So, since the age of like 13-14, I've experienced major depression for almost my entire adult life. Doctors still haven't diagnosed me correctly yet, I was on many different SSRI's for like 4 years and it never helped, honestly, I really believe it just made my depression worse. I've had plenty of doctors suspect bipolar disorder but the major reason they couldn't diagnose it was because of my lack of major manic symptoms, I tend to have more depressive symptoms that last for weeks to months then one day, like magic, I'll wake up and just feel euphoria from life for about a week.
I've done my own research and I really believe I may be suffering from Bipolar II Disorder, the symptoms are, feeling more depression then hypomania, a higher chance of suicide/suicide attempts, short periods of hypomania followed my much longer periods of depression, also, I've read that Bipolar II Disorder can be more difficult to diagnose. This really sounds a lot like how I've felt for years and also explains the reason I've been treated for depression but, even though it's been suspected, no diagnosis of bipolar disorder has ever been made by a doctor.
What really got me looking into this was the final episode in season 4 of "Shameless" on Showtime (SPOILER ALERT). It depicted a 20 something year old kid who was hardly sleeping, acting like he was on stimulants and just always on the go, happy and energetic. In the final episode of the season, he just wouldn't wake up, things had been going great and then the next thing I knew he's super depressed and slept for like 24+ hours strait, not getting up for anyone or anything.
See, that first part is not me, I may get a slight rise in energy level for 5-7 days or so where I do little things like go on hikes, spent more time with friends, stay awake for up to 24 hours (not using any stimulants at all) because I'm having fun and I'd say just generally being a lot happier with my life and myself. What happens next is probably the most painful thing that happens in my life right now, I'll just shift from being a tad bit more energetic for a while then normal people are to one day not having the energy to even get out of bed, sometimes I'll stay asleep for up to 20+ hours. This can sometimes be triggered by something but often I don't know why it's happening.
Usually, this lasts for up to like a month, getting fairly less sever after usually the first 7-14 days but for about a week or 2, all I want to do is sleep and often, I'll wish I'd die in my sleep. When I am awake, usually I'm still in bed and I mainly just watch TV, shoot up bupe, drink, take benzos and smoke pot, trying to get back to sleep. I don't eat very much at all during these times either, generally about 1, normal sized meal per day, if even that sometimes. This is all when I start get suicidal, my self esteem will be way down, I'll absolutely hate myself and killing myself is just sitting in my mind all day long, reasons to do it, how to do it, etc. Thankfully, though I've tried in the past, I don't think I'll go through with killing myself, not intentionally anyways but it's hard to say, I feel like really going through with it but I have too many people counting on me, Basically my best friend just lost a relative to suicide and he told me after that he can't handle me kill myself, he knew I'd been up and down emotionally, especially at that time when I was trying to taper... my mom has lost 2 baby's before I was born and I'm now actually an adult, I can't kill myself and do that to her, I can't do it to anyone who really cares about me
Having so many people around me who care I think does really help, a lot but when I get into a major depression, sometimes I just feel like I'd be helping them in the long run by dying, I know right now that's untrue, thankfully I'm doing okay today but at the time and in the moment, I can really convince myself it's true. I just want to know what's going on and why my mood can be so different at times, I need to find a doctor that's better or something, my big problem though is that I HATE almost all medications besides opiates/opioids, benzos and then like heart medications and stuff that people really need to live, all the other medications I've tried have fucked with my head anywhere from mildly to severally depending upon the drug.
I really would like to see if there's some kind of treatment that doesn't just mean giving someone "zombie" like drugs all day I mean hey, if I'm all dazed on heroin, great lol but I don't want to feel like my brain is being twisted to where I could either be just mentally slow and dull with no euphoria or I could have a psychotic episode. Thankfully it's spring and it's been nice and sunny for a few days, that always helps my mood a bunch. I'm still feeling okay and plan on trying hard to give up IVing bupe soon, I plan on using up the majority of my micron filters, having someone hold the last 2-3 to be safe but I want them to be out of the house then I'm going to throw every syringe away except a few to plug with, no needle then I'm going to do my best to change my ROA around again to something a lot less risky. I'm staying happy about this though lately, my use has gone up because I'm scared to quit but I need to, my veins are getting to be harder and harder to find, a few have collapsed, I'm having to use more visible spots where the track marks are a lot easier to see.
I'm happy, I found a new vein around the top of my arm, closer to the underside of the arm then the crook is and it's good to see I'm not as close to being out of veins as I thought but thinking I was running out of veins was enough of a concern to make me still want to stop while I've only got a few collapsed veins instead of going until they all either collapse or get so much scar tissue on and around them, they're almost impossible to hit. If I can switch from shooting up bupe to using another ROA, this will be the best spring and summer of my life! Last summer, I was in withdrawal almost every day because I'd tried tapering my bupe dose down but I wasn't at a low enough dose to quit yet. I was buying it on the street and I was having trouble continuously getting enough of some form of bupe to stay well so I had to keep tapering, a lot faster then my body could tolerate too so I often had to take 1/2 the dose I physically needed to make sure I'd at least have something until I could find more. That summer was shit, I did feel great at times because I was happy with how hard I'd been trying and about the fact I'd been persistent about really trying to completely stop over the summer but all in all, I'd much rather just stay on bupe this summer, maybe lower my dose just because I'm on a fairly high one but also, I really want to stop shooting. I feel like if I accomplish this, I'll do a lot better emotionally because just changing my ROA around is such a big deal to me and it's been so hard to do, I've tried so many times over the years and always went back to the needle but I'm not giving up yet, I'm back to trying to better my life and take the small steps to finally be happy and even though I know I still have a lot to deal with like my self esteem issues, you really can't ever just give up no matter how hard it gets sometimes :D
I've done my own research and I really believe I may be suffering from Bipolar II Disorder, the symptoms are, feeling more depression then hypomania, a higher chance of suicide/suicide attempts, short periods of hypomania followed my much longer periods of depression, also, I've read that Bipolar II Disorder can be more difficult to diagnose. This really sounds a lot like how I've felt for years and also explains the reason I've been treated for depression but, even though it's been suspected, no diagnosis of bipolar disorder has ever been made by a doctor.
What really got me looking into this was the final episode in season 4 of "Shameless" on Showtime (SPOILER ALERT). It depicted a 20 something year old kid who was hardly sleeping, acting like he was on stimulants and just always on the go, happy and energetic. In the final episode of the season, he just wouldn't wake up, things had been going great and then the next thing I knew he's super depressed and slept for like 24+ hours strait, not getting up for anyone or anything.
See, that first part is not me, I may get a slight rise in energy level for 5-7 days or so where I do little things like go on hikes, spent more time with friends, stay awake for up to 24 hours (not using any stimulants at all) because I'm having fun and I'd say just generally being a lot happier with my life and myself. What happens next is probably the most painful thing that happens in my life right now, I'll just shift from being a tad bit more energetic for a while then normal people are to one day not having the energy to even get out of bed, sometimes I'll stay asleep for up to 20+ hours. This can sometimes be triggered by something but often I don't know why it's happening.
Usually, this lasts for up to like a month, getting fairly less sever after usually the first 7-14 days but for about a week or 2, all I want to do is sleep and often, I'll wish I'd die in my sleep. When I am awake, usually I'm still in bed and I mainly just watch TV, shoot up bupe, drink, take benzos and smoke pot, trying to get back to sleep. I don't eat very much at all during these times either, generally about 1, normal sized meal per day, if even that sometimes. This is all when I start get suicidal, my self esteem will be way down, I'll absolutely hate myself and killing myself is just sitting in my mind all day long, reasons to do it, how to do it, etc. Thankfully, though I've tried in the past, I don't think I'll go through with killing myself, not intentionally anyways but it's hard to say, I feel like really going through with it but I have too many people counting on me, Basically my best friend just lost a relative to suicide and he told me after that he can't handle me kill myself, he knew I'd been up and down emotionally, especially at that time when I was trying to taper... my mom has lost 2 baby's before I was born and I'm now actually an adult, I can't kill myself and do that to her, I can't do it to anyone who really cares about me
Having so many people around me who care I think does really help, a lot but when I get into a major depression, sometimes I just feel like I'd be helping them in the long run by dying, I know right now that's untrue, thankfully I'm doing okay today but at the time and in the moment, I can really convince myself it's true. I just want to know what's going on and why my mood can be so different at times, I need to find a doctor that's better or something, my big problem though is that I HATE almost all medications besides opiates/opioids, benzos and then like heart medications and stuff that people really need to live, all the other medications I've tried have fucked with my head anywhere from mildly to severally depending upon the drug.
I really would like to see if there's some kind of treatment that doesn't just mean giving someone "zombie" like drugs all day I mean hey, if I'm all dazed on heroin, great lol but I don't want to feel like my brain is being twisted to where I could either be just mentally slow and dull with no euphoria or I could have a psychotic episode. Thankfully it's spring and it's been nice and sunny for a few days, that always helps my mood a bunch. I'm still feeling okay and plan on trying hard to give up IVing bupe soon, I plan on using up the majority of my micron filters, having someone hold the last 2-3 to be safe but I want them to be out of the house then I'm going to throw every syringe away except a few to plug with, no needle then I'm going to do my best to change my ROA around again to something a lot less risky. I'm staying happy about this though lately, my use has gone up because I'm scared to quit but I need to, my veins are getting to be harder and harder to find, a few have collapsed, I'm having to use more visible spots where the track marks are a lot easier to see.
I'm happy, I found a new vein around the top of my arm, closer to the underside of the arm then the crook is and it's good to see I'm not as close to being out of veins as I thought but thinking I was running out of veins was enough of a concern to make me still want to stop while I've only got a few collapsed veins instead of going until they all either collapse or get so much scar tissue on and around them, they're almost impossible to hit. If I can switch from shooting up bupe to using another ROA, this will be the best spring and summer of my life! Last summer, I was in withdrawal almost every day because I'd tried tapering my bupe dose down but I wasn't at a low enough dose to quit yet. I was buying it on the street and I was having trouble continuously getting enough of some form of bupe to stay well so I had to keep tapering, a lot faster then my body could tolerate too so I often had to take 1/2 the dose I physically needed to make sure I'd at least have something until I could find more. That summer was shit, I did feel great at times because I was happy with how hard I'd been trying and about the fact I'd been persistent about really trying to completely stop over the summer but all in all, I'd much rather just stay on bupe this summer, maybe lower my dose just because I'm on a fairly high one but also, I really want to stop shooting. I feel like if I accomplish this, I'll do a lot better emotionally because just changing my ROA around is such a big deal to me and it's been so hard to do, I've tried so many times over the years and always went back to the needle but I'm not giving up yet, I'm back to trying to better my life and take the small steps to finally be happy and even though I know I still have a lot to deal with like my self esteem issues, you really can't ever just give up no matter how hard it gets sometimes :D