http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08q8p13 (I'm crap with links but think this is it)
Sounds a lot to be getting on with Davida re the meds and keeping on top of things.
Status report Page 5,969
I can't do iPlayer. I'm in the US 
Maybe I can find it elsewhere though. I'll look when I get off work.
It's alright. I've been crazy my whole life. I think I'm getting reasonably good at it at this point. There's an art to madness. Or there's madness in art. I don't know. It's fine though. A few months ago I was in full blown psychosis, hallucinating visually and auditorilly and thinking in riddles and alliteration and anagrams and had some weird conspiracy theories (not like aliens, they were much more mundane, and involved british comedy actually, haha), and thinking in anagrams. It was weird...but fun. Sometimes mania is like free drugs. I know I need to be careful though. When I was psychotic the last time I was able to do my job perfectly fine, and I'm pretty sure none of my coworkers really noticed anything was going on with me. Maybe some slight raised eyebrows, but I don't like, talk to the voices, or point at things that aren't there or verbalize any paranoid delusions I may be having. I can almost always tell when something is just a hallucination (it's a little tricky, but I think I'm okay at it) and I'm a very rational person, having done an analytic philosophy degree at university and doing formal logic and whatnot, and taking psychology classes, I've gotten a sense of how to recognize delusional thinking and to just kind of not let it affect me. Like one weird one I get sometimes is I'll think the tv and radio and newspaper etc. are talking directly to me, like sending me secret coded messages, and I know while that's happening that that's totally bonkers. So I just don't act on it. Basically, I've had a lot of practice at pretending to be sane. It's a very useful skill. I realize I sound like such a nutter right now. I'll be back to normal in a couple of days probably. Just need to get back to my usual sleep schedule. There's a heatwave here right now so it's been hard to sleep at night. I think that's probably what set it off this time.
Luckily my episodes for the past few years have all been pretty brief and not all that severe. Meds and exercise and eating healthy, and sleeping properly, and having a support network of friends have all kept me in pretty good stead all things considered. The biggest thing is keeping stress low. I have a lot of stress at work right now, so that might be part of it. But that's just life, I guess. Things will settle down soon.
Quote: Davida Grimes @ 27th May 2017, 1:47 PMThe sleep med I normally take has been an absolute wonder drug for me.
2 new post slipped in whilst I was writing this, but I think we're still on topic.
I'm not expert, but I note most of America now has access to medical marijuana (as do many countries). But not the UK. I have a close school friend with MS who told me it improved her quality of life, mainly as a pain killer but it helped her sleep. MS is a horrible affliction, so I would take anything that helped. But I also understand it is popular with those with bi polar. Hence why I ask.
It breaks my hart that the most vulnerable people in the UK are reduced to going down dark allies, strewn with used needles, just to get medication. For no other reason than some ignorant Mary Whitehouse wanabe feel they can claim the moral high ground by disapproving over an easy target. I guess such people can no longer deny women the vote, or persecute gays, so they cling to this. It is inhuman to put MS suffers through that. I bring this up because the Lib Dems are campaigning to legalise this currently and we're voting soon. But I would value your opinion Davida in a more pharmaceuticals enlightened country or indeed that of anyone with experience. How useful is medical marijuana ?
Ah, I didn't factor in you being in the states! Maybe someone who knows will come along shed some light.
You explain your condition very eloquently, and you don't sound like a nutter at all (I hate that word), quite the opposite. But yeah, perhaps getting back into a better routine will help as it sounds exhausting in full flight.
Actually, recreational marijuana is also legal in Oregon as well as medicinal. I used to smoke marijuana in college semi-regularly. I had stoner-phases, let just say. But for the past 5 years or so I've cut back to either not smoking it at all or smoking on a very infrequent basis. I stopped drinking almost a year ago as well. Marijuana and alcohol both really did me in as far as depression goes. A lot of people I know can be functional stoners, but I just can't. One hit and I'm gone. Like all the way gone, like can't see out of my eyes, but can see alternate dimensions, and can't speak except in word salad, and can't walk, because I cant' see, so have to cling to the wall and shuffle along. I don't remember being like that (that's happened about 4 times total) but the way my friends described what I was like when I was stoned completely out of my mind is...interesting! If I wanted to I could grow, or pop over to my friend's house and get some of their home grown weed, but it gives me the munchies and I'm trying to lose weight and it also makes me more paranoid. Lately, like for the past year, I've been smoking about once or twice a month with my friend who I go visit to watch classic horror movies and comedy together with.
I don't know all that much about marijuana, but I know that it works miracles for people with Crohn's disease, and also for kids with seizure disorders (I think they use the CBD part of the plant, rather than THC so it doesn't get them stoned or cause problems with brain development). At the last assisted living facility I worked at in Portland there was a lady with MS who had marijuana edibles (I think they were gummy bears) and those helped her a lot. I don't know anyone at my current facility who uses marijuana medicinally, but it's certainly an option that's available to them. The weed culture here is already very loose and open, but not as much with the older generations. I think it would honestly be great for pain management for older adults with chronic pain instead of getting them hooked on opiates. The CBD oil is a pain releiver, I believe, and I don't think it would negatively affect cognition in someone who has dementia or whatever. Though people with dementia kind of seem like they're on drugs anyway, so maybe if they actually were on drugs it wouldn't make much difference. I'm not sure much research has been done on that yet.
