Month: December 2018

Bipolar Chronicles- medication

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I made a list of every anti psychotic, antidepressant, anxiety, mood stabilizer I could think of and when I hit 20 I just stopped because I know how high the number will get then there is how many different doses of that medication I was on. PLEASE DO NOT MAKE COMMENTS TO PEOPLE ABOUT HOW MUCH MEDICINE THEY TAKE. THERE IS NO SHAME IN TAKING CARE OF YOURSELF. I can remember most of them and I have listed it for you below. My medication process has been horrible. I have gone through 3 different insurance companies and with none for awhile. I do realize that this medication works better with therapy but I don’t like therapy so I just take meds. It may not seem like a lot 20 different prescriptions but really it is, see each one wasn’t a time shot and that was it we went back and forth on dosage over and over again when that one stopped working we weaned off of it onto another one. It is a never ending cycle of figuring out which ones work together and then praying that you don’t build a tolerance for it. Per the FDA I am maxed out on the medication I am currently on so if stuff starts to change I have to go through the process again and I hate weaning myself off of medication especially benzos. The pain of withdrawals to me is like someone slowly pulling off toe nails. Every medicine has a story and a memory those benzodiazepines are going to have the best stories.

  1. Lexapro– I despise this medication. I think it should be taken off the market it is absolutely horrible and my psychiatrist from the Psychiatric hospital who diagnosed me incorrectly was a pill pusher and every time I told him I felt worse he kept upping the fucking dose. When I stopped seeing him I just stopped taking it all together which made me manic. You will see a manic trend continue. When I stopped taking it he in a mere 2 months had me taking 50 mg a day and we started at 10 mg. He was an asshole and a pill pusher. I was suicidal the entire time I was on the medication and my doctor just didn’t listen or care he kept trying to put me back in the hospital. This entire time with Lexapro was extremely emotionally and mentally exhausting. I was just diagnosed so everything felt like a nightmare.
  2. Klonopin- I started again at .25 mg and ended at 4 mg because it just stopped working. I started abusing benzodiazepine with these.
  3. Xanax– This is going to be a long and emotional journey. Klonopin and Valium didn’t work and yes I took them together and he prescribed .25 mg Xanax take as needed. Who knew it would start a 5 year journey with dependency and addiction. There will be an entire blog dedicated to my Xanax issues. .25 mg came to 2 mg ir and 2 mg er. You don’t ask to be addicted to anything. I never took Xanax and said, “This is fun lets fuck the rest of my life, money and almost my job to my benzodiazepine issues.” If you think that is how it works kindly go fuck yourself with cactus.
  4. Ativan- I can’t take Ativan it makes me manic. I have Ativan to thank for the hospital visit. I went to the ER for anxiety and they gave me Ativan it was on a Friday by the time Monday came around my husband was exhausted trying to keep my ass out of trouble. There are stories and some are really funny like “sleeping” and jumping up running around naked, trying to leave and naked to go to work. I also called my boss consistently from about 2 am to 4:30 am to tell them I wouldn’t be at work the next day. (They knew that already but I apparently didn’t know that part.) They did play along until my husband took my phone away. These are the same reasons I can’t Ambien, (the ambien was not legally prescribed to me.)
  5. Halcion- These tiny blue fuckers were my absolutely favorite to overdose on. They are strong sedative and I never actually took the FDA recommend dosage when I had them. I had .5 mg and would take 4 or 5 at a time because being numb felt better then anything else.
  6. Haldol- This was a temp medicine in 2015 when I was having psychosis issues. It works but kind of zombie me out. I was in a drug induced psychosis.
  7. Restoril- Helps me sleep. It is a sedative. I’ve been on it for about a year now and when I run out and CVS won’t fill it because they suck. I can feel the differences.
  8. Lamictal– Old faithful; Lamictal and I have a long history together but it’s been the only medicine consistently helped with my moods (especially now since I take as directed.) I’ve been on Lamictal for about 3 years maybe a little longer. I started at 25 mg and now I am at 400 mg. When you face start Lamictal they tell you if you get a rash you need to go the ER immediately because it can eat flesh or some fucked up shit. When I tried to die by suicide in 2015 I would go days without taking my Lamictal and then I would take 600 to 700 mg at one time. The fact that after any of these stories I am still alive is amazing. So your mood stabilizer doesn’t work if you don’t take it correctly. It’s been good to me though and as it keeps working I will keep with it but the day it isn’t weaning myself off of it will be a bitch.
  9. Lithium- It was like having the fucking flu. It made me feel horrible. I tried it for a short while at a small dose but I had bad reaction.
  10. Seroquel- Started off with a low dose 2 years ago and now I am maxed out at 700 mg. You can get high from it (don’t get high) and it is the only thing that helps me sleep.
  11. Fanapt- Antipsychotic never worked kept it because of insurance causes memory lapses and is some strange shit.
  12. Geodon– This was a very short lived medication. This medicine had something to do with the “Affordable Care Act” which is pure bullshit. I paid $125 a month and it didn’t cover my doctor and the majority of medication. We had to adjust meds to they would be covered by the insurance company even with insurance I was still paying over $120 a month for medicine. My dr is awesome because I lived off samples for about 6 months. Geodon didn’t work. It was a crappy medicine that I had to be weaned off of to start a new one.
  13. Thorazine- These pills are currently my new best friend. I have so many problems with dreams and they have helped and been a major improvement to my sleep and dreams.
  14. Valium- It was good for snorting and that was about it.
  15. Trazadone- My fucked up asshole hospital psychiatrist prescribed these with Lexapro because he is an idiot. I seriously think he printed out a degree from online because it takes a true idiot to prescribe medication the way he did.
  16. Nuvigil– It taste horrible. It doesn’t matter if you have water in your mouth and when you swallow. It is for people with narcolepsy. They gave it to me to help wake me up because it is so hard for me to go to sleep. I used to take it with 3 20 ounce Redbulls and then I kept dealing with manic and psychosis issues.
  17. Provigil- See Nuvigil same thing dosage of 500 mg mixed it with energy drinks fucked up my brain. I also want to point out that I am not responsible with medication.
  18. Risperdal- Don’t remember much about it. This is one of the transitional medications because of insurance.
  19. Latuda- This medicine was prescribed to me because of insurance reasons. I was on it for a couple of months until my insurance changed again. I didn’t like it and
  20. Prazosin- I am on this for the second time the first time I was on a 5 mg dose with Lexapro and Klonopin, Now my smart dr has me on 2 mg to help with nightmares. They also give it to men with with prostate issues. It kind of works but I think the other pills with it make it better.

