Bipolar's topics - tribe.net

Bipolar music

2008-07-04T17:07:53Z

maybe we can start posting videos/songs that remind you of being bipolar . . . ?

here's my contribution for a start ...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=JW-3mIaajWM

http://youtube.com/watch?v=d_qRTMKDqXA

http://youtube.com/watch?v=yn82dMFGN8g

posted in Bipolar - 46 replies

Pot? LSD? Psilocybin? X?

2008-06-29T22:13:48Z

I'm really curious about the effect of these on medicated bipolars.
Especially psilocybin and pot.

My relationship with these substances has been verrrrrrrry sporadic; last time I did one/them was over 2 years ago, but I consider the experience deeply spiritual, magical.

In light of my medicated STABILITY, sometimes I hunger for that 'let-loose-ness', and euphoria. Cause it's gone bye-bye while on meds.

posted in Bipolar - 72 replies

Medication alternatives

2008-06-29T22:06:59Z

Due to no insurance (still waiting to hear on a few) and not having a reliable income right now I may find myself without medication. I am on lamictal.

What none medication options have people tried heard of to try and help with your conditions. Where its dietary changes, supliments/vitamins etc?

posted in Bipolar - 14 replies

I am so freaking happy and so freaking manic...holly shit!!!!

2008-06-26T21:51:44Z

it's just a little bit scary. I am so much in love, AND I am getting married this weekend!!!! and I am also VERY manic!!!!! the insame "I have ten million things in my head, can't really hear you, I know I m distracted, holly shit did I foreget something, Oh man and I almost forgot that thing. Wait...What was I thinking in the FIRST place?? Holly shit I forgot..dam!! oh man what were the other things I was thinking about??? Oh crap!.....Oh well....It'll come to me again in a little while...when I get the next manic "attac".....

lalalalalalalala!!! I am so in love! lalalalalalalaaaaaaaaaaaa

Oh shit now I remember!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!

posted in Bipolar - 5 replies

!!!!!! H E L P !!!!! I AM BEING KICKED OUT OUT OF MY "PARENTS'" HOUSE 10 DAYS AFTER BEING IN HOSPITAL 4 2-3 MONTHS !!!!!!!!!!!

2008-06-26T08:42:55Z

I HATE THEM SO MUCH ...

THEY'RE CALLING ACIS RIGHT NOW TO GET ME OUT OF HERE ... RIGHT AFTER MIKE'S MOTHER HAD THE HUGEST SCREAM AT ME EARLIER ... SO I CAME BACK HERE ...

WHAT A FUCKING MISTAKE!

HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE ... NAMELY THOSE THAT GAVE BIRTH TO ME .. I WISH THEY HAD ABORTED ME ... THEY HAVE NEVER WANTED ME, AND NEVER WILL ....

H E L P !

posted in Bipolar - 7 replies

Lamictal, thought it wasnt supposed to happen

2008-06-25T18:36:10Z

I was lead to believe that the lamictal was supposed to pretty much elimate the dark days. Or at most would have some days maybe being melancholy. Called doctor said to double the dose. Hope that does something.

I am just fucking going nuts today. I've not cried and balled this much for so long in a while. My head feels likes it going to burst. Just want to scream and hit things. Everythings racing around in my head, hearing things, i havent done that for awhile. Its really hard to focus. Its taking forever just to type this. I just want to be unconscious, make things go away for a while. But I cant sleep, and trying real hard not to do the vallium , sleep aid rum mix to get some rest. Cant talk to anyone, i pick up the phone and i cry worse and my jaw locks up so I know I wouldnt be able to talk. AAAAAAARGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

posted in Bipolar - 20 replies

What's your sign?

2008-06-25T16:45:31Z

Could there be a cosmic connection? Beyond the physiological inherited traits potentially exaggerated by environmental triggers, do the stars influence our moods? And speaking of celestial influence, am I the only one who must howl at the moon?

posted in Bipolar - 25 replies

Personal Organizer type person

2008-06-13T23:54:11Z

I read parts of an Adult ADD book and it suggested getting an organizer to help you if you have problems doing this like = organizing stuff, doing dishes, filing, paying bills, keeping things clean, that sorta thing. (okay, i'm paraphrasing, but that's my reality so that's what i was looking for.)

i had her over once to help me with filing systems and another time to help me with finances. She rocks so hardcore that i'm budgeting her to come for two hours every month. Even though she's not cheap and even though i have to cut other things out to see her. it's so worth it. i never know that feeling of actually being organized/filed/no papers piled around/bills payed/knowing exactly how much i'm going to spend and on what and when. never ever have i known what that's like.

so, i wanted to let you know how cool it is to get an organizer. and also if you are in the bay area and have some money you can drop on her, here's a rec for someone really cool: Deborah Deiss, "Your Personal Assistant!", 650 306 8610
http://www.craigslist.org/pen/fns/105173991.html

posted in Bipolar - 7 replies

random rant

2008-06-12T10:49:57Z

..begin transmission...
So the definition of someone who is disabled like me, under California law, and eligible to receive benefits is clear. If you are curious, it is here: www.ssa.gov/disability/p...rs-Adult.htm.
Sometimes i wish that I would just take the benefits, tune out and drop out. I have few doubts that I would lose a hearing, considering.
One of the quirky things about me is this: I long to find an honorable, fatal job. One that would amount to near certain death but will benefit causes I believe in-- whales, turtles, fucking cute-ass baby pandas. Obviously, this does not include going to Iraq, so my options are limited.
If only my neighbors had a fire and their shitty ass dogs were suffering among flames. Oh, how I admire those who perish doing such ridiculous heroics!
Here it goes: I feel very lonely and disconnected. This would be a temporary feeling if only it were temporary. But it is not. It is a permanent state of anxiety and anxiousness and gold 'ole fashioned self-loathing.
I joked to a friend of mine the other day that I loathe myself in several ways. I suggested that I have a baby and he suggested this is a good idea because "then you could loathe the baby just as much." I fear this to be true and that's part of the reason that I do not want to have children, period. I hate my parents, in part, for ever considering children. Having one to face a lifetime of depression is bad enough. Throw in bipolar and the potential to be an alcoholic and a smoker is icing on the cake. Seriously. WTF?
I do really nice things. I call unemployed friends and ask them how they are doing. I call friends who are ill and see if they need any help around the house. I call friends with babies and see if they need sitting, dinners or a walk. I get lattes for people who mention such things in passing and I ask about job interviews and mortgages. I drive hours to go to birthday parties and volunteer when people need volunteers and I suffer when there is suffering.I even ask friends if their stupid condos got painted a stupid seafoam green color because I remember that shit and I care.
It's cute, too. I drive nearly three hours to see family who forget to call about upcoming birthday parties, family who don't return phone calls and who never once, not once, call to ask how I am feeling. I bring them gifts and good cheer and sometimes cookies with nuts which they reject because they all hate nuts and God fucking forbid they try a cookie, just in case. By the way, no matter how much those gifts cost and no matter how much thought I put into the gift or the wrapping or the time it took me to earn the money spend on the gifts, they will be tossed and forgotten. I should wrap dogshit or grass shavings and be done with it.
I call. I call and I call and I call. I write, too. I am sensitive to those who don't like phones.
I am sensitive to those who prefer typing even though they also say they are buried in emails and twitter and facebook and myspace and tribe messages that they just can't keep up. I call and I ask about boyfriends and the wedding and work and school and all that shit because I actually DO care.
Sometimes I call friends just to tell them that I GOT LAID and those two words, THAT SOMEONE FUCKED *MY* PUSSY gets them to call me back for a change.I find this both cute and annoying. I get fucked by some random stranger and you want to talk to me. Geeze. Thanks.
I am curious. Dangerously so. I like to know what's going on with people I love and have loved in the past. I look up old lovers and friends and I follow their blogs and I tell them I follow their blogs and I ask to be on RSS feeds and email lists and I really do care about their lives and I get, well, nothing.
Did you know that, depspite my mental illness being listed as a disability by the state, that I still feel guilty about being admitted to the psyche ward for my own protection and for my health FOUR years ago? Did you know that I still feel guilty about what I said and what I did when I was sick, when I was literally not responsible for myself anymore? I haven't forgotten it, though most of the things I said and did I have forgotten by me and me only. It is the guilt and the horror and the disappointment in myself that I haven't forgotten. It's the curse. A curse.
There are a few people who I have apologized to for my sickness as well, but they have never forgiven. Nor forgotten.No matter what I say or do, I can't make amends.Not ever. I am not sure if you know how this feels.
I wake up almost every day thinking about how crazy and depressed and lonely and isolated I am and how much I suck and how much I don't really want to be here and how I don't understand why I am here at all, really.
Just thought I'd let you know...

posted in Bipolar - 5 replies

Freedom, Tuesday the 10th.

