She is not afraid of speaking out about this rare disorder that affects only one to two women out of 1,000. It doesn't sound like many at all, but when you do the math, that computes out to 4,100 to 8,200 women in a year based on the average number of annual births.

I think it's about time that PPP gets a voice. There is so much information out there about postpartum depression, but if you ask anyone if they know anything about postpartum psychosis, I would venture to bet that they'd bring up Andrea Yates, the Texas mother who killed her five young children by drowning them in the bathtub in June of 2001. But only five percent of women with postpartum psychosis commit suicide and only four percent commit infanticide.

Those numbers could be so much lower, if the general public were aware of the signs and symptoms of postpartum psychosis so that they could intervene before a tragedy could occur. When a woman finds out she is pregnant and begins reading the various pregnancy books out there, there is always a chapter on postpartum depression. I wish those authors would cover the other side of the spectrum too. There are lives at stake.

It happened to me after the birth of our first child in September of 2008. He was a healthy 6 pounds, 12 ounces, delivered via emergency C-section. (He wasn't tolerating the contractions since his heart rate was taking a nosedive with each one, and I wasn't dialating past 5 inches, so the decision was made and at that point I was so exhausted I just couldn't wait for him to be out.) I was absolutely determined to breastfeed him, yet had no clue what I was doing. I just felt all of this outside pressure to make breastfeeding work - all of my friends had breastfeed their children, the books and magazines you read all say that "breast is best" and of course all the literature at the doctor's office was the same. Even the formula company's marketing materials pushed breastfeeding. So of course I put a ton of pressure on myself to make it work. It made those first few days and weeks with baby boy so grueling, draining, and sad. Due to the C-section, and the added stress I was putting on myself to be successful at nursing, my milk took almost a full week to come in. I was breaking out in hives up and down my legs every night because I was so stressed out. Instead of enjoy my baby, I was feeling like I was failing as a mother because I couldn't feed him. The pediatrician had us start supplementing with formula at his 2-day check-up because he had lost too much weight. I was barely sleeping at all. That is how the mania started to spiral me into psychosis.

The days and nights started to mush together as I started to live life in 2-hour increments. The baby would nurse for 45-minutes, then we'd do a diaper change, then he'd nap, but in the hour that he napped I felt as though I had a million things to do so I never napped myself. And it wasn't as if I didn't have help with me. My parents stayed for a week after the baby was born and my husband was off from work for two weeks. So I did have times when I could hand over the baby, but yet, things still had to get done.

It was about seven days after he was born that I remember breaking down in tears in front of my mom with the phone in my hand, outstretched to her, pleading, "Please call my OB and ask her what med I can take that will help me sleep! I can't sleep!"  My mom called and they said I could use Tylenol PM while nursing, and so I did that afternoon and slept four hours straight, the longest stretch of sleep I had gotten since having the baby. The next day my mom changed her flight so that she could stay a few extra days to help out.

I remember feeling as though my mind was starting to race uncontrollably at times during those first four weeks after my son's birth, but somehow I was able to hide it from my husband and my parents. I wanted to be able to breastfeed my son and I knew I couldn't do that while taking medication. So I continued to fight the racing thoughts, but they quickly caught up with me in a big way.

We had our son baptized when he was four weeks and two days old. My parents flew back into town for the ceremony, and stayed with us for that weekend. I drove them and my brother and sister-in-law to the airport on Monday morning. On Tuesday morning I had become manic to the point of psychotic, and had to be hospitalized because I refused to take medication.

I spent a week in a psychiatric facility where the doctors stabilized me using a combination of anti-psychotics, sleep medications, and the mood-stabilizer Lithium. I could not believe that I had missed out on my son's fifth week of life. Completely.

The insomnia was the first and most prominent symptom for me. The delusions and hallucinations are a close second. I refused to eat at times. Each and every sound I hear is amplified one hundred percent. These are the symptoms that I experienced every time I had been hospitalized. Which up until that point had been twice.

The common theme that I experience when I become manic to the point of psychotic is the feeling that the world is ending. Let me tell you - it has got to be the scariest feeling in the world when you are absolutely convinced that it is happening. The time I lost touch with reality after our son was born, I remember that I had been sleeping upstairs since my husband said he would take care of the baby so that I could get some rest. I woke up at some point in the middle of the night and went downstairs to find him asleep on the couch, the gas fireplace blazing, with our son snoozing peacefully on his chest. For a split-second I thought about grabbing my camera to take a picture, but I had no idea where it was or else it seemed like too much of an effort to find it, so I didn't bother. I just woke my husband up and we went upstairs to bed, putting the baby down in the bassinet by our bedside.

A few hours later I couldn't sleep because I kept thinking I heard the baby crying. But he wasn't. My husband kept telling me to go back to sleep. But I couldn't. When he woke up an hour or so later to get ready for work, he knew right away that I wasn't right and he needed to call for help.

