If you lead, I will follow.

[SmogTown]

Hello..I suppose i've been confronted. I just got diagnosed as bipolar by my new psychiatrist..Actually, I argued so vehemently against it, which was absolutely ridiculous .I suppose I didn't want it to TRULEY be. To hear it from the mouth of another. To have my feelings put in a box. A label with "criteria"! Not that it even seems all that real to me. Im young..but my mind seems to be decaying so quickly. Not in the form of a mental disorder really..more I feel as if I am literally decaying..this is more than I can take. I was afraid to go on mood stabilizers so I argued until I was simply put on low dose anti depressants, lo and behold I am today clinically depressed. You know what the pills did help me do? God, im not even going to say it. I wonder if these will make me down a bottle of muscle relaxers like I did last time? Yes, they take away the anxiety, I am no longer a coward.

Why do I crave death so? Pleasure is the release of tension..I suppose.
Why cant I just be content with being a cancer to the world? We all wonder.
I dont even know what to say to make this topic more favorable. I literally have no one to talk to.

[rogelio63]

I felt exactly how you describe yourself when I was diagnosed about two years ago.  Having a background in Complimentary Medicine, I was totally against taking medication, but after going on anti-depressants and I got suicidal that, along with some other symptoms, and I had three different docs diagnose me as BP II.  I finally decided do the meds and started feeling good again.  Then since I was feeling better, I decided to wean myself off, with the consent of my psych NP.  Then I really got screwed up.  That was what convinced me.  Before this my wife was not convinced.  After this she was.  
Anyway, I was just as sure, had heard all the arguments against meds, had heard that EVERYONE was being diagnosed bipolar.  But I am.  And I get a little down when I think of taking meds the rest of my life.  but without them, I don't think the rest of my life would be very long.
Don't be discouraged.  Get a support group, find a support group.  This forum is a good place to make friends and keep in touch.

[Xila31]

Think of it like type 1 diabetes. People with type 1 diabetes must be on insulin for the rest of their lives. They can survive at intervals without it, but slowly and surely the lack of insulin will kill them. Just because they are on insulin doesn't mean that they can't live normal, happy, productive lives. There is no cure, there is no perfect way to get that insulin and regulate it. But, it is better than the alternative and new innovations are coming along all the time.

[ILADVOCATE]

  Yes but that book doesn't mention that there is research and development into new treatments that won't have these side effects. As a person who is in a clinical study for one class of these treatments I am aware of this. It is true that most probably you will need to remain in treatment for life but safer and more effective treatments are being developed and there are still right now increasing options as regards mood stabilizers that are FDA approved for other purposes but used off label as mood stabilizers. There are links on the welcome page that have information on bipolar disorder and its treatment that are up to date and can provide helpful information as that book has a specific agenda which is in itself inaccurate.

[SmogTown]

I suppose it doesnt help that before I went to my psych I read a book called "Anatomy Of An Epidemic" where this guy give statistical results basically saying that any sort of psychotropic medicine makes us all go insane or turns us into frontal lobotomy zombie's.  Its just that I was reading how they discovered anti-psychotics, and that they where basically just tranquilizers isolated from certain chemical compounds from anti-biotics...As well as anti depressants originating from tuberculosis medicine. But again, they like anti-biotics at all, no one can really isolate one thing they treat. So psychiatrists just put it under such a vague term as a "chemical imbalance". Sorry if what im saying sounds a little incoherent, I haven't been sleeping and im trying to eat crackers so I dont get dizzy since I cant really eat.. But ugh..I dont want to have to be on this crap for the rest of my life now...

[paranoid_cataclysm]

Xila brings up some points I knew which are related but should of mentioned.  PACT says we should have a support system of at least five people we can turn to in the event of a crisis.  Try to build up your support system.  Your doctors and therapists and stuff can be part of it especially if they have emergency contact numbers.

[Xila31]

Suicide is a symptom of something greater. It's like a fever. The fever isn't really what is making you sick, but the fever can kill you. Overheating the body until you are burned out. Suicide is just like that, it is a symptom that can kill you. :(

I've fought the suicide demon for a very long time now. I call it that because that's what it is. It isn't this simple thing that "oh, I went through that once." No, it is there always waiting for you to let your guard down and poking you with a stick. As long as it's there, so is whatever causes it to be there, the illness. You have to fight it. Just like you fight the flu or strep throat with medicine, you have to fight the illness with medicine. You fight a fever with things like drinking cold water. You fight the suicide demon with things like forcing yourself to be with friends even if you don't feel like it. Watching funny movies even if you don't laugh. Focusing on things that are not death, no matter how hard it is. Talk therapy. You can beat it. You can win. It seems like this all powerful thing inside of you, but you are actually the all powerful thing.

If you feel you can't fight it on your own, don't. Call the doctor, go the ER, if you have a support person call them, call a hotline. You're not alone.

[paranoid_cataclysm]

I know that if bipolar disorder isn't treated properly and the person gets in a mixed state they are at more of a risk of doing something like downing a bottle of muscle relaxers like you said you did than a person with any other mental illness out there.

Perhaps with your anxiety gone you can accept that you might need a mood stabilizer?  I know I really didn't want to take an antipsychotic because of the potential long term side effects but the things helped salvage my life to an extent.  Geodon worked better but now Abilify has made it like I'm back to where I started before I had a breakdown except minus a few things which still isn't that good because even before the breakdown I had symptoms which interfered greatly with my life and then the breakdown made it where I couldn't function at all without medication.