I have found a new Pdoc, one who does not overload me with medications. I must be honest and admit to the fact that I demanded my new Pdoc take me off specific meds due to their weight gaining properties. He asked me which was more important…my mental stability or weight gain? Well duh Doc…the weight gain was making me depressed as all hell so I’m voting for the weight gain to be gone!

One thing of note, was the one of my favorite meds, Neurontin was one of the evil weight gainers. This was news to me. I also had tried quite unsuccessfully to take myself off of the Effexor. WRONG! It was like withdrawing from Heroin (no I’ve never used it). But the new Pdoc informed me I was going off too fast so he wrote me a med plan and gave me lower strength dosages in order to properly wean myself off of the Effexor. For that, he will always have my undying gratitude.

So I am happy to report that the extra 50 lbs I gained in 8 months have been dropped and I am physically back to normal. Mentally is a different story altogether. But I am working on that as well. It scares me to try new meds that I’ve no prior experience with but I know it must be done.

My moods are swinging back from tears to bitch to HAPPY GIRL. Sighs…talk about emotionally draining. And I wont even mention how it confuses my new boyfriend.

What we all have to keep in mind is that our med combos do not always last a lifetime. Our bodies adjust and things must be altered. Whenever you feel your “normal” self becoming someone you know isn’t right, please contact your Pdoc and discuss the issue.

I know that it is difficult for all of us. New meds take time to work, then we have to deal with possible side effects and will or wont they go away. Maintaining a job is difficult, maintaining friendships is difficult. Hell just maintaining sanity is difficult.

With my training and background, I am always being told, “well you of all people should know better.” I have a newsflash for those people; knowing better for others doesn’t necessarily imply knowing better for oneself.

Bipolars are not the easiest people to deal with. We sometimes cannot even deal with ourselves very well. We’re forgetful, go off on all sorts of emotional swings, can become quite disagreeable, disconnected, weepy, annoyingly manic, but yet we still need to be loved and to love. Nobody said it is easy to love us, but it can be done.

I have had to relocate three times already this year. Obviously my support people are falling by the wayside and it is not always easy to replace them. Seems some of us BP’rs aren’t exactly the trusting kind. It’s not that we’re paranoid, we are scared! It’s frightening to allow someone to get close to us because we know that sooner or later that evil BP Monster is going to rear its ugly head and our newly found loved ones will probably want to bail out as if in a sinking ship.

At the present, I’m doing the big No No and playing with my meds. Disclaimer: please do not do as I do. I’m not on ones I should be and on others I know I’d probably die without.

Again, it scares me to begin the road to the world of the “what in the hell is THIS med going to do to me”. Compound that with a personal life that is so topsy-turvy it would have to confuse and depress even the most Grimmest of Reapers.

However, autumn is in the air and it is my new resolve to get myself back to where I belong. Will I succeed? Who is to say? Will I fail? Ditto. All any us can do is to make our best attempts. We cannot fight the BP Monster as he is with us for our existence on this planet. Tis better to accept Him as part of us and learn to adapt to sharing life with Him.

Just please remember and learn from my experience…it matters not how “together” one may be, at the slightest sign of weakness that Monster’s long slimy fingers snake out and grab your brain by the throat and causes all sorts of havoc.

If you have a support system, rely on them with your life. If you do not have a support system, the please do yourself a favor and find one. Doesn’t matter if it’s a real-time person, group, therapist or online friend. Just have that lifeline to turn to when you need them.

Not matter how sad the deep dark black pit from hell is, none of us are truly ever alone.