If you made it through the medicine history then you know this is just the tip of the iceberg for psychological medications. Every medicine is different depending on the person but this is my “LEGALLY” prescribed medication. I would love to hear you stories too.

Nobody knows- my semi conceded views based off a Nelly song.

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“Walk around stickin out my hands, lookin for a handout
Only thing I handed out was more bills
Only thing pulled me out was my will
God told me the sun don’t chill
Determined to make use of one of these skills
Ain’t no way I can beat the clock
Just a matter of time shut down your shop.” – Nelly

Yep. I watch my views, subscribers climb on here and Instagram and while I’m working on getting better about posting on here daily. I haven’t quite made it there yet. I am on Instagram everyday. I am waiting for a good jump on the Bipolar Chronicles. I am going to CVS today to get my prescription record to finish the medication post. When I do it I’m going to do it right. I’m really curious to see the history over the years. My self barn section is harder than I thought. I am going through a very dark time in my life that I blocked out until now. Tomorrow is my day off so I plan on getting a lot of stuff done. I can’t wait to share my stories with you. I am also excited to see my book coming together. After years of wishing for this life I am making it for myself. I just got started but I can’t wait to see where it goes. Be patient the Chronicles are going to be E P I C.

Bipolar Chronicles – Foreword

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I will start with this and even as conceded as it sounds it is the truth. I was not meant to live an ordinary life and I honestly haven’t. I was never meant to work a 9-5 and have a simple life. There were gifts given to me writing and this illness. This illness is a struggle everyday but I found my voice to help others and so here I am in the early morning hours so excited to get this started. I know there will be a piece of me in every topic that hurts to remember even the terrible horrible awful thing I’ve mentioned before (but that one may take a bit longer to write.) I also know that this can change my entire life but I am willing to risk it. When I talk about people unless it is my husband or Tater they won’t be assigned a name or a gender. It is to protect those people even if I feel like they don’t need to be protected. I may quote people that will make you stop reading or not be able to take me seriously, but sometimes these quotes sit well with me for different reasons. There is a method to my madness and I hope you can follow along.

These aren’t in any particular order some of them randomly appear as they come to mind. There is so much I want to say and putting it all in words is hard. I know it might anger or upset someone but you have to remember that if it isn’t “what you think happened” it’s all a matter of perspective. There are parts of my life that I remember and pictures to go with it but there are parts I tried to forget but I will talk about those too and whether you like it or not you are all about to become my therapist. I am hoping doing this will help the fucked up dreams I’m having.

I feel like my mind is trying to tell me something, but I can’t figure out what it is.

“But the more I wrote, the more I understood myself and why I had made the choices I made, and that was the real jackpot. I learned that dreams don’t work without action; I learned that no one could stop me but me. I learned that love is stronger than hate. And most important, I learned that God does exist. He and/or She is right inside you, underneath the pain, the sorrow, and the shame.” Roseanne

Truth about banks and bank tellers from a previous bank teller….

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1.) Don’t tell them that you just pretended out this morning. If it is fake they can call the police on you.

2.) Do you ever get tempted by the money? No because I am too pretty for prison and I have heard the myths about Big Bertha.

3.) How do you count that much money? The same way you wipe your ass.