2008-06-11T02:47:54Z

FUCKING AQ!!!!!

warm wishes to all my fellow brilliant sparks of madness and melancholia ...

together, WE make this world a better place ...

namaste,
Lxox

posted in Bipolar - 3 replies

free at last, free at last ....

2008-06-05T07:03:53Z

Thank God Almighty,

I'm free-ish AT LAST!!!

off detention, tentative hospital discharge date, Fri 13th June ... heh heh heh .. if that aint auspicious, I don't know what is!

xoxoxoxox

posted in Bipolar - 3 replies

recovered bi polar?

2008-05-29T19:01:40Z

most resources on bi polar say that it is a volatile disorder, one that is a life-long struggle and that one needs to be medicated throughout life. i am skeptical - i believe in the healing power of superfoods for mental health, and i believe in supplementation rather than medication - and relief through other means like physical movement and creative output - through meditation and yoga, grounding exercises, and etc.

i believe we can heal and recover from our so-called "illness."

so my question is - can anyone consider themselves a recovered manic depressive? what is your story, and how have you learned to cope? what actions do you take in your daily life to stay grounded, level, and manage your moods? i would love to hear what positive actions you all are taking in your lives to manage your bi polar. i personally am planning to make the transition fully off of meds and onto natural alternatives in about a years time. perhaps i'll eventually be able to share my story with you then.

blessed be on your journeys - grateful to have this resource where we can relate and share in something that often feels alienating and hard to cope with. luck and love to all of you.

posted in Bipolar - 2 replies

locked up ....

2008-05-26T12:38:17Z

http://people.tribe.net/975401bd-c065-4aea-8045-99ad018440f3/blog

posted in Bipolar - 0 replies

Losing a part of my supportive circle..

2008-05-24T20:01:54Z

Well, I was just told that my mother will die in the next few years from heart faliure.So,I have had to except that one of my biggest support is going to be gone.I am so not ready for this at all.Its been really pressing down hard on me.Has anyone had something like this happen to them..I worry that I will have a bi-polar break down when it does happen.I have told my doctor so he will be ready for when it really happens.I am just not ready for this at all when it comes to my emotions..." love them like they are leaving tommorrow because they maybe leaving alot sooner then we think..."

posted in Bipolar - 3 replies

New here...

2008-05-23T01:48:49Z

Okay. I'm new here. I'll disclose a few things that people already know about me. I've had multiple dignoses. One of the most often heard is bipolar. I used to get pissed-off for no reason and put my fist through walls. Doctors said they thought I had temporal lobe epilepsy cause that's a symptom. I've also heard Borderline Personality Disorder cause among other things I used to cut myself up with knives and chew glass. I think that was just a phase though cause I got tired of getting my teeth fixed. I never assaulted anyone else, it was like I was always at war with myself. But I've been on meds for quite a few years now an I'm fairly sane these days.

Hmmm.

So anyone else here ever have violent impulses? How do you deal with it?

posted in Bipolar - 1 reply

when is it gonna stop being empty?

2008-05-21T01:08:06Z

there are some days that I feel nothing. I search, close my eyes, try to feel something...any thing.... ANYTHING? So I try to feel sad (something I can do really fast) It 's funny to think that my comfort blanket is depression. To think that the very same thing that can sometimes feels as though you are drowning, can also be sometimes nurturing.
So, I call up on "it". To make me feel better, but nothing. Not a damed thing. So, then I try to feel angry......and....nothing. So, I try to feel happy. (if you could hear me telling this story, you would hear a huge sarcastic tone at the last sentence.) because this whole damed thing is idiotic!!!

Why in the world do I have to over analize EVERY FUCKEN THING!
Oh God so now...I feel like I have to get my feelings separate from my thoughts and organize them. (because this is a skill I must learn) I am trying to organize myself and be productive..(fuck!)

Anyway, So now I am happy that I feel something real (frustration with myself) instead of trying to pick apart the "I feel nothing stage. Let's take it apart and analize it. .

Three seconds later I feel the same way...EMPTY! oh fuck here we go again!!!!!! ughhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

posted in Bipolar - 0 replies

i feel it coming, the mania

2008-05-13T05:07:34Z

it starts as a shift in energy, loss of focus, until the one that gets yo't u. maine feels good. I'm sexually engaged in hypermode.athreeeee really nothing wig now that moerpriority

This is a good thing. the sex is out o f sight, an there little to disagree on.

i hould be taking my meds but the last tim ei tried to dose away a manic adventure, it made me crash instead, and i'm not interested in letting that happena agaim...

If i 'm going to manage my diseaes while i continue aiming toward complete recovey, then I need to take the lithium., but i don't want to.

i'm quite ready for a shot of rEDbull power. in the up dircetion.

LTE'S DO THIS1 HOUDE, job, FIENDS, PLans, party.... i'm ready.

posted in Bipolar - 2 replies

Anyyone had, or know anything of, Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) ?

2008-05-11T10:36:34Z

Wikipedia says;
"Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), also known as electroshock, is a controversial psychiatric treatment in which seizures are induced with electricity for therapeutic effect. Today, ECT is most often used as a treatment for severe major depression which has not responded to other treatment, and is also used in the treatment of mania, catatonia, schizophrenia and other disorders. It first gained widespread use as a form of treatment in the 1940s and 50s; today, an estimated 1 million people worldwide receive ECT every year,[1] usually in a course of 6-12 treatments administered 2 or 3 times a week. "
Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroconvulsive_therapy

Anyone had it ?

Results ?

I ask because a family member has consented and is currently undergoing ECT...

posted in Bipolar - 21 replies

I'm a TRAIN WRECK HERE!!!

2008-05-07T11:27:36Z

Hey all

I'm not sure which way to turn, considering I've been feeling like I'm all over the grid w/my BP. My p-doc put me on Vyvanse & Alprazolam ER about 2 weeks ago. In the last week maybe less, I have been on the WORST emotional ROLLER COASTER I've ever had since I've been diagnosed that I know of. I have put in a call to have my dr. call me, so now that's a waiting game. I try as much as possible when I know I'm panicking to take a literal or figurative "step back" & do some deep breathing meditation for a few to gain some perspective. Along w/that, I'm telling myself "there's no reason I need to feel this way anymore" "It's OK now. All's Safe & fine" <==Last quote is something I say to calm my pets btw...lol! Things like that...

I *HATE* the buzzed/dragging feeling after a panic attack! I *HATE* feeling so out of control & like I'm flailing around for a life preserver or lifeboat!!! All I want is to have some semblance of a "leveling out" experience!! This isn't FAIR or RIGHT!!!!! *wants to throw a full-on kiddie tantrum--Falling to floor, crying my hardest, beating my fists & feet on the floor, screaming as loud as I can*

Arrrrgggghhh!
FL

posted in Bipolar - 6 replies

What defines you?

2008-04-30T05:14:28Z

I am currently hanging by a bipolar noose, and am questioning everything about my life right now. I just lost my job on monday due to it, and am being placed on disability. I was a chemist. WAS a chemist. I was proud that I was holding on to something of a career and was proud to tell people what I did for a living. Did I define myself by my education and occupation? I am at a complete loss now, with way too many hours in the day and nothing to show for it, and its only day 3. Am I letting my diagnosis now define me? I suddently feel like a failure and broken and unlovable. Its rediculous right? Try telling that to my lymbic system.

Does anyone have any similar experiences and how they got through them or are getting through them?

posted in Bipolar - 8 replies

quizes... used for diagnostic purposes for Aspergers and Autism

2008-04-24T23:11:47Z

http://www.autismspeaks.org/community/forums/showthread.php?p=33606&highlight=aspie+quiz+link#post33606

http://www.rdos.net/eng/Aspie-quiz.php

Kind of interesting quizes... used for diagnostic purposes for Aspergers and Autism
I have heard tale that there are some similar quizes for diagnostic purposes for Mental Illness

Anyone know of any?

posted in Bipolar - 0 replies

Manic Bubble Wrap!

2008-04-13T23:08:03Z

Go to the following web link and run your mouse over the bubble wrap... more fun if...
1) you turn on manic mode
and
2) you imagine the bubbles replaced with peoples heads...

or not!

http://www.therightfoot.net/mystuff/whatever/swf/bubblewrap.swf

posted in Bipolar - 1 reply

click, click..happy place, happy place....!!!!!!!

2008-04-11T02:50:12Z

watching the "L word" with my hubby....Or

Driving with my hubby to somewhere....

eating cajeta on bread....

being notty......(grining :) :)

posted in Bipolar - 2 replies

childhood abuse, brain development, and emotional disorders

2008-04-07T06:57:16Z

interesting article:

http://www.dana.org/news/cerebrum/detail.aspx?id=3378

i know it is long, but it is well worth the read, in my opinion.

posted in Bipolar - 0 replies

Can by BP people handle poly relatioships better??