(To be continued...)

I hope I never see depression again

As I surf other bipolar and depression blogs and read about other people's experiences with these illnesses, I am often reminded of the year I spent clinically depressed after I received my formal diagnosis of Bipolar I. I was forced to resign from a job which I was a breakout success, and I felt as though I had lost my identity. I felt like a failure. My life was a mess and I was so incredibly sad. I am pretty sure that I cried at least once a day for the entire year of 2006. That sadness, combined with the crippling anxiety I felt, made me feel like things would never get better. Luckily they did. Thanks to the devotion of my husband and family and friends, who all helped me to pick myself up, dry the tears, and regroup.

Once I was able to get my meds on the right track, it was just a matter of trying to change my thinking. I needed to think of what happened to me as a chance to have a fresh start. And that is what I did.

But that doesn't mean that I have forgotten what it feels like to be depressed.

I remember what it felt like to want to lie in bed all day. I remember how it felt to mope around all the time. It took such a tremendous effort to just take a shower, do my hair and makeup and put on a decent outfit. And even when I did that, I usually didn't feel all that different afterwards.

I don't ever - EVER - want to feel that way again. I want to be there for my kids and my husband. Every single day.

A friend of mine who I used to work with recently lost her husband to suicide. It makes me so sad to think that someone took their own life. Mainly because I know that it could have been prevented. But also because I remember that I myself actually had suicidal thoughts back when I was taking Prozac. I was lucky enough to have a support system around me and when I mentioned to my husband and my parents that I didn't feel like life was worth living anymore, they helped me to get the help I needed to work through it. I owe them my life. If it were not for their care, concern, and actions, my suicidal thoughts may have strengthened and I might have acted on them.

Depression on the outside seems like such a simple feeling to overcome, but when you are actually experiencing it yourself you realize that it is a lot more intricate and overwhelming than it may appear. It is my hope that anyone who reads this and then comes in contact with someone in their life who they suspect is suffering from depression, they will help that person to find the help they need to get well. There is hope.

My support system

I've mentioned already in previous posts that my husband, parents, brother and wife,  in-laws and my sister-in-law are all incredibly supportive and loving when it comes to helping me manage my bipolar disorder. They are the people I consider to be on the front lines of my support system. The inner circle. But there is an additional outside ring to my support system circle. I guess you could call it my secondary support system. But it doesn't mean that it is any less important than the inner circle. I consider them to be almost equal.

I had a call tonight from an old family friend. He's actually one of my dad's best friends from college and he and his wife live fairly close to where I am. He calls and checks in on me from time to time and I feel lucky to have him. He's in my support system because he knows about my condition and he almost always asks how I'm feeling at some point in our conversations. And I know that if I ever needed help, I could call on him and he would be there. Along with his wife and their kids who I am also close with.

It's so important to have a strong support system in place, especially when you are dealing with a disease like Bipolar Disorder. Having people who know you inside and out, and who aren't afraid to ask you, "How have you been feeling? and, "Are you taking your meds?" can seem so simple, yet can mean the difference between life or death for some people.

I have five girlfriends who know my history and I can always talk with them about my struggles. They mean the world to me. They call me out if they notice something is off about my mood. I know that I am very lucky.

Two of these girlfriends even came to visit me in the hospital after I had my son and was hospitalized when he was just five weeks old. They came to a psych ward. The crazy house. They saw me at one of my lowest lows, and yet, they do not think any less of me. I sometimes think that I don't thank them often enough for their support. I need to work on that.

Be thankful for those people in your life who support you no matter what. Remember that they were there at your low points, and they helped pick you back up. This way you can repay the favor when you notice they could use a little support. Because the road goes both ways.

A "deficiency" or mental illness?

I was discussing my blog with my father over the weekend because I was still torn over the issue of whether or not to disclose my true identity in my writing. He and I both agree on the point that there is an incredible amount of stigma still attached to the label of bipolar in our society, and then he said something that really made me think. He told me that he doesn't consider me to have a mental illness, per say, he feels that I simply have a "deficiency in my brain chemistry" which causes me to become psychologically impaired during times when I am unmedicated. Humph. Good point Dad. Especially because all three of my hospitalizations prior to the first where we had no clue that I was Bipolar, happened when I was not on my medications.

But are you saying this simply so that you do not have to be constantly reminded that your child has a psychiatric condition? I guess "deficiency" just makes it feel better.

I mean, I see your reasoning. And it does make sense. It is true that I really only require a small amount of Lithium to function at a completely normal level. So, as long as I take my meds (which I do religiously - my past has taught me some very valuable lessons, let me tell you) I'm normal. Balanced. Sane.

Not mentally ill.

