Bipolar?

Though I definitely have the behaviors called bipolar and have had them since late teens, it was only after I began prozac at age 36 that I had a serious manifestation of mania leading to a long hospitalization and forever changing my life for the worse. That was in '93.

Now, all these years later, after having struggled to maintain an independent life, I am shortly to lose my house after losing my car and 36 year career. I have nothing and of course I am very afraid.

All the various meds I have tried did not help and I have had a few bouts of severe akathisia from antipsychotics. Had I not been very fortunate in getting docs to understand I would doubtless have killed myself to escape the torture of akathisia.

At the moment I'm trying to revive myself enough to find some type of job paying minimum wage. I don't even know if I can work at all, I'm so tired.

That's not good! Maybe you can try to get SSDI while you recuperate? Start talking to your doctors about it.

Yes, it looks bleak, and thanks for the advice. No doctor at the moment I can't afford my old doctor since I don't have a job and it takes many weeks to get an appointment with the public doc. I'm not going to give up though I'm sure I will survive one way or the other.

All a doc can really do is give me meds, I can't take antidepressants I've tried most all and ended up hypo or manic each time. My plan is to ask a church group to help me figure this out though I don't hold with much of the religious paradigm. I feel I do need some connection with compassionate humanity.

I started a thread about anti depressants causing bipolar http://www.psychforums.com/anti-psych/topic116160.html

I read your post my story is similar I think, I got worse and more "bipolar" as the pills were piled on.

Church sounds like a good idea. Being around people and the church atmosphere can help.