overly medicated

I do not think that it is to a really bad extreme but I certainly feel like as my daughter puts it that I have "flat lined the fun-o-meter".  I visited my mother this past week and she said I have a glazed look to me like I am vacant.  I have not been up this late in a long time.  I drank an NOS and 4 shots of espresso to do so and it feels good.  I am not usually one to mess with my medication however I do feel like I need some umph put back into my life.  The balance of medication is really hard to find.  Not knowing what "normal" feels like it takes a while to get to a "normal" state of mind.  Then again I miss my mania to a degree.  I want my cake and eat it too.  I would like to keep thee mania without all of its crazy bad things that happen and I know that is not possible.  Feeling flat is boring and I also feel apprehensive and extremely self conscious. I feel most the time like I look like a deer caught in headlights or a piece of petrified wood.  Not knowing what to say or how to act I think is caused by over medication.  Really all I want is to have a normal life and feel good which seems to be asking too much right now.  The fact that I am always second guessing how I am feeling makes me think that my life as I know it will never be "normal" whatever that means.  "Normal" is an illusion that is created by society to have a norm to refer to as a standard by which to measure each other.  Without standards and norms society would not be able to label us as mentally defective.  The truth of the matter is that there is no "normal"  every family or person has something about them that is skewed, we all have our secrets to tell.  Some are just more forthcoming than others.  I for one do not live my life by the standards of society due to the fact that I think they do not work for me.  According to society by this age I should be happily married with 2.5 children (how you get half the child I will never understand)  I am divorced twice with no intention of ever getting married again and I have four children.  My intention today is to do what makes me happy and fulfill what I think my life needs, if that fits into society;s plan so be it if not fuck it!  Being bipolar is a double edged sword on one side you feel as though you can do anything on the other side it can feel as though it will do anything to you.

From a happy go lucky super confidant person to someone who is second guessing everything they do and super nauseous around ppl.  Wanting to be the other person and wishing I did not feel like this.  It's been a long time coming to feel depressed I had almost forgotten what it feels like.  The thoughts still race.  The feeling of being on top of the world yes is much better than the alternative but without medication is it really.  Some like to chance it.  I say I am too scared of chancing it I have seen what the wake of not medication will do.  Although I feel like there is no creativity and though the thoughts are racing they are not so free flowing.  It seems to be a struggle to have a conversation and to write.  What I do know is that this too shall pass the way all other feelings do.  I want to hear what others have to say about there medications if you take them and if you take them do you stop and start them.  Do you feel like you could be better without them or do you feel you think you lose yourself in the medication or are you over medicated and feel like Dr. do not listen to you.  I really hate feeling nauseous.  I guess I am really looking for outside interest and help about what you think about the medications for Bipolar Illness.  Negativity is not usually my cup of tea and I feel like depression is not always negativity.  It is not something I have control over.  Just like other feelings it is just a feeling.  Just like happiness, joy, bewilderment, anxious, anger.  Like the Chicago weather if you don't like my mo wait 5 min it sill change.  This time I think its gonna be gloomy for a minute.  I sit here not contemplating going somewhere with friends. Not feeling like I want to but knowing I should.

Being strapped to an electrical fence and you are not in control of the switch is the only way I have some up with to explain what it is like to be manic.  At times I can feel this switch in my head.  Other times it is not so apparent this switch has occurred.  People tell me "stop and think before you get mad"  or "just pull yourself out of the depression."  My response is (when I am in my right mind) "try to stop your knee from jerking when the Dr. hits it with a mallet", is there a thought process?  Or even "try to stop labor with a thought process.  these are not possible because there is no thought process involved.  I am what you call a mixed episode rapid cycler.  Bipolar Mania and depression happen at fast and furious rates.  I can be depressed an manic at the same time.  Exhausting and exhilarating at the same time.  I have experienced mania sometimes for months (usually mixed with some depression) and have been known to cycle within minutes.  In a matter of minutes I have gone from rage, laughter (hyena like), curled up like a baby crying and extremely paranoid , to just start over again in minutes.  I can only share my experience with you as it happens with me.  I am not speaking for anyone else  but me. My thought process usually comes after I am out of a manic episode.  Over the years I have learned to tune into when I am getting manic so I have developed certain safety nets, however, there is nothing that actually stops the mania.  The safety nets are only visible when medication is working properly, which does not always happen.  I have been know to flip table through walls, throw coffee in someones face  (luke warm coffee not scalding thank God) and spend 4000 in a few hours.  These are some of the consequences of my mania.  Somehow over the last 20 years or so I have managed to keep myself out of jail but not institutions.  The coffee incident was actually in an institution.  By the way a psych ward is NOT the best place to find a husband!!  I DO NOT make toothbrush commitments today because I tend to roll over men with a steamroller and back it up just in case.  I stay out of relationships because I am afraid of what I will do to them, not what they will do to me.  My life today is manageable.  Ever since I can remember I have had an extremely violent temper.  My mother tells me when I was a toddler my doctor told her during one of my check ups - this child has a really bad temper, according to her he was doing nothing more than a routine visit.  At the age of thirteen I started to self medicate and since then it has been an extremely long bumpy road.