History has proven for me that within a week of going off my medication, I'm spinning out of control and am clinically psychotic. It takes a couple of weeks on anti-psychotics to bring me back to the middle.

So yeah, I guess you could say that my brain is deficient. It's so weird to me that all it takes to keep me normal is a small amount of a naturally occurring salt. When I looked up Lithium Carbonate on Wikipedia, I wasn't surprised to read this:

Upon ingestion, lithium becomes widely distributed in the central nervous system and interacts with a number of neurotransmitters and receptors, decreasing norepinephrine release and increasing serotonin synthesis.

After my most recent hospitalization, I was released to the care of my regular psychiatrist who had been helping me try to stay off Lithium during the pregnancy since I wanted to be medication-free for the first trimester to give the heart time to form without being exposed to Lithium. At my first appointment with her post-hospital, she and I agreed to continue using the anti-psychotic, but to try to stay away from the Lithium as long as possible. That next month was really hard. I literally had trouble putting words together to form sentences. I couldn't talk right. I jumbled my speech. I couldn't write with a pen and paper. I avoided my friends because I didn't want them to see me that way. I remember telling my psychiatrist, months later once I was stabilized again on Lithium, that at the time it felt like the neurons in my brain were broken, they weren't firing the way they should have been so that I could think and make sense of things. It was awful. I needed Lithium in my blood.

I specifically remember the morning that I called my high-risk OB-GYN to tell him I had recently come home from a hospitalization. I told him I wanted to stay off the Lithium for the first trimester, but he said it sounded like I needed it. That was when I made the decision to go back on it. It was a good decision. The benefits outweighed the risks.

But back to my original topic - deficiency or mental illness? I don't know. I'm still torn on this. Bipolar Disorder is a mental illness which people live with their entire lives. Just like heart disease, once diagnosed, is a condition that a person lives with the rest of their life. Sure, there is a deficiency in my brain chemistry that when treated allows me to function at a normal level. But that doesn't mean that I don't live with this diagnosis for the rest of my life. I still think about it about twenty times a day, on an average day. And if I don't take my meds, or they suddenly stop working for me, then yes, I will become mentally ill.

It's just that 99.8% of my life has been spent not feeling mentally ill. And I'd like it to stay that way.

What's your take?

Moving on anonymously - for now

My mom brought up a good point in regards to my dilemma of revealing or not revealing my true identity here on the blog: the kids. Playdates. Would other moms not want their kids playing with mine if they knew that I had Bipolar. Wow. Why had I not thought of this? It's a sad reality in our world that so many people are so incredibly ignorant to mental health issues, bipolar disorder especially. But it doesn't surprise me. Hell, I barely knew anything about it until it jumped up and bit me in the ass. I was forced to read up on it and learn about it as fast as I could in order to get my life back in order. My husband and my parents did everything they could to help. There were countless hours spent online researching symptoms and conditions to try to confirm what the doctors were telling us about what was happening to me. My dad took me to the bookstore where we stood in front of the psychology section for a couple of hours pouring over the books on the shelves to try to find some that could help us. My mom went online and was able to find Julie Fast's Health Cards System which she immediately ordered for me. Me, well, I was just trying to keep my head above water.

Once I received the formal diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder, it was a bit of a relief to know that we had a starting point to help me begin on the road to complete recovery. That was in the Spring of 2006, and after spending the majority of that year clinically depressed, it wasn't until the beginning of March 2007 that I began to feel like my old self again. I had learned about the extreme highs I had felt, learned why I needed an anti-psychotic medication, and had also learned what it felt like to be at the lowest low on the depression spectrum and how once I found the right medication for me - the mood stabilizer Lithium - I could be completely balanced and could stay that way as long as I managed my moods closely with my psychiatrist.

When my mom brought up the point about playdates, it really made me think. And as usual for me, I can see both sides to the argument.

If I were a mom to two small children and had never been exposed to mental illness or bipolar disorder, and only knew what I heard of it on the news or in magazine stories, than yeah, I'd probably not want my kids playing with other kids whose mother had Bipolar. If I were that uninformed about the condition, I would probably think that she was a bad mother. And as my kids grew up, they would probably begin to believe the same thing, causing my kids pain by teasing them behind their backs.

These thoughts break my heart.

On the other side, there is a huge part of me that feels that if someone is so ignorant about bipolar disorder that they wouldn't be friends with someone who had the condition, then I wouldn't want to associate with them anyway.

But that is just me thinking about my viewpoint on the issue. I have to think about the future here and my kids might feel differently. I hope they don't, but I don't want to jeopardize their childhood development based on my desire to reveal my true identity and the condition I live with each and every day of my life. It's not fair to them to make this decision while they are so young. So I won't.

At this point, I have chosen to move forward with the blog anonymously. I just feel like it is the right thing to do for my family - not just my kids, but for my husband too.