needing advice

Hey guys,

I'm new to these forums, but I've wanted to find a community that understands what it's like to live with bipolar and maybe get some advice or insights into certain things that I struggle with.

I've been diagnosed with bipolar since 2021, and it took me quite a while before I even believed the diagnosis, and accepted that it is my life now. As I understand it, this will be a life-long struggle that can be made easier with medication--I have tried so many medications but it seems like certain quirks always seem to leak through, no matter what I do.

I struggle with basic hygiene, energy levels, and spending. My doctors always just change my medication instead of giving me anything else to help combat it-- are there any suggestions? I have a job so I can at least take showers every once in a while, but stuff like brushing my teeth is really hard to do. I'm also very in debt >.<. Any suggestions are welcome, I just wanted to see if anyone who's actually dealt with this disorder knows anything that maybe the doctors don't know.

Thank you for reading

Welcome

My pdoc usually fiddles around with my meds. My therapist is the one who gives me strategies. Do you have a therapist? Can you give your credit card to someone for safe keeping when you're hypomanic to avoid overspending?

Coping skills are for everyone but especially essential for us bipolars

I learned a lot from therapy. I’ve had a few over the years, I’m 66. I got the best advice and skills from no-nonsense brisk therapists. The over emphatic ones didn’t really help. I also preferred therapists that understood bipolar and could give me feedback on my moods so I could learn to self moderate and see a pdoc before the mood was completely unstable. Pdocs do meds that’s what they know, that’s what they’re comfortable doing. I’ve learned to tell pdocs I don’t want a med change, I just want to to know this is going on and that I’m struggling, maybe an adjustment in meds but not a total overhaul.

Whatever you do, DON'T let yourself become a walking pharmacy! I am currently a walking pharmacy and hate it and don't know what to do because whenever we try tapering me off a med it ends in a disaster! We've tried SIX so far with no success! I'm doomed! I'm stuck on all these damn meds! 😭 😭 😭

Okay, no, but seriously, keep your med count down. Or try to. And try NOT to become dependent on a benzo because those are awful to get off of.

I'm on 4 different meds, 1 injection, 1 side effect medicine, 2 antipsychotics, and 1 sleep medication (2 pills). I tried just the injection, I wasn't sleeping and it felt like the last week it ran out. So now I'm on 4. Not as bad as my husband but still a lot. I encourage you to see a therapist to learn your symptoms, and cope with them. Medicine isn't going to take everything away you'll still have break through symptoms.

I have found that sleep hygiene is very important too. Good sleep does more for me than all the meds in the world have ever done. How is your sleep? I struggle with overspending too even when I'm stable it's a struggle. I've gotten better at it over time, but I could improve more I just don't know why it's so darn hard for me.

Yes to sleep hygiene!!!! I can be stable off bipolar meds (well, in regards to bipolar, the comorbidities are more trauma/environmental based and more chronic/less episodic than bipolar is, so that's gonna be an issue regardless) if I am getting good quality sleep every night. The thing is, without meds I don't get good quality sleep every night. Haven't even taken something that specifically is used to treat bipolar in a while (not that I'm in any way stable these days), but I take clonidine for sleep and use diazepam as needed so when I'm in crisis mode and past a skills breakdown point, I have something to let me sit and get back to a place I can cope with for a little.

Maybe this is coming from someone who was initially thought to have severe bipolar or even schizoaffective, but now is thought to be more mild-moderate overall but just looks worse because of a strong foundation built on trauma and neglect and having a lot of past treatment providers that need to quit and get an overnight stocking job at Walmart, but when you're outside of episodes, still work on your other stuff. Everybody has their bad habits and automatic negative thoughts and cognitive distortions, etc. And the better you handle those, the more manageable bipolar gets, the better you can cope with the breakthrough episodes, and it's best to learn these things when you are not manic or depressed. No one says "I'm going to become a hiker" and goes straight to Everest successfully. They start with low elevation stuff, shorter stuff, and that gets easy, and as that gets easy, the more strenuous climbs become more of a possibility to accomplish. Same with mental health. You can't learn to deal with a crisis in a crisis.


I've never really been an overspender (unless you count when in active addiction and of course prioritized getting high over having savings), but I have struggled a lot with hygiene in the past and a lot of it is getting into habits and learning what works to motivate you. I'm in the habit of every day waking up, having some water, choosing the clothes I'm going to wear, and hopping in the shower. I know people who brush their teeth in the shower because that's killing two birds with one stone: you're already in there, the water's flowing, it's more accessible and easier to remember if "shampoo+soap up" just becomes "shampoo+soap up+brush teeth" all as one thing rather than having the shower and then a completely separate task.


There's a user here that used to have a problem with flossing, but now loves to do it because she does it while watching TV. She's not standing there in front of the mirror just focusing on the floss and her mouth wanting to do other stuff, but she knows her mouth feels better when she does it (and that reward enforces the behavior too).

I don't think a lot of people find a "perfect med combo" that as long as they take they never have any symptoms or hard to deal with side effects (I certainly don't), and like raspberrytorte said if you have those expectations and a doc into polypharmacy it is easy to find yourself on more meds than you like, and more meds than is necessary, and at that point you're probably getting a lot of side effects, maybe interactions, and it's hard to tell when something changes which meds are part of the solution (and there may be a med that's the problem, but if you're on 7 meds it's nearly impossible to know which one it is since a lot of them cause similar side effects). So look for adequate, not perfect, with med combos.

Learn what your early warning signs are for the different types of episodes (and even "types of types of episodes," like I can have euphoric manias or ragey manias or just plain chaos manias and the beginnings can sometimes look similar, but if I'm heading towards a "chaos mania" or a ragey mania, I probably won't feel as invincible and optimistic and confident as a euphoric one for example), and act early (lower stress levels, focus on getting the right rest/activity balance, and up the self-care some as some ideas) to keep things from getting worse. Sometimes this is enough, sometimes we DO need to make an earlier appointment with our doc for med change or at least a dose change. That's okay too. What isn't okay is ignoring things as they get worse and worse until you're a complete wreck.