4.) If your check is in 5 different colors of ink and you have no ID no bank will cash your check.

5.) Don’t yell at them. They all understand you are pissed because your account was hacked but call the 800 number and yell at them.

6.) Pop culture has lied to us repeatedly what a large sum of money looks like. 20,000 is just 2 stacks of 100 bills. (If you don’t know a strap is how the money is separated and counted there really isn’t much to it.)

7.) If your account is negative they don’t have to and sometimes refuse to because you owe them money.

8.) If you don’t bank there don’t try to go through the drive thru. It is extra work that is completely unnecessary

9.) How hard could it possibly be? Well you have to remember they are required to memorize federal laws. I trained for almost 2 months before I even went to the bank and it was still 2 weeks before they let me do anything.

10.) If you get a cashiers check please know that we need to know exactly make it out to and it may take longer.

11.) Do you have to go to school for this? Yes there is a special bank teller school you go to just to learn how to be a bank teller and nothing else. They teach you the rules for every bank type while you are there…. no dumbass you just need previous experience with customer service and handling money.

12.) It is called a DRIVE THRU fucking reason. If you need to go over your entire bank statement and question every charge including checks you wrote G O I N T H E B A N K!!! Stop holding up the damn line and pissing other people off so they can yell at me for wasting their lunch break.

13.) In most banks if your account has $30 in it and you come in to cash a check for $3500 that is written off a different bank they won’t let you cash it because you don’t have funds to cover the check if it comes back. Look at it this way. They cash a check for $3500 and the check is returned you are responsible for that overdraft fee and any additional fees that may occur from that transaction.

14.) While I’m on that subject if you bring a check in for an unusual amount of money or any other reason the bank can hold the check until the funds clear but the tellers don’t make that decision the system will when you deposit it. Tellers are just that tellers your account history is in the system we used and they put the hold on the check. Don’t spend money you don’t have and if you didn’t know by law they have to release so much of the money to you immediately but it can take up to 5 days for the check to clear.

15.) READ YOUR DAMN AGREEMENTS BEFORE YOU THE ACCOUNT. When the bank charges you fees and you get pissed you are asked if you read this clause when you opened the account so once you sign the paper that’s it. You can pitch the biggest fit you want but you agreed to it.

16.) If for whatever reason the system denies opening an account for you it isn’t the banks fault. You need to check your chexsystem information to make sure you. A. Don’t owe another bank money B. Have something fraudulent on your checksystem report or C. What did you do for a bank to say no because I can guarantee you did something.

17.) Don’t deposit $10,000 or more in cash, they have to file a report and it gets sent to many different areas (including the IRS) also any money $3000 over is also documented.

18.) I don’t care why your account is overdrawn. I know it sounds horrible but I don’t care and there is nothing I can do. You need to see the branch manager for that.

19.) No one can access anything without someone else. No 2 people have the same keys or combinations to anything at the branch.

20.) Don’t rob a bank big Bertha doesn’t need someone to clip her toenails.

Weekly Update 12

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– We are just going to completely skip the diet and exercise.

– No sodas or caffeine….almost I still drink coffee

– I am drinking more water than anything else right now which is great.

– I had a doctor visit today….

– No more challenges as I talked about last time.

– The Bipolar Chronicles are something I’ve worked on and I think I am ready to share them with the world. These are things that I’ve gone through from the time I was diagnosed. There are pictures and stories I’ve never shared before.

-Thank you for all of you support.

Let’s keep on talking

#bipolarstrong

🖤

Weekly Update 11

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– No diet happening but I’m still drinking water more

– No sodas still

– My sleep still sucks dick and my dreams are getting worse

– Next week is going to be jammed pack and crazy

– I AM FINALLY DONE WITH THE CHALLENGES!! Yay!!! *HAPPY DANCE*

– The good material is coming now

– That is all for now. Short update

– See you next week and thank you for your support!!

🖤

My tattoos and an Old Southern Baptist Church

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We go to a very Old Southern Baptist Church. I am a 4th generation member of the church, my husband is a deacon and I try to go whenever I can, but other aspects of my life limit me from going to church every Sunday. Today because of how last night started and the way I felt this morning I ended up at church with my husband. I forgot my sweater so my tattoos are out for display. I usually cover them out of respect for the church but I kind of it didn’t this time. While I know that the majority of the congregation has no judgement because they’ve known since I was born, but I still get those looks. I try not to let it bother me because I know the older members (when I say old I mean 65+) don’t understand our generation and tattoos. I will say they still shake my hand and talk to me their eyes still fixed on my tattoos. I know some of you are probably in shock that I go to church. I am a firm believer in God and his word. Today I just felt a little (lot) out of place with my tattoos showing. It didn’t stop me from worshipping though. It is almost Christmas and the advent candles it is my favorite time at church. So that’s my morning at church. My husband is in a deacons meeting which makes for a perfect time to write.