Taking Medication,
Take Two

DEPRESSED -Unstable for the last three weeks. Restarted taking medication in order to ensure I can welcome my cousin when she returns permanently from Canada on Friday night.

10 Apr 98
Depressed - Take 600 mg Tegretol per day to start up.

11 - 13 Apr 98
Hyperstable. The world is a wonderful place.

14 Apr 98
Hyperstable though effect fading.

15 - 19 Apr 98
Normal, calm, efficient. This is not bad. But I'd rather be hyperstable.

20 Apr 98
Am beginning become resistant to Tegretol. Up dosage to 700 mg / day.

21 - 29 Apr 98
Normal and calm.

30 Apr 98
Signs of drifting starting to appear. Mild. Can be contained by behaviour modification.

1 May 98
As yesterday. Unable to tell if I am in up or down part of cycle.

2 May 98 - Diary
Clear signs of drifting appear. Symptoms are (1) randomized heart palpitations / adrenaline surges of short duration (2) Fine motor control becomes erratic; must concentrate to get things which are normally automatic done.

Medication is increased to 800 mg / day as follows:
200 mg / 300 mg / 300 mg
6am / 2pm / 9pm

3 May 98 - Diary
Like yesterday only a tad bit more so. Still able to compensate mostly by behaviour modification. Higher medication has some effect, but not clearly so.

4 May 98 - Diary
Symptoms are full blown now in a pattern I consider depression though it doesn't "feel" like depression. Dreams have gotten extremely vivid, have been so since Saturday. Major sugar craving. Ate half a pack of cookies. Behavioral support and systems beginning to fail.

5 May 98 - Diary
Inability to concentrate at work, to hold though patterns together enough to do concerted work. Desire begins to go. Not able to make it to the gym because I do not feel like going.

Taking of medication becomes staggered 200/300/100/200mg 6am/1pm/6pm/9pm in an effort to remain stable enough.

I polish off three quarter pack of mint milano cookies in three quarter hour. (If a hen and a half…)

6 May 98 - Diary
Like yesterday. By focusing finely on project for Rotary Club, am able to assemble and give presentation. Destabilize almost completely while driving home. Am very hyperactive / tense / scared. Call up a friend on my cell phone. Drive directly to their house where they feed me and talk me into being calm.

7 May 98 - Diary
I am so unable to do the work that I know I must do that I go home and sleep.

8 May 98 - Diary
Like yesterday. I get up, exercise. I hold as tightly to my subsystems as I can, and succeed, but general things fail. I go home early and sleep. No dreams. (Diary subsystem has failed all week, this is being filled in in retrospect)

9 May 98 - Diary
Get up fine. Father remarks on how I can be this way if I was so bad the day before. Reduce medication to 700mg.

10 May 98 - Diary
Mother's Day. Stable all day, feel onset of excitability after show I went to. Onset symptoms do not feel like "depression" symptoms.

11 May 98 - Diary
Reduce medication to 600 mg. Am able to install computers only by concentrating.

Have the oddest thoughts on how to solve problems at work, am angry with my lover, get vex with my parents and with the Minister of Planning, all in my mind.

This is not how I felt in the last few weeks. Stay up all night late writing e-mail. ALL subsystems are failing. My ability to deal with the written word is failing. Two days of stability in eleven. Is that fair? It is 12:30 in the night and I am still awake.

12 May 98 - Diary
Got up late. Had a wonderful day. Office network failed, but by keeping focused was able to start and complete all the work that needed to be done, coolly and efficiently.

Came home. Was having a quiet night, but a friend wanted to see Ms. Universe. Manic state triggered. Had friends over, became loud, excited. Went to bed at two o'clock. All the mania clues have kicked in.

13 May 98 - Diary
Morning subsystem failed completely. Didn't shave, wore jeans to work. Got to work at 9:00 am. Was in a low level mania. Difficult to concentrate, but was able to get things done if I wrote them down.

Started focusing on little things for no reason. Finally at 2:00 pm after an unproductive day gave up. Went home, went to sleep. Didn't get up until C. came over.

14 May 98 - Diary
Pace is better today, mania seems to have calmed down. Morning subsystem worked and day was reasonably quiet. Everything was calm. Either I am getting over the mania or the behaviour subsystems are able to reasonably counter the mania. I feel more in control / calmer that I have been. Had a beer with dinner to keep calm.

It seems as if the "healthy lifestyle" helps - good food, healthy eating patterns, exercise and sleeping works well in countering the mania and depression. So far Hyperstability - 4 days, Normal - 16 days, Depression - 9 days, Normal - 2 days, Manic - 4 days.

Got scared reading some Science Fiction (not horror). Held my teddy bear and went to bed at 10:00 pm.

15 May 98 - Diary
Got up at 7:00 am. Which means the mania is still in effect. Or maybe I am not exercising enough. Am going to get telephone reconnected. Service was disconnected because I forgot to pay the bill. Ah well. This happens all the time

The Mania is clearly at a low level. I can do the things I write in my diary as "To Do" items but not much else well. At about 1:00 pm when the medication started to wear off, I started making mistakes in the work I was doing. In the space of twenty minutes I made 4 mistakes in the work I had done and rechecked - the mistakes were picked up by somebody else. Scared me a bit.

Still, once I took medication and it kicked in, I was able to focus enough to upgrade the billing system for the family business. I can ride the mania if I stay focused.

Later in the afternoon, took a glass of wine (a big one) to settle down. The wine works in calming me down but being slightly drunk has the problem of being slightly drunk - I lose the fine focus. Still, calmer is better.

Mom doesn't understand that the good of being "high" is not good, that it scares me. Wish C. would come by. Was on computer, and was able to come off with only minimal effort. Is this the mania decreasing, my behavioral systems working, the medication, or the wine. One just never knows.

8:00 pm - Am having the oddest sensation of having no urges, no cravings, no desires to do any single thing. It feels really odd. I suppose I've come down to normality. Or my life is picking up another version of strange. But I like this. It feels… clean, in a way mania and depression do not.

Addendum - C. woke me at 2:45 am to get a lift home. Couldn't go back to sleep. Since I sleep well generally, this could part of the mania. Or it could be my general annoyance at C. Took a 100 mg Tegretol just in case. Decide to move forward the start of the day from 6:00 am to 3:00 am. Although this is better than being a zombie in my house in the wee hours of the morning, I suspect it is going to have consequences both tomorrow and Sunday.

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