But for me for bipolar weed is not really a good solution for me. It causes me to be too paranoid to leave the house and I become very isolated and antisocial, and also gain a bunch of weight from the munchies, and occassionally go completely psychotic like, to the point where I deeeefffinitely could not be sitting here typing this to you right now, because I wouldn't have a concept of what a computer is, wouldn't see it right in front of me, might not understand what words or language are, and wouldn't be able visually process anything in the real world and lots of stuff not in the real world would be floating around. Strangely it's not scary though. It's just weird. I don't spook easily.
I haven't done a ton of personal research into pharmaceutical uses for marijuana, but i know there has been headway and progress being made with certain kinds of cancer, certain mental health conditions, particularly PTSD and anorexia nervosa (not sure which others), and it's absolutely changed the lives of people with seizure disorders. there are children with epilepsy who used to have 100 seizures a day, and moved to oregon or colorado or somewhere where they could get CBD oil prescribed for their child and now their kids are completely seizure free! It's astounding. Definitely also good for MS, and pain, especially diabetic nerve pain, fibromyalgia, and in some cases it helps with migraines and cluster headaches. Not sure what else exactly. I think I still have access to my university's online medical journal database if you want me to look up some articles on medicinal uses for marijuana.
The other thing is, in the first year marijuana was made legal recreationally in Oregon it brought in 1 billion$ in tax money which went straight into the schools. Can't really find fault in that. It's still only legal if you're 21 (you have to be 21 to buy cigarettes here now too).
Quote: zooo @ 27th May 2017, 12:06 PMGood detecting, Herc. I'm in Somerset!
And so, the murderer is................................. BANG!........................oh dear, we will never know.
Quote: Shandonbelle @ 27th May 2017, 2:49 PMAh, I didn't factor in you being in the states! Maybe someone who knows will come along shed some light.
You explain your condition very eloquently, and you don't sound like a nutter at all (I hate that word), quite the opposite. But yeah, perhaps getting back into a better routine will help as it sounds exhausting in full flight.
Thanks! I like the word 'nutter' but only because I like the Van der Graaf Generator song 'Nutter Alert'. I probably shouldn't throw the word 'crazy' around as much as I do. But I feel like I kind of have the rights to it, so to speak. I wouldn't call someone else with mental health concerns crazy unless they called themselves crazy in front of me and made if clear that it was okay for me to refer to them using that word. I'm comfortable with pretty much anyone calling me crazy, or a nutter or a loon, or whatever. Or if it's a coworker or something I usually phrase it as "I have mental health concerns" or something. I haven't told my boss I'm crazy though, because she's extremely judgmental, not at all understanding and bullies residents who have clinical depression or intimidates people with anxiety disorders, or teases people with OCD in front of everyone. It's awful. This isn't the "things that piss you off" thread is it...
Quote: Davida Grimes @ 27th May 2017, 3:10 PMThanks! I like the word 'nutter' but only because I like the Van der Graaf Generator song 'Nutter Alert'.
I like VDG and have (nearly) all of their albums. Of course I know that song.
Quote: Davida Grimes @ 27th May 2017, 3:10 PMI probably shouldn't throw the word 'crazy' around as much as I do. But I feel like I kind of have the rights to it, so to speak. I wouldn't call someone else with mental health concerns crazy unless they called themselves crazy in front of me and made if clear that it was okay for me to refer to them using that word. I'm comfortable with pretty much anyone calling me crazy, or a nutter or a loon, or whatever.
I went through a pretty dark period myself just before I joined the BCG.
I used to call myself 'crazy', 'nutjob', 'loony' and things like that (well, the German equivalents of course) during this phase. It was helping me to cope with that situation, made me feel more...well...sane. This kind of humour helped me through this difficult time. As long as you can laugh not all is lost.
Torrential rain and booming thunder. I've switched to battery as a precaution.
Quote: Davida Grimes @ 27th May 2017, 3:10 PMI haven't told my boss I'm crazy though, because she's extremely judgmental, not at all understanding and bullies residents who have clinical depression or intimidates people with anxiety disorders, or teases people with OCD in front of everyone. It's awful. This isn't the "things that piss you off" thread is it...
What a horrible person. Some people just don't have any empathy, they don't believe in things like mental health problems unless they've experienced it themselves. They think people pretend to have a depression to avoid working hard...or for a laugh.
Quote: Gordon Bennett @ 27th May 2017, 4:51 PMI like VDG and have (nearly) all of their albums. Of course I know that song.
I went through a pretty dark period myself just before I joined the BCG.
I used to call myself 'crazy', 'nutjob', 'loony' and things like that (well, the German equivalents of course) during this phase. It was helping me to cope with that situation, made me feel more...well...sane. This kind of humour helped me through this difficult time. As long as you can laugh not all is lost.
I've loved Van der Graaf Generator since I was 14 or so. I have H to He in my car CD player today, in fact! I found out about the band, incidentally, through my very first british comedy friend (we were music forum friends first, but then realized via facebook years later that we share a love for a ton of the same comedy, and we still talk somewhat regularly)
Yeah my motto in life is "If I couldn't laugh, I'd surely cry"...or in particularly hard times "I'd surely die". Not taking myself too seriously, and having a sense of humour have definitely kept me going through the years.
Will Cam went to cut his grass today and found the Flymo wouldn't work.
Will Cam then went to make a cup of tea and found that the kettle wouldn't work.
Will Cam knows things come in threes.
Will Cam cancels w*#k.
Wrong thing. Tomorrow it's your washing machine.
If you've put the hex on me Witchy poo!
Not a hex, just a feeling - which may be wrong.