Bipolar Disorder Awareness Project Blog: mixed state

MISSION

First, I want to say that I have Bipolar Disorder (I was diagnosed at 15 and am currently 29), I have a "duel diagnosis" as I also have PTSD, borderline OCD and Severe Anxiety Disorder, which makes me one of the hardest kinds of patients with Bipolar to treat. I am very passionate about this subject and helping others with this illness. I want to help others and hope they can feel that I understand because I have been there, they are not alone and they are not "crazy".

There is a large stigma surrounding mental illness. Most people, at some point in their life, have either been afflicted with a mental illness (this even includes bouts of atypical depression) or affected by it via someone they know with a mental illness, like friends and family. Unfortunately there is not enough known about mental illness to properly diagnose an individual which leads to misdiagnosed or undiagnosed illnesses. I aim to help raise awareness about Bipolar Disorder and mental illness in general. I aim to educate people about these topics. I aim to raise money to fund research for Bipolar Disorder and other mental illnesses.

I have been writing a book for three years about Bipolar Disorder and what it is like to deal with it on a daily basis. It's in it's final stage now - the editing stage and will be published within the next year to year and a half. I have read many books about my disorder, mostly for my own education but I now use what I have learned in the informative aspect of my book. From the books I have read, I decided to write my book from the first person perspective because of all the books that I read (and I have read a lot), only three were written by a person suffering with the illness. I felt alone and that everything was so clinical until the first book I read by a person who has my illness. I want to help others with my book through information and my own personal experiences, demons and battles with the illness.

I am afflicted and I fight to educate! I fight to help others know that they are not alone! I will share news, educate, updates on myself and my endeavors and invite you to share as much as you like as well. Let's Raise Awareness!!

I currently have a fundraiser page for NAMI at crowdrise, another for lindnercenterofhope.org at youcaring and will soon have a page/site for my own nonprofit organization where all money raised will go towards research for Bipolar Disorder alone as well as awareness materials and presentations. I will also soon be creating shirts and other items to raise money for Lindner Center of Hope and to help fund making the nonprofit official.

Thursday, December 12, 2013

A New One I Wrote this Morning About What's Going On With Me Over the Past Few Days....Strange Things

SOMEBODY HAND ME A MIXER

I’m confused. I have hypomanic episodes that last about four days and I have depressive episodes that last about the same amount of time. Thankfully they are never back to back but I do crash after a hypomanic episode. By crash I mean that I’ll sleep for 12 or more hours straight and I have zero energy the next few days. What’s going on right now is that I’m exhibiting hypomanic symptoms but also the crash at the same time. I’ll have hypomanic energy and I’ll get tons of things done but it only lasts for a little over 24 hours and then I crash and sleep for 12 hours. One day I slept for 14 hours, was up for2 hours, and then promptly fell asleep again. I slept until noon the next day. That day though, obviously I wasn’t able to go to sleep later and went right back into the hypomanic stage….until 36 hours later when I yet again crashed. This is what is happening right now. I slept until 2:40pm and had tons of energy and have been getting loads of things done….things that I have wanted to get done for weeks but didn’t have the motivation or energy to do so. I’ll crash later tonight and then it will start all over tomorrow. What is going on? I’ve never experienced this. Has anybody had this issue? What did you do about it? I personally don’t mind having the 4 day hypomanic episodes but this mixed state is just plain annoying.