2008-04-01T23:48:10Z

My husband was in a poly relationship before we got together. He had a wife who had other relatioships, and he in turn had other relationships. I, in the other had had a husband and girlfriend. There was no room for cheating, and each relatioship ended for other reasons.

As things progresed there was a questions that kept comming up in my head. Do I have this poly relatioship because that's what I really feel or is it that I am so freaking sexual that I am just using this "poly" relatioship as an exuse to have my cake and eat it too.

I have found many BP people in other sites who are in poly (multiple) open relatioships. I have found BP people who love the book "the ethical slut" and recomend it.

Since one of the charactheristics of being BP is being a highly sexual being, Can we handle multiple relationships better than other people?

posted in Bipolar - 0 replies

online mood tracking assistance

2008-03-31T05:58:34Z

check out... moodtracker.com
kind of a helpful tool!

posted in Bipolar - 0 replies

take your meds....(oh MAN!!!!!)

2008-03-31T02:31:44Z

I feel a lot better when I m on my meds. However, my sexual drive is through the freaking roof. I am actually concern. I have always had a really high sexual drive, but now I HAVE to have it at least 4 to 6 times a DAY!! My poor hand hurts!!

My hubby is excellent in bed. He is amazing, and the best part of all he is one of those guys who can keep going for several hours. (yes, I said hours...I am not kidding)

But, I find myself keep going after we have been together for couple of hours. I can't stop. I have to at least have one or two orgasms grrrrr, grrrrrrrrrrrrrr

I am starting to feel like a freaking addict. AAHHHHH This is so not cool!! sighs after almost every sentence) I think I am going a little insane, in of course, my attemt to reach THE sane world.

So Do I choose meds, which are supposed to help me with my mood disorders which of course all have side effects. Like ....you all know what I mean...OR

Do I not take my meds know that I will be a savage with my emotions and my poor confused man. And also enjoy the creative side (that's if I have one, to which I think I might have) And say F@#k IT! .............

posted in Bipolar - 12 replies

like mania?

2008-03-25T00:59:36Z

About two months ago I fell into a downswing. It was really fucked up. I was really lethargic. I forgot what I was saying mid-sentence. I felt like an idiot. I fucking hate feeling that way. Two weekends ago one of my best friends, Gabe, came up to Portland from SF. He's one of the most cerebral people I've ever met. He's basically autistic that way. He can talk about emotions but he doesn't 'use' them when he talks. When I'm manic I play off him really well. Knowing he was coming up I did an experiment where I went off Risperdal the night before. By the time he arrived I was feeling really manic, a feeling I hadn't had in a long time. After he arrived we went to my favorite bar and talked, but when we got home things started to really cook and we talked for four more hours, till 5 a.m.. I felt incredible talking to him, so many ideas, so many things to discuss. I could put my emotions into any idea I had, violently. I stayed this way throughout the weekend, and our conversations were amazing. He left on Sunday and on Monday I returned to 'work' (I record music) and I realized immediately that the manic mindset did not work around people where my primary communication with them was about emotions, to talk about my emotions and other people's emotions (as in responses to music), as if they were physical things. I started taking Risperdal again and things restored, but I felt really sad at my departure from mania. I think as long as I don't have to talk <about> my emotions, and talk to people about their emotions, I could just stay in a manic state and talk about ideas. It pisses me off that I have to live in a world where emotions are the end all be all essence of human experience. I hate how petty most people's interactions with their emotions are even though they base their life around them. I feel like, as a primarily manic person, my emotions change from minute to minute, and it just seems like to talk about them is totally pointless because I'm going to feel several different ways throughout the course of a conversation. When I was 16 I took acid in tiny tiny portions to disassociate myself from my emotions (before I was diagnosed as bipolar). I remember feeling really smart back then. My family thought I was a genius. I don't know what I'm saying here but I guess it's about being frustrated with living in an emotion-centric world when I feel I don't really have a place in that world. I wish I could just talk with smart friends about ideas.

posted in Bipolar - 13 replies

Meds & New Book

2008-03-24T16:01:19Z

Hi there from North Carolina!

I wanted to ask, there's 2 new meds that I'm on that I'm not sure about. I know 1's for ADD (I'm 36, but it's also prescribed typically for kids amazingly). The other's Alprazolam ER. I used to take just Xanax along w/2 others which are for Bipolar control (the BP control ones have NOT been chaged). Anyone have any incites on the Alprazolam? I'm not used to it that's for sure. P-Doc didn't say much about it.

Also, I went to a close-out book store (they get overstock of books from other companies & sell them at REALLY good discounts) a couple weeks ago on a Saturday. I found one that I think is really worthy of mention & is very useful. It's called "The Mood Disorder Workbook for Depression & Manic Depression" by Mary Copeland (I don't have the book in front of me to remember if that's the full title completely right). I'm taking notes like crazy & DOING the exercises in it (in a journal I have SPECIFICALLY dedicated to this book so I don't write in it). I showed it to my P-Doc when I saw him when he changed my meds & he was VERY PLEASED that I have it. It was dirt cheap & really helps me learn ways to get help, cope & learn better ways to help understand my Disorder. I feel I'm having to learn new positive coping strategies all over again (I was s*xually abused at 17, so in order to heal from that, I had to learn the skills to cope & deal w/what happened.) . But if I'm going to understand what I've got to do about being BP, i have to learn the skills to deal w/it too...oy!

Has anyone ever used this book? Did it help you? I'm not trying to use it as a way to cope WITHOUT medical help as it suggests, but to learn new skills to deal w/this disorder better.

Any opinions, suggestions, or thoughts are appreciated & ECOURAGED!

Thanks
Fairylite

posted in Bipolar - 3 replies

I think bipolar people are the most honest people.....

2008-03-23T19:24:07Z

because we can never really shut up when we should. We don't really lie because it will drive us nuts if we don't say what we need to say. we will in fact explode if we don't get it out there right NOW!

We will say how we feel and hope that you don't take it too seriously, because things will change in about 5 minutes. Just know that we love you very much, but will think to just use the phrase "oh boy what would I do if I could only find a little dull knife"

And if you don't really want to do something you'll just pull a "Phoebe"..."I would really like to help you out but I really don't want to" I am having a crazy manic day and i might not even want to hang out with myself. Note to self...where are those darn pills? Where did I leave them? Oh my gosh I am loosing my mind again. I can't remember where I left those damn pills again!!

posted in Bipolar - 7 replies

What do you like about being bipolar?

2008-03-17T13:52:49Z

What do you like about being bipolar?

I’ve always wanted to care less as strange as that sounds. I’m getting better at it.

I still have a great deal of patience BUT not for everyone anymore, just the people that earn it.

Bipolar has brought me closer to God and closer to what I want…I just have to be careful now in what I ask as it does come, but not in the way you expect sometime.

How about you?

posted in Bipolar - 18 replies

i'm messy

2008-03-16T19:59:03Z

very, very messy.
and i postpone everything possible.
is it bp or just my shity character?

posted in Bipolar - 28 replies

ridiculous dysfunctions

2008-03-16T02:51:20Z

Am I the only one here who is psychologically incapable of making his own bed? Or cleaning my house? Or not letting beer cans accumulate in my bedroom for several months at a time? Why is it I have these difficulties? My mother thinks it's just profound laziness, but in truth I really just don't care if my house is clean or not, or if my sheets are clean, or if I knock over beer cans every time I move the chair at my desk. I think my dysfunction is getting worse. On my bedroom floor trash is indiscriminately mixed with clothing. I used to just not change the sheets on my bed for several months at a time, but two months ago I just took all the sheets and blankets off and just put a sleeping bag I had in storage on the bare mattress. I've been perfectly happy with this solution. Of course I've put several cigarette burns into the sleeping bag. I think the good lord is telling me something. That what I actually want to be is not a recording engineer but a junkie or a homeless person. I honestly don't seem to care.

Nicholas

posted in Bipolar - 1 reply

book: the myth of the chemical cure WARNING: do not google...

