Who is 'the real' you?

Hello all,

I am qualifying this as an introduction as well as a first real sharing.

I was diagnosed with BP1 two and a half years ago. I'm 32. Personally, looking over my own history I'd always thought it was closer to BP2, but I'm not going to argue with the professionals. Once I was diagnosed by my primary doctor, I was referred to my PDOC who, after a couple of months, concurred.

I have had three major manic episodes which have typically lasted about six months, sometimes longer. Three depressives, to boot. During the mania, I always feel like something has radically 'clicked', whereupon my belief in my abilities soars, and often times it feel quite healthy. No surprise there. It's an awestruck sense of gratitude and self-control I feel when such surges of confidence become the norm instead of the exception.

I typically make great strides in personal growth and confronting challenges in these times. I get a grip on my fears and seem to appropriate them in a superhuman way; not without great effort, but always knowing where the victory lies and never faltering in vision.

I have been medicated since 2015. The short list: In 2015 it was all Gabapentin, 2016 Lithium, then lithium and levo, then lithium, levo, and lamo. 2017 has been lithium, levo, lamo, and gaba. Everything has been fine-tuned with the help of my PDOC and by varying degrees, I've felt stable.

I can't go any further without mentioning this: Titrating up on lithium felt absolutely phenomenal. In 2016 January, within a week of taking the threshold dosage I began to feel like the curtains had been pulled back and there was light. Beautiful, cleansing light. After working up to 1800/day (at 1.1), my thoughts un-jumbled, my temperament calmed, and I floated on air with a sense of new and more honest cognition and reasoning. Everything slowed just a few notches and I began to think that this was how it felt to be normal. It felt great.

There isn't a real way to lubricate this segway so I'll just state it bluntly: I feel a little lost. I quit my job of seven years about six months ago. I have been living on savings after moving to a new town. I am surrounded by friends and loved ones. I took a trip accross the state with my girlfriend, visiting places I'd always wanted to but could never seem to make time for. Back then, my old impulsive and destructive habits prevented me from taking a sincere interest in anything that didn't involve drugs or alcohol.

In this timespan I have been living a somewhat hedonistic life. It's been spectacular. But I don't know what's next for me. I don't particularly want to re-enter the field I was in (culinary), because it's no longer a fit. I'm a creative braniac, like you guys. I need to be using those faculties, and I'm enrolling in college next year. I have a rough plan for the near future.

I suppose the bulk of all this admission is that I've had a (probably common) difficult time adjusting to meds. It isn't that the cocktail is not working as intended. I sometimes feel like this is the best I've ever been doing. I mean, anyone could look at the stat sheet over the last ten years and pretty much nod in agreement. But who am I now? And...what happened to that creative, occasionally bombastic but always engaging guy? Is he gone for good? What version of my real self is coming through now, and am I comfortable with that 'version' moving forward?

All of this is clearly contingent upon the assumption that there is some alternative self to embody. I feel tempted to say I'm reasonably sure there is. But I'm not tempted to revisit his dionysian realm. I just wish the maniac would rear his ugly head and help me see through this fog. I miss confidence. I miss knowing who I am, and expressing that creatively without thinking. I'm having a hard time envisioning a positive outcome from a job search. Part of me feels like I'll get stuck in another rut and I won't be able to climb out. Negative thinking doesn't rule me, it just sprinkles itself about liberally in certain areas.

I have felt as though perhaps the high dosage of lithium were clouding my thinking (1500mg). I've felt dissociated at times and began to feel as though I weren't 'really living'. I don't know if this is a response to the major changes in my life and having problems adjusting, or whether it's the meds clouding my thinking and preventing a vision the 'true me' might have less difficulty conjuring.

I kept on with the other meds but stopped lithium, titrating down slowly. I Didn't tell my PDOC. This was three weeks ago and I feel different. Not 'better' different, because I have little context anymore with which to frame the truly beneficial from the truly detrimental, unless either is explicit. But better in the sense that a certain immediacy to my experience has returned. I don't pretend to know whether all this is going to work. I just know a change in /something/ is warranted and I need to take control of that process.

Can anyone relate?

I don't entirely relate to your story, but I can answer the question in the title.

I have lived most of my life depressed, with mania every now and then, and some stability in between. In all honesty, I was a raging bitch an awful lot. Recently I really began to think, "who am I?". I don't know which of these personalities is the real me. I asked my mom and sister, and they both said that I am a down-to-earth laid back person with a good sense of humor and I'm fun to be around. I actually cried upon hearing this because I always thought I am primarily a miserable bitch. I have been on a lot of medications over the past 3 years, and after a ton of bad side-effects I said to hell with the anti-psychotics. I knew it was a gamble choosing to only be on a mood stabilizer, but I seem to be doing fine on it alone, and I am starting to see what my mom and sister said about me.