Mental Illness and Baby Pictures: A Match Made In Heaven

I haven't logged into Typepad in so long that it had forgotten me and required me to reenter my information. Wow, I am THE BEST BLOGGER EVER.

Over the past few weeks, I have been having some mental health issues. Okay, that's not true. Over the past few years I've been having mental health issues. FINE, it's been nearing in on a decade -- must you badger me, internet?! In late February of this year, I went onto a new antidepressant, Effexor, and also took a complete leave of my mind. It got lost somewhere in the couch cushions, I think. My anxiety levels shot off the charts, I slept twelve hours a day and still felt tired, then at night I sprang to life and paced frantically around the apartment with my mind racing. I was homebound as well, because, let's face it the outdoors is a terrifying place filled with sidewalks and pigeons and squirrels.

It turns out that I was having a mixed episode. A mixed episode is something that happens if you're bipolar, which apparently I am. Not depressed, as I've been told by several doctors, a couple therapists, and at least one or two strangers from the internet. I've been repeatedly prescribed antidepressants, which would pull me out of my bipolar depression and slingshot me into hypomania, at which point I was so busy doing things like getting honors in graduate classes as an undergrad while carrying a full class load, not sleeping very much, and admiring the beautiful beautifulness that is life I would take myself off the antidepressant. Who needs mental health medication when LIFE IS SO SUDDENLY AND INEXPLICABLY GRAND WHEN JUST A FEW MONTHS AGO IT WAS EXACTLY THE SAME AND SUCKED?

I went on Effexor in February because I'd been sliding into another bipolar depression. Effexor didn't just slingshot me out of it, it catapulted me out of depression, past hypomania, over a flat out bipolar mania, and landed me in a crappy mixed state. After nearly two months of living with a weird, unwashed, anxious specter, Ryan dragged me to a psychiatrist, where I was diagnosed with bipolar II disorder currently exhibiting as bipolar I disorder (the more horrendous of the two) because of the Effexor. I've changed medications and things seem to be looking up. I went outside and ran errands the other day, and I didn't even end up huddle in a public restroom, texting Ryan to COME HELP ME COME HELP ME NOW.

This has been a really trying experience, and blogging has temporarily fallen off my list of priorities. But, hopefully, my meds are starting to help and I am back, baby.

Speaking of babies, I have been scanning my old baby pictures and uploading them to flickr. Most of them are set to private (I actually DO have some boundaries, believe it or not), but I have changed the permissions on some pictures so you can bask in my baby cuteness.

Comments

[califmom]

An awesome display of cute and human. Well done, and welcome back, wherever back is. I fully agree about "outside." I went out there today. I have to work up to it each and every time I go there. Glad you found a shrinky dink who figured out the puzzle that is you. That's a novelty all its own.

[jagosaurus]

Yes, welcome back from me too. And good luck.

And now I will return to basking in your baby cuteness.

[Kate The Great]

You still totally make that face when you sleep ;)

[Jack]

Oooh, Effexor is horrible if you're the least bit bipolar. Was great for my dysthymia, but terrible for my wife. Glad you found better meds!

[Emily]

Wow, that sounds scary but I am glad you are doing better. XOXO.