2008-03-15T19:57:54Z

the tru MANIC phase, unmodulated in frequency, is the most divine 'gift' in life. but BEWARE what you ask for. better than all the greatest sex you have ever had and can imagine and at same time with all the drugs you have ever done and could do, would never surpass. in you lies a region of life, called: Uexperience. but Re: the further you go "up", the farther you will go down. unless you get off the erratic, stupid roller coaster out of control and learn to operate on a different level; only then can one begin to ride these wild waves called life, the REAL and intended way. OR you will be trapped in a quagmire never, never imagined. the first time i heard the phrase: manic-depression, i realized something i did not understand, more than 3 decades ago. sufficely said, you are somewhat lucky: the internet. the tru manic, unobstructed by food, sleep, foes and friends alike, etc., can see things and hear those...otherwise not apparent or maybe not intended. i tear a bit everytime i read a post, see in life, the needless sufferage, and have to go to another...funeral. good luck with your travel in life and may your journey be as meaningful...
i am no longer a member of this tribe

posted in Bipolar - 2 replies

Thank You

2008-03-15T06:05:05Z

For helping me understand what BP is. Thank you for understanding me. I am new to this tribe and I feel as though I've known you all my life... I'm in a place where I can freely express what I feel....................................So thank you now and forever....................You are now friends in my head for life.

posted in Bipolar - 0 replies

Pregnant/ Bipolar... St Johns Wart?

2008-03-15T04:54:52Z

Does anyone know anything about treating anxiety/depression durring pregnancy. I have a friend who is 7 + months prego. is diagnosed with Bipolar but can't take anything while she is pregnant. she was told to take atavan for anxiety but is not comfortable doing so... it makes her worry... so she asked me about St. Johns Wart.... I don't know much about this herb.... any information would be helpful!
Thanks Inanna

posted in Bipolar - 1 reply

Non-believers

2008-03-15T01:04:23Z

Today I saw an ad for Abilify, a kind of women's leveling pill designed for bipolarism.
The ad listed symptoms as:
Extreme moods swings
high energy
sleeplessness followed by too much sleeping
easily irritated

My lovely step grandmother, whom I live with, is totally convinced that my doctor over-diagnosed me, that I am really just fine. And at my age with how much has happened to me, it is understandable I was depressed at the time of the diagnosis.

But that stupid fucking ad described me to a T!!! I can't possibly see how she can sit there and think that I am just fine and dany because me and her don't talk very often. I think she notices how much I argue with my boyfriend, how much I am undedicated even to projects I like, how weird my lack of sleep patern is, and yet she is totally convinced.

How do you guys deal with it?

posted in Bipolar - 15 replies

I wanna have a doctor who is bipolar...

2008-03-14T21:07:33Z

So a few years ago I told my therapist that in order to organize my head and try to get some control of all the rapid non stop thoughts I had named my moods.

Yes folks I have names for my moods. I do not have multiple personality disorder and I don't hear strange voices in my head (well.....not all the time hee,hee)

We all at one point or another have used the phrase" My heart tells me to do something , but my head tells me to do something else". So I tald her that I had named my head my heart and "other" moods to help me in everyday things.

Well, she looked at me like I was from some far away planet unable to understand what the hell I was talking about. All I kept thinking was how can you with all your medical background can possibly understand what the fuck is going on in my head, all my depression, all my suicide thoughts, all the mood ups and downs, all the uncontrollable shaking anger, the sleep patterns (no sleep for days or sleep for days) unable to to just have one thought, (all which trample one after another in such a hurry to invade my head, and leave constant twisted images to linger. to mock me, to tell me that there is no way to stop them here comes one and another) too darn afraid of actually just hanging out with myself and thoughts. How can you little Miss I have a degree but cannot understand unable to see what you need to see can do for me.

I want a doctor who can really understand what I mean when I say my head is having a weekend long party and will not shut the f#$#k up.

posted in Bipolar - 3 replies

Where does Bipolar come from?

2008-03-09T22:50:04Z

I was told they used to put the crazy people up in the mountains to relax in the lithium baths for awhile back in Roman times.

Does anyone believe that? Do you think there were people back then that would look at the world and see how messed up it was? Or did they have low levels of Omega 3 too?

Who else thinks that bipolar is on the rise, and not just something that has been misdiagnosed for 2000 years?

posted in Bipolar - 11 replies

what i hate the most about "being" bipolar ...

2008-03-08T17:54:45Z

... is when people see it as the be all and end of of you, as the sum total of all your parts.

you can't be angry, because that's a sign of mania.

you can't be happy, also a sign of mania.

you can't be sad, because then you must be depressed.

i'm caught in this trap right now of having all of my behaviour watched by those supposedly meant to care the most for me, but who i know are just itching for a chance to send me away ... commit me once more.

i hate that i can't even voice how furious and disgusted i am by their recent (and not so recent) actions. they've already had the "community nurses" to do the checklist of 'are you angry? are you aggressive? do you think you'll hurt anyone or yourself? do you feel like people are watching you?"

please.

give us some respect please.

posted in Bipolar - 49 replies

Full Moon Madness

2008-03-04T11:18:15Z

Does the full moon affect anyone here negatively, aggitate your issues at all?

I had never paid attention before. But last week the night of the lunar eclipse was a full moon.

I was all over the place. Every emotion grabbed me by the balls and shook me around and they kept passing me around all night.

I felt like I was totally loosing it. I was so close to taking myself to the hospital but feared that worse then drooling myself into complete madness and going into seizures crying in the middle of the livingroom floor.

Come the next morning I was over it. Then I realized itd been a full moon and thought it a strange coincidence.

posted in Bipolar - 2 replies

Hobbies and Mental Illness...

2008-03-02T17:37:31Z

Hi,I just wanted to ask if anyone has hobbies that help them cope sometimes.Things that one would be proud of.I do alot of gardening and its helped me some..Another one of my friends knits.But I have this friend who has no hobbies or interests in anything.She seems to be more depressed.So,My Question is do Hobbies help?

posted in Bipolar - 7 replies

HIV pos & bi-polar

2008-03-01T00:03:18Z

Someone in another tribe posted that he believes lithium has a viral reducing effect. He took lithium, was never sick enough to have to take HIV meds, but when he went off lithium for awhile he got ill, went back on lithium and got well again. Has anyone heard of an HIV and lithium connection before?

posted in Bipolar - 2 replies

Lifenet

2008-02-29T14:02:14Z

Has anyone ever taken advantage of Lifenet in Dallas' services? I am from Dallas and thinking of relocating back there, and would need help finding employment not to mention housing and medical care. I found them on the net and was intrigued by the services they provide.

posted in Bipolar - 0 replies

BEWARE: published 14 years ago...in mass media/press: do not believe everything that you do not know...

2008-02-27T20:59:28Z

The dark side of psychiatric drugs. (The United States of Violence: A Special Section) (Cover Story)
From: USA Today (Magazine) | Date: 5/1/1994 | Author: Bibeau, Tanya
USA Today (Magazine)

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Thorazine, Haldol, and other medication prescribed by psychiatrists can destroy the lives of people who take them.

Virtually all person who go to psychiatrists are put on one or more drugs. However, psychiatric drugs, which are unpredictable and extremely deadly, do not cure anything, and instead destroy the life of the person who takes them.

The most dangerous of these are major tranquilizer, also known as neuroleptic (nerve-seizing) drugs or anti-psychotics. Of the more than two dozen in this class, introduced in the mid 1950s, the most commonly used are Haldol (haloperidol), Compazine (prochlorperazine), (Thorazine (chlorpromazine), Navane (thiothixene), Prolixin (fluphenazine), Mellaril (thioridazine), and Trilafon (perhenazine).

Their purpose is to create "maximum behavioral disruption" - a goal clearly reflected in 1950 tests conducted with rats on Thorazine. Through chemicals, psychiatrists sought to sabotage thought processes and thereby deny the person control of his own body.

At the time the major tranquilizers were introduced, the lobotomy was touted highly and widely used by psychiatrists. With the procedure, the shredded brain was damaged forever, generating objections from family and friends of the patient.

The major tranquilizers were able to create a zombie state, identical to that seen after a lobotomy, in a person whose brain remained intact. For this reason, Thorazine became known as a "chemical lobotomy."

"[On Thorazine] my thoughts spun and never got too far. My hands were rubber and I could hardly hold a fork," said one patient who had been put on the drugs by a psychiatrist. "After six weeks ... I felt like my mind had been put through a meat grinder. No longer could I think clearly; no longer could I speak articulately; no longer could I act confidently."

Another stated that, after a week on Haldol, "I was unable to speak. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't say anything out loud and spoke only with the greatest difficulty .... It was as if my whole body was succumbing to a lethal poison."

The horrifying mental upheaval and devastation this lobotomizing effect causes was precisely what appealed to psychiatrists. These chemicals would enable people to be warehoused with the least "inconvenience" to psychiatrists and staffs of psychiatric institutions.

Today, these drugs are being used against the elderly in enormous quantities to straitjacket them chemically. By 1985, the National Disease and Therapeutic Index reported that, while adults 60 years and older made up 11% of the population, they used more than one-third of all antipsychotic drugs. A study of 2,000 pharmacies in 1986 showed that 60.5% of prescriptions for nursing home residents over 65 years of age were for major tranquilizers and 17. 1% for minor versions.

A Harvard Medical School study of 55 Boston-area rest homes published in the Jan. 26, 1989, issue of The New England Journal of Medicine reported that 55% of the 1,201 nursing home residents it surveyed took at least one psychiatric drug, with 39% being given anti-psychotics.

These are not prescribed to "treat" any condition. They are administered solely to turn the patient into a zombie incapable of complaining or presenting problems to staff. Concerning their use on the elderly, Jerome Avorn, director of the program for the Analysis of Clinical Strategies at Harvard, pointed out, "Drugs do work. They do quiet them down. So does a lead pipe to the head."

Larry Hodge, administrator at the Life Care Center in Tennessee, described the impact on the elderly of these drugs: "Too often they were so zonked out during their meals that their heads were in the mashed potatoes."

Wilda Henry told The Arizona Republic that her 83-year-old mother became "a vegetable" five weeks after taking Haldol. This powerful mind-altering chemical, which the Soviet Union used for years to control dissidents, left her mother babbling, drooling, shaking, and unable to control her bowel functions.

Anise Debose of Washington, D.C., said her 76-year-old father entered a nursing home active, laughing, and talking. Four days later, after taking Mellaril and four other drugs, "He was restrained to a chair as rigid as a board when I saw him. His head was thrown back and his mouth was limply hanging down. Both eyes were closed. The impression all of us had was that he was dead."

In 1989, the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Aging reported that, while those over 60 years of age make up 17% of the population, they accounted for more than half the fatalities resulting from drug reactions. According to the American Hospital Association, of the 10,800,000 elderly admitted to hospitals each year, 1,900,000 are due to drug reactions. Four percent of those cases, an estimated 76,000 elderly a year, die. This annual death rate far exceeds the 58,021 Americans who lost their lives during the Vietnam War. An average of more than 200 elderly Americans die each day from drug reactions.

"People don't just die of old age," Theodore Leiff, professor of gerontology, Eastern Virginia University School of Medicine, points out. "Their deaths are caused by something." As case after case demonstrates, they are being killed behind the locked doors of nursing homes by lazy, incompetent, or criminal psychiatric staffs who use deadly drugs to quash complaints before they ever are voiced.

Creating insanity

These chemicals, capable of throwing the minds of users into chaos, have a long and well-documented history of creating insanity in persons who take them. In 1956, two years after the introduction of Thorazine, researchers reported that the drug caused psychosis, hallucinations, and increased anxiety. They speculated that this drug-induced insanity arose from the chemically straitjacketing effect of the drug.

In 1961, researchers reported the case of a 27-year-old man who was given Thorazine, after which he "complained of |feeling like an empty shell, floating around in the air,'" and said that he heard voices coming "from two small men standing on his chest." The researchers concluded that Thorazine was the cause of the man's "toxic psychosis."

Yet another paper, published in The American Journal of Psychiatry in 1964, found that major tranquilizers can "produce an acute psychotic reaction in an individual not previously psychotic." A 1975 paper described a negative effect called akathisia, a drug-induced inability to sit still comfortably.

Researcher Theodore Van Putten reported that nearly half of the 110 persons in the study had experienced akathisia. "[One woman] started to bang her head against the wall three days after an injection of [a major tranquilizer]. Her only utterance was: 'I just want to get rid of this whole body."' A woman who had been given these drugs for five days experienced "an upsurge in hallucinations, screaming, even more bizarre thinking, aggressive and also self-destructive outbursts, and agitated pacing or dancing." A third woman stated that, while on the tranquilizer, she felt hostile and hated everybody, and heard voices taunting her. Others complained of an "abject fear or terror" that was difficult for them to explain.

Such drug-induced symptoms are far worse than any underlying problems a person might have. Even more damning is the evidence that the damage caused by these drugs can be permanent.

Many types of psychiatric drugs, including the major tranquilizers, can cause lasting, grotesquely disfiguring nerve damage known as tardive dyskinesia or tardive dystonia. The muscles of the face and body contort and spasm involuntarily, drawing the face into hideous scowls and grimaces and twisting the body into bizarre contortions. These horrifying effects occur in more than 20% of persons "treated" with major tranquilizers and currently affect 400,000-1,000,000 Americans.

Psychiatrists theorize that these drugs damage the muscle-control portion of the brain in a way that makes it permanently "supersensitive" to messages passing down nerve pathways into the brain. The result is that this portion of the brain becomes permanently deranged. While the precise location of this brain damage is not known with certainty, there is no question that it exists. It is clearly visible in the faces of its tragic victims.

In the same way that major tranquilizers can throw the muscle-control portion of the brain into chaos, they also can make the thought-control area of the brain supersensitive, driving the person permanently insane. A 1980 study published in The American Journal of Psychiatry described 10 patients who suffered from this condition, which has been labeled "supersensitivity psychosis."

In the first stage, the individual becomes psychotic for a few days immediately after he or she stops taking the drugs. In the second, the insanity that emerges upon withdrawal from the psychiatric drug is persistent and may be irreversible. In the third stage, the psychosis is evident even while the patient is taking the psychiatric drugs. The study notes that, when this stage is reached, "in most cases" the person is doomed to be insane for life. This condition has created thousands of tortured victims, permanently destroyed, cast out of mental institutions to forage in garbage cans while wrestling with inner terrors implanted in their minds by psychiatric drugs.

There also is evidence that these psychiatric drugs can cause people to become violent. A Canadian research team that studied the effects of psychiatric drugs on prisoners found that "violent, aggressive incidents occurred significantly more frequently in inmates who were on psychotropic [psychiatric or mind-altering] medication than when these inmates were not ...." Inmates on major tranquilizers were shown to be more than twice as violent as they were when not taking psychiatric drugs. The researchers attributed the marked increase in violence to akathisia.

The Journal of the American Medical Association reported that, four days after a patient started taking Haldol, "he became uncontrollably agitated, could not sit still, and paced for several hours." After complaining of "a jumpy feeling inside, and violent urges to assault anyone near him," the man attacked and tried to kill his dog. The researcher noted the irony that the chemical could cause violence, "a behavior the drug was meant to alleviate."

Killers on

psychiatric drugs

Another article published in the American Journal of Forensic Psychiatry described five cases of extreme acts of physical violence caused by Haldol. In the first, a 23-year-old male with a history of developing severe symptoms of akathisia after being given Haldol was injected with the drug in the admissions room of a psychiatric unit.

After the injection, the man escaped, ran to a park, disrobed, and tried to rape a woman. "When pulled off by the husband, he proceeded down the street, broke down the front door of a house where an 81-year-old lady was sleeping. He severely beat her with his fists, 'to a pulp,' by his own description, following which he found knives and stabbed her repeatedly, resulting in her death." He then ran into another woman who was with her child and "repeatedly stabbed the woman in front of the child, where upon he moved on to the next person he encountered, a woman whom he severely assaulted and stabbed to the extent that an eye was lost and an opening into the anus was created resulting in major surgery."

The report describes four other cases of violence attributed to akathisia caused by Haldol. One was a suicide. Another was a suicide attempt in which a man stabbed himself repeatedly and later remarked that "he could never even feel the knife when stabbing himself." The third was a man who beat his mother to death with a hammer.

In the fourth case, a man "had been receiving Haldol as an outpatient for approximately four months and described how progressively his head was rushing, that he felt speeded up, that he was in great pain in his head and had an impulse to stab someone to try to get rid of the pain. He went to the nearby grocery store he frequented on a regular basis and impulsively and repeatedly stabbed the grocer whom he had known for some time."

Many similar acts of violence have been linked with these psychiatric drugs. One example is the 1989 case of David Peterson, who walked out of a mental institution in Middletown, Conn., bought a hunting knife, and then stabbed a nine-year-old girl 34 times, killing her. Peterson said he killed the girl to get back at his psychiatrist for not changing the drug he was being given, a major tranquilizer, that was causing him "pain."

In 1987, Kathleen Gannon, of Tempe, Ariz., stabbed her mother to death with garden shears and beat her father to death with the butt of a rifle. According to a source who examined her, Gannon believed that, when her parents were dead, "she would then somehow become a normal person." The day before Gannon murdered her parents, she was injected with a major tranquilizer and given a prescription for the same drug in pill form.

In 1988, Charles Knowles killed two Detroit police officers before he was shot to death in a siege of his apartment. Knowles had been subjected to psychiatric drugs, including Haldol, and other procedures over a period of 19 years. His family and friends described him as not a violent person, and Michigan State Mental Health Director Thomas Watkins confirmed that Knowles had "no real history of acts of violence" prior to his psychiatric treatment.

Minor tranquilizers, or anti-anxiety agents - the most widely used class of psychiatric drugs - also have been shown to create violence. Included in this category are Xanax, Halcion, Valium, Ativan, Restoril, Tranxene, Librium, Miltown, Equanil, Atarax, Vistaril, and Dalmane.

The Canadian team that researched the connection between aggression and psychiatric drugs in a prison population stated that, of all classes, "anti-anxiety agents appeared to be most implicated, with 3.6 times as many acts of aggression occurring when inmates were on these drugs." They maintained: "Considering that certainly not all aggressive personalities are in prison, that frustrations also abound in society and that diazepam [Valiuml is the most prescribed drug in the U.S. with chlordiazepoxide [Librium] third, the implications of the combination of anti-anxiety agents and aggressiveness are astounding." In 1970, a textbook on the side effects of psychiatric drugs already had pointed out their potential for violence. "Indeed, even acts of violence such as murder and suicide have been attributed to the rage reactions induced by chlordiazepoxide and diazepa." On March 30, 1981, 11 years after this was published and six years after the Canadian study, John Hinckley, Jr., attempted to assassinate Pres. Ronald Reagan in the midst of a Valium-induced rage.

Since the Canadian study was published, Valium has been replaced by Xanax, another minor tranquilizer, as the most widely prescribed psychiatric drug. Yet, Xanax is as deadly, if not more so, than Valium.

According to a 1984 study, "Extreme anger and hostile behavior emerged from eight of the first 80 patients we treated with alprazolam [Xanax]. The responses consisted of physical assaults by two patients, behavior potentially dangerous to others by two more, and verbal outbursts by the remaining four." A woman who had no history of violence before taking Xanax "erupted with screams on the fourth day of alprazolam treatment, and held a steak knive to her mother's throat for a few minutes."

James Wilson had been taking Xanax before he entered the Oakland Elementary School in Greenwood, S.C., on Sept. 26, 1988. He shot and killed two eight-year-old girls and wounded seven other children and two teachers.

Another widely prescribed category of psychiatric drugs consists of antidepressants, the most common being Prozac, Pamelor, Elavil, Tofranil, Adapin, Sinequan, and Desyrel. Of these, the largest sub-group is the tricyclics, so named because three circular rings are present in their molecular structure.

In 1986, a study linked increased hostility with Elavil. The researchers noted that persons on the drug "appeared progressively more hostile, irritable, and behaviorally impulsive .... The increase in demanding behavior and assaultive acts was statistically significant .... A year later, the same researchers found that those patients taking Elavil "were behaviorally more demanding, made more suicidal threats, and were more often physically assaultive toward others ...."

Nevertheless, psychiatrists prescribe these dangerous mind-altering drugs to children for "mental disorders" such as wetting the bed, overactivity, or even being late to school. Youngsters who are given these chemicals often become hysterical, defiant, belligerent, or hostile.

At the 1989 murder trial of Stanley Jurgevich in Steamboat Springs, Colo., a medical expert testified that "aggressiveness, assaultiveness, and agitation" generated by the tricyclic antidepressant Sinequan had played a significant role in the crime. In a 1988 Massachusetts case, Robert Lee Harvey slit his six-year-old son's throat and stabbed him to death, then started stabbing himself. Harvey had a psychiatric history extending back 14 years and had been undergoing treatment shortly before the killing. According to police, antidepressant drugs were found at the scene.

"Wonder drug"

causes violence

Over the years, many new psychiatric drugs have been promoted by psychiatrists and pharmaceutical companies as "wonder drugs," only to turn out to be highly destructive. Besides Valium and Xanax, the antidepressant Prozac has been found to create intense, violent, suicidal thoughts.

A study published in September, 1989, revealed that Prozac can generate akathisia in as many as 25% of those who take it. Two other papers subsequently confirmed the connection between Prozac and suicidal thoughts and actions.

When Prozac user Joseph Wesbecker gunned down 20 of his former co-workers in Louisville, Ky., in 1989, killing eight and then himself, he was exhibiting akathisia-like symptoms, including restlessness and pacing. Three days prior, his psychiatrist had described him as exhibiting an "increased level of agitation and anger." The psychiatrist wrote in his patient record, "Plan - Discontinue Prozac which may be cause."

There have been many other cases of persons committing suicide, sometimes coupled with murder, while on Prozac. In 1991, for instance, former San Diego, Calif., deputy sheriff Hank Adams shot his wife and himself to death in front of his 17-year-old daughter. Adams, who was taking Prozac, had no history of violence.

Some persons who nearly have killed themselves or slain others while on Prozac have described becoming progressively more hostile and aggressive after starting on the drug, a clear symptom of akathisia. In these cases, when Prozac was discontinued, these seemingly inexplicable feelings of aggression disappeared.

In 1990, New York secretary Rhonda Hala filed a $150,000,000 lawsuit against Prozac manufacturer Eli Lilly, charging that the drug had driven her to mutilate herself with razor-sharp objects more than 150 times and to attempt suicide six times. Hala stated that, after she came off the drug, her obsessive impulses to harm herself disappeared.

In Scotland, Duncan Murchison, who had no prior history of violence, threatened to murder his girlfriend while on a rampage precipitated by his use of Prozac. During the six months he was on the drug, Murchison became progressively more hostile and aggressive - symptoms that disappeared after he stopped taking Prozac. While he was on the drug, Murchison twice attempted to commit suicide.

Since its introduction onto the market in January, 1988, the drug has compiled the following record:

* It accumulated more adverse reaction reports filed with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration within the first three and a half years than any other drug in the 22-year history of the FDA's adverse drug reaction reporting system.

* As of June, 1992, more than 23,000 adverse reaction reports regarding Prozac had been received by the FDA. These included delirium, hallucinations, convulsions, violent hostility and aggression, psychosis, and more than 1,100 suicide attempts and a similar number of Prozac-related deaths.

* In a two-year period following the first lawsuit in mid 1990, more than 100 lawsuits were filed against Eli Lilly, seeking almost $ 1,000,000,000 in damages by families of people who had committed suicide while on Prozac, families of those who had been murdered by persons on the drug, and individuals who had themselves been damaged while on Prozac. The Association of Trial Lawyers of America has established a special Prozac litigation section to provide information to attorneys who are approached by people harmed by the drug.

* Numerous former Prozac users have argued in court that the drug pushed them to commit insane acts of murderous violence.

* Published reports from researchers at Harvard Medical School, Yale University, Columbia University, the State University of New York, and the Veterans Administration have presented persuasive evidence that Prozac causes intense, violent, suicidal preoccupation. A study at the University of South Carolina had to be terminated abruptly when five subjects developed intense, violent, suicidal, and homicidal thoughts.

* Documents released under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act revealed that, prior to the Wesbecker murders in 1989, the FDA had evidence of five violent Prozac-linked deaths in its files.

* Pre-market tests of prozac done by Eli Lilly show at least six deaths linked to the drug.

* Drug oversight authorities in Sweden and Norway have refused to authorize Eli Lilly to market Prozac in those countries, maintaining that testing was inadequate to justify approval. Both countries expressed concern at the high 20-milligram starting dose.

* The Public Citizen Health Research Group, an organization founded by consumer activist Ralph Nader, has called for the FDA to require a suicide warning to be placed on Prozac.

* After conducting an inquest into the suicide of an 18-year-old Prozac user, a coroner in British Columbia stated that he could not rule out the drug as the cause of the suicide and called on the Canadian government to establish a national registry to monitor all Prozac-related deaths in the country.

While the Food and Drug Administration is entrusted with the vigilant protection of Americans from dangerous drugs, an inspection of the hazardous medications it has allowed on the market shows the agency to be ineffective. This is explained in large measure by the staggering conflicts of interests the FDA has allowed into the drug oversight process. For instance, a hearing into the charges against Prozac and other psychiatric antidepressants was held in late 1991, at which the agency claimed to be unable to find any damning evidence against antidepressants.

Subsequent investigation of the panel revealed that five out of the 10 members had active financial interests with the manufacturers of antidepressants totaling more than $1,000,000 at the time they claimed to find no evidence against Prozac. The FDA has been accused of serving the interests of the profit-driven drug companies, not those of the American people, and allowing killer drugs to be placed on the market.

Each day, at a handsome profit, the psychiatric industry writes new prescriptions for disability, violence, suicide, and murder. The disastrous consequences are felt by all Americans.

In 1989, Emanuel Tsegaye walked into the Chevy Chase Federal Savings Bank in Bethesda, Md., and opened fire on his fellow employees with a .38-caliber revolver. After killing three women and critically wounding a male employee, he took his own life. Tsegaye had been kept on psychiatric drugs since his 1986 release from Perkins Psychiatric Institution in Jessup, Md.

Betty Hahn of Tustin, Calif., bludgeoned her mother to death with a hammer in 1988. Hahn had been given two psychiatric drugs - the antidepressant Pamelor and the anti-anxiety agent Xanax - and apparently was withdrawing from Xanax at the time of the killing.

Mary Feurst was described by her husband, Russell, as a loving mother and spouse when she entered the mental health system. After extensive psychological and psychiatric treatment, which included antidepressant drugs, Mary said that she was planning on killing her children. She then was institutionalized and treated with more psychiatric drugs.

The psychiatrists released her in June, 1982, after what they felt was "significant recovery." They did not warn him that his wife was homicidal or caution him about the effects the drugs she was taking could have on her behavior. On July 22, 1982, Mary Feurst shot her six-year-old son in the face and back and her nine-year-old daughter in the head with a .38-caliber revolver, killing them both. "Psychiatry killed my children," Russell Feurst maintains. "Don't let that happen to you!"

COPYRIGHT 1994 Society for the Advancement of Education
This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.

posted in Bipolar - 3 replies

Depakote doses, length of treatment, and effectiveness?

2008-02-27T19:57:15Z

What doses do those on you on Depakote take daily? And what is the longest you took it (months, years?)

For those of you on Depakote for more than 1-2 months, how effective have you found it? What, if any, side-effects bother you?

The more I read about it the more it becomes clear it isn't really all that great sounding for long-term use, and the drug sheet that comes with it (the one some doctors don't show you unless you ask) says the effectiveness for use in mania for periods longer than THREE WEEKS isn't well established. Seems like a high risk-to-benefit ratio (possible liver damage, etc.)

posted in Bipolar - 4 replies

DECEIT AND GETTING RID OF TESTIMONEYS

2008-02-26T14:51:29Z

how to do this?

posted in Bipolar - 3 replies

Breaking News: SSRI drugs exposed as useless quackery

2008-02-26T12:52:54Z

fuel for the fire. this showed up in my email last nite. could our government have done something of this magnitude? try google: aspartame poison. another real eye opener.

Dear NaturalNews / NewsTarget readers,

We have two breaking news stories for you today. Both are jaw-dropping shockers that I consider must-read stories:

First, a groundbreaking new study reveals that SSRI drugs are a massive scam that in clinical trials actually worked no better than placebo! In other words, all those people buying antidepressant drugs could have achieved the same results by popping sugar pills! The whole industry was a fraud! Read the feature story below for the study details.

The second breaking story concerns the Supreme Court's argument that Big Pharma should be granted blanket immunity from all product liability lawsuits! It's an astounding setback for consumer rights and is nothing less than a Supreme Betrayal of the American People and a surrender to the corporations. Read the second story below for full details (and try not to let your jaw hit the floor...)

NaturalNews.com printable article
Originally published February 26 2008
Psych Drug Shocker: Antidepressant Drugs Work No Better than Placebo; Big Pharma Hoax Finally Exposed
by Mike Adams

(NaturalNews) The following is a groundbreaking report from the independent, honest medical journal PLoS Medicine (which accepts no advertising money from Big Pharma). The full study, with sources and attributions, can be found at http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlse...

This study is sending shockwaves through the medical community. It finally reveals the Big Pharma hoax behind antidepressant drugs. Through fraudulent science and clever marketing, drug companies have managed to take a drug that works no better than placebo and turn it into a multi-billion dollar scam. But the truth is finally out: Taking Prozac is no more effective than taking a sugar pill! Hundreds of millions of consumers have been fooled by the quack science supporting modern pharmaceutical medicine. Read the study details below...

Editor's Summary:

Everyone feels miserable occasionally. But for some people -- those with depression -- these sad feelings last for months or years and interfere with daily life. Depression is a serious medical illness caused by imbalances in the brain chemicals that regulate mood. It affects one in six people at some time during their life, making them feel hopeless, worthless, unmotivated, even suicidal. Doctors measure the severity of depression using the "Hamilton Rating Scale of Depression" (HRSD), a 17�21 item questionnaire. The answers to each question are given a score and a total score for the questionnaire of more than 18 indicates severe depression. Mild depression is often treated with psychotherapy or talk therapy (for example, cognitive�behavioral therapy helps people to change negative ways of thinking and behaving). For more severe depression, current treatment is usually a combination of psychotherapy and an antidepressant drug, which is hypothesized to normalize the brain chemicals that affect mood. Antidepressants include "tricyclics," "monoamine oxidases," and "selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors" (SSRIs). SSRIs are the newest antidepressants and include fluoxetine, venlafaxine, nefazodone, and paroxetine.

Why Was This Study Done?

Although the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), and other licensing authorities have approved SSRIs for the treatment of depression, some doubts remain about their clinical efficacy. Before an antidepressant is approved for use in patients, it must undergo clinical trials that compare its ability to improve the HRSD scores of patients with that of a placebo, a dummy tablet that contains no drug. Each individual trial provides some information about the new drug's effectiveness but additional information can be gained by combining the results of all the trials in a "meta-analysis," a statistical method for combining the results of many studies. A previously published meta-analysis of the published and unpublished trials on SSRIs submitted to the FDA during licensing has indicated that these drugs have only a marginal clinical benefit. On average, the SSRIs improved the HRSD score of patients by 1.8 points more than the placebo, whereas NICE has defined a significant clinical benefit for antidepressants as a drug�placebo difference in the improvement of the HRSD score of 3 points. However, average improvement scores may obscure beneficial effects between different groups of patient, so in the meta-analysis in this paper, the researchers investigated whether the baseline severity of depression affects antidepressant efficacy.

What Did the Researchers Do and Find?

The researchers obtained data on all the clinical trials submitted to the FDA for the licensing of fluoxetine, venlafaxine, nefazodone, and paroxetine. They then used meta-analytic techniques to investigate whether the initial severity of depression affected the HRSD improvement scores for the drug and placebo groups in these trials. They confirmed first that the overall effect of these new generation of antidepressants was below the recommended criteria for clinical significance. Then they showed that there was virtually no difference in the improvement scores for drug and placebo in patients with moderate depression and only a small and clinically insignificant difference among patients with very severe depression. The difference in improvement between the antidepressant and placebo reached clinical significance, however, in patients with initial HRSD scores of more than 28 -- that is, in the most severely depressed patients. Additional analyses indicated that the apparent clinical effectiveness of the antidepressants among these most severely depressed patients reflected a decreased responsiveness to placebo rather than an increased responsiveness to antidepressants.

What Do These Findings Mean?

These findings suggest that, compared with placebo, the new-generation antidepressants do not produce clinically significant improvements in depression in patients who initially have moderate or even very severe depression, but show significant effects only in the most severely depressed patients. The findings also show that the effect for these patients seems to be due to decreased responsiveness to placebo, rather than increased responsiveness to medication. Given these results, the researchers conclude that there is little reason to prescribe new-generation antidepressant medications to any but the most severely depressed patients unless alternative treatments have been ineffective. In addition, the finding that extremely depressed patients are less responsive to placebo than less severely depressed patients but have similar responses to antidepressants is a potentially important insight into how patients with depression respond to antidepressants and placebos that should be investigated further.

[Here is the abstract from the study]

Initial Severity and Antidepressant Benefits: A Meta-Analysis of Data Submitted to the Food and Drug Administration

Irving Kirsch, Brett J. Deacon, Tania B. Huedo-Medina, Alan Scoboria, Thomas J. Moore, Blair T. Johnson

Background

Meta-analyses of antidepressant medications have reported only modest benefits over placebo treatment, and when unpublished trial data are included, the benefit falls below accepted criteria for clinical significance. Yet, the efficacy of the antidepressants may also depend on the severity of initial depression scores. The purpose of this analysis is to establish the relation of baseline severity and antidepressant efficacy using a relevant dataset of published and unpublished clinical trials.

Methods and Findings

We obtained data on all clinical trials submitted to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the licensing of the four new-generation antidepressants for which full datasets were available. We then used meta-analytic techniques to assess linear and quadratic effects of initial severity on improvement scores for drug and placebo groups and on drug�placebo difference scores. Drug�placebo differences increased as a function of initial severity, rising from virtually no difference at moderate levels of initial depression to a relatively small difference for patients with very severe depression, reaching conventional criteria for clinical significance only for patients at the upper end of the very severely depressed category. Meta-regression analyses indicated that the relation of baseline severity and improvement was curvilinear in drug groups and showed a strong, negative linear component in placebo groups.

Conclusions

Drug�placebo differences in antidepressant efficacy increase as a function of baseline severity, but are relatively small even for severely depressed patients. The relationship between initial severity and antidepressant efficacy is attributable to decreased responsiveness to placebo among very severely depressed patients, rather than to increased responsiveness to medication.

Source: PLoS Medicine: http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlse...

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posted in Bipolar - 1 reply

Sleeping, waking, not sleeping....

2008-02-26T05:37:05Z

I get either so wound up or so morose that the thought of going to sleep freaks me out even frightens me. Like I might not wake up if I do go to sleep.

But then I dont want to wake up either. Since I cant see getting up and doing it all over again sometimes. I just want to keep sleeping and dreaming.Or to just stop. Not be dead but just stop, to be suspended in time maybe.

I'm just babbling while I sit here and contemplate going to bed. I have only been awake for 24 hours. I keep finding distractions to keep me from sleeping.Tribe is very good at that. I dont want to sleep yet. Cant.

Sorry just needed to let my brain drool a little.

posted in Bipolar - 6 replies

extreme intake of alcohol and cigarettes

2008-02-23T04:46:17Z

In this last year I have begun to identify myself as an alcoholic. It's helped to have other brilliant friends who also identify as alcoholics. Basically I wasn't interested in identifying as one because I associated that group (or rather 'drunks') as pathetic people who didn't do anything worthwhile or productive with their lives and couldn't have a really lucid conversation. I have developed myself into a very successful recording engineer and I constantly marvel at the conversations I have with my friends and clients (who soon become friends). I totally don't fit into the stereotype I have about alcoholics and from what I've heard from my friends who've tried Alcoholics Anonymous I totally don't associate with that 'group' either (for the same reasons). I consume large amounts of alcohol each day as an extension of my pharmaceutical medication for this condition. Drinking alcohol and smoking tons of cigarettes keeps me sane. I feel extremely functional, more now than I have ever felt in my entire life. I'm not sure I want to change. I just would never tell my family how much I drink. I feel sort of embarrassed about it. I don't know what I should do.

Nicholas

posted in Bipolar - 5 replies

This is crap!

2008-02-20T18:41:45Z

http://touwatchdog.tribe.net/thread/715e18a7-8457-450a-b9e9-c2f673c367f7#d8f26653-adeb-4bb8-b0d7-a71fabc710b0

"
Leda
Leda
offline 99
new post
Re: ?
Today, 5:20 AM
in response to: Re: ?
Do not make light of my disability or claim that my disability is less legitimate than your own. >>>

Well it is

I'm sorry....not being able to just GET OVER SHIT that happens in life and having some pill-pushing Doc label you as "clinically depressed" is in NO WAY the same as people who have real disabilities

sell your lame-ass sob-story to some pharmaceutical rep "

------

How many people here can "just get over it"? Hmm?

How many people in this tribe get that kind of treatment from others? Not just on Tribe but at home, at school, at work?

If you are getting it at work, it is illegal. It's a legitimate disability, and it is not legal to have that used on you, in that way, at work.

It is probably illegal to do that at school, to have professors give you a bad time if you are disabled.

It is against the TOU to go after people because of their disability, but we all know that is not enforced. If it was a racist remark, it would be removed. But if it is against disability in general, or me specifically, nothing is done.

Why is that?

And what can be done to change the perceptions of the world at large?

posted in Bipolar - 13 replies

help

2008-02-17T04:08:36Z

my dad is drinking and smoking himself into cancerous alcoholic oblivion every night, and i have to see and hear it ... i cant handle it ... i just cant.

fuck this mfucking world.

im so sick of crying, i swear to god, i am so sick of seeing toooooo much.

why cant i be one of those lucky few thaqt sees only happy pretty things, the ostriches who bury their heads in the sands so they dont hear their father vomiting his scotch up at 1.33am???

fuck this.

posted in Bipolar - 5 replies

i am close to parricide ...

2008-02-16T09:26:49Z

it just never ends ... never.

i am so sick of this ... i am so sick of trying my best with this so called fucked up disfunctional "family" who i belong to by blood only, certainly not ties of love nor concern.

http://psychologytoday.com/articles/index.php?term=pto-1803.html&fromMod=popular_parenting

why do people murder their parents?

because their parents murdered them long ago ... perhaps not to the point of burying them in the ground, but by killing their child-like wonderment, their creativity, their curiousity, their caring and open-hearted personalities.

my parents began their slow process of killing me when i was 3.

I am now 30.

Will it never end?

=(

posted in Bipolar - 10 replies

self-care strategies

2008-02-12T03:26:17Z

hey all,

here is an article to help during difficult emotional times.

http://healingsolutions.ca/article_grounding.shtml

i hope some of the info will be of help.

namaste.

posted in Bipolar - 0 replies

The Food and Drug Administration says 11 anti-epilepsy drugs double the risk of suicidal thoughts and behavior

2008-02-03T20:32:00Z

Drug alert

The Food and Drug Administration says 11 anti-epilepsy drugs double the risk of suicidal thoughts and behavior:

Generic name (Brand names)

-- Carbamazepine (Carbatrol, Equetro, Tegretol, Tegretol XR)

-- Felbamate (Felbatol)

-- Gabapentin (Neurontin)

-- Lamotrigine (Lamictal)

-- Levetiracetam (Keppra)

-- Oxcarbazepine (Trileptal)

-- Pregabalin (Lyrica)

-- Tiagabine (Gabitril)

-- Topiramate (Topamax)

-- Valproate (Depakote, Depakote ER, Depakene, Depacon)

-- Zonisamide (Zonegran)

Source: FDA

Full story: www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi

posted in Bipolar - 4 replies

Bipolar as a source for creativity / artistry?

2008-02-02T04:45:27Z

As a bipolar and an artist and hopeless community seeker :), I wanted to bring a website that I along with my wife (ADHD), have set up for the purpose of providing a "Connection" point for those creativ-ites who live lives of creativity and artistry and who might also "experience" some type of organic brain "disorder".

We would appreciate you checking out the site, and possibly becoming a participant in the community.

http://www.creativeconnectionarts.com

~ Pat

posted in Bipolar - 3 replies

give in and blossom, baby!

2008-01-27T11:16:40Z

i wrote it (give in and blossom), as a reply to jo in eury's last thread, as she was talking of the difficulties of having such different experiences from everybody else around her; bloke suggested it was thread-worthy.

most of us,bp's, try (for various periods, sometime forever,) to fit in.
for years we go about thinking, what's wrong with me, why can't i just be like everybody else?
maybe, when today's bp kids grow up, they'll have an easier path; maybe they'll be, thanks to growing awareness, more acceptable and understood by society. they may even be (dare i say?) revered for what they gift humanity with. many bp's gifts have been only appreciated
after their deaths; maybe, in the future, society will get it sooner.
we all feel the burden of trying to carry a normal life; we arenot normal, we can't be normal. i resent that politically correct crap, there's no
"normal", we are all "normal". no! not all people are normal; only those who fit the widely accepted norms are normal.
trying to fit in, get a normal job, normal family life, normal academic life, normal everyday routine, is for us a struggle, a war we can't win.
why fight then?
being like everybody else, anybody else, means not being ourselves, not doing the best for us. many time it means not using our talents
and even getting very ill.
why don't we give ourself what the future bps may have?
i know, the "how" is hard and different for each of us, but we could help each other with support and ideas.

so give in and blossom, baby!

as i'm writing this, trying to make words of my thoughts, feeling more sure of them, i keep wanting to thank bloke for the insight and the nudge. cheers, dear!

posted in Bipolar - 10 replies

where is eury?

2008-01-26T04:59:25Z

anybody heard from her lately, since she'd moved out?

posted in Bipolar - 6 replies

Antidepressant Studies Unpublished

2008-01-25T23:48:22Z

Misinformation and manipulated information in the health industry piss me off !

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/health/17depress.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

posted in Bipolar - 10 replies

When you're finally doing all the right stuff ...

2008-01-23T10:47:43Z

eg:
- meds
- doctors
- studying/phd student

But you are forced to live with your parents again for the past 6 mnths, and prob the next 3-4ish.

The "family unit" (PAH!) where MOST of the emotional, violent, psychological and emotional abuse occurred from age 3 until i ran away at 19 (for good, that time), then moved o/s for 8 years, where the family shit has still gone, but with a hemisphere to separate us.

Financially I am FORCED, TRAPPED to live with the family here for the next, at least 3-6 months.

It's my mother mostly, isn't it always?
I believe she has always been an undiagnosed (ie REFUSED to ever acknowledge that possibility) bipolar sufferer as well.

Accdg to her, Im the fat, ugly, failure, bitch etc etc that has caused every single problem EVER.

Poland was invaded? My fault.
Her unhappiness, jealousy, fury etc ... my fault.

I'm trying to stay strong .. im trying so so so hard to just get thru this ..

... but god, it's worn me down to a grain of sand ... a speck in the wind.

HELP! ADVICE! A LISTENING / READING EAR!!

thx!!!

posted in Bipolar - 36 replies