What's Your Story?

Hello!

So here I am, sharing my story to all of you. I am 25 years old, and about 2 years ago i started having anxiety attacks that later went on and on and I had panic attacks. Only had a few of them, because I visited doctors and they gave me AD's. I was going through hell on those but after a month or so they started working. I was feeling fantastic for one year, full of energy, no worries what so ever, but I was shopping quite a lot, also thing I didn't really need,I bought them but they didn't really make me happy.

So I decided to stop taking ADs and that is when the real trouble started. First of all I only had small mood changes, but they were happening everytime I was in stres. This went on and on, from hyperactive mood I fell down in depression and with depression it came no sleep, no eating, crying all the time etc..

I was suffering for about 4 months when I finnaly decided to go back to see my DC, thinking I had anxiety and depression all together so I asked for AD's and shrinks actually told me (!!!) what I was having were anxiety symptoms. