Old and new

[Scooter60]

I am 50+ and am bipolar with depressive features, And have been recently diagnosed with ADHD. My upbringing was in a dysfunctional home with both parents, but dad was super critics and negative man who we were afraid of. Mom was an instigator and pot stirrer. No affection from either. No hugs, no "I love you's" , and no direction. But they were my mom & dad and I guess I loved them. When I completed high school I couldn't wait to get out of their so I joined the Army. I was in for 8 years, married and divorced twice, and was discharged with an honorable discharge, the reason being that I had a personality disorder. Back then, I later found out, because that diagnosis was non compensated. So for the next 10 years I struggled a lot, married and divorced again and had a few suicide attempts. After that I became homeless but lived with a couple family members from time to time. I had no self esteem, no confidence, and no desire to live. Some time after all this I was told by another vet that I could get some disability compensation for my hearing loss which was well documented in my Army peronal folder. So I registered at the local VA hospital and got my 10% disability rating which took several years of red tape. My primary team doc referred me to the mental health Dept cuz he thought I would benefit from some counseling. This changed my life, but not completely. My shrink is the one who told me about the Army discharging persons under Personality Disorder so that they wouldn't have to take responsibility for them. He re-diagnosed me as being bipolar and sent me to the State Service Commission to file my claim for bipolar which once again well documented during my time in service. It took 5 years and a letter to my senator to get it approved. That gave me breathing room to live. But still something wasn't right with me. I had been on MANY antidepressants and mood stabilizers and still would get sooooo depressed, ya know, the depths of hell depression. Afters years and years the VA was able to prescribe a mood stabilizer that ended the depths of hell depression....Latuda. life was getting better but still something was wrong. I was given a test at the VA for ADHDand failed it badly. I read up on ADHD and things started to make sense. Holy Crap, I was ADHD which explained a lot! I was started on dexedrine 5mg twice a day 3 days ago. Today I will start taking 10mg twice a day. The only thing I can say about the past three days on the 5mg's twice a day is that my racing thought process has slowed down a little and I'm not obsessing about torturing all my perceived enemies throughout the years. I don't want to sleep all the time but I still feel like laying down a lot. We will see what the increased dosages benefits are. Thanks for reading, this was the extreme readers digest version of me.

 

[herbavore]

You've certainly had to fight your way to the present moment! I'm glad you find the ADD drugs are helping but be aware that they can be disastrous for depression and anxiety so just monitor yourself closely. I have ADD and found the drugs to be almost a miracle at first and then a hell not worth living in for any amount of focus. But everyone has to take their own route through this stuff. The experts aren't experts--they are experimenters and so are we. Something that works great for one person will not work at all for another.

Welcome to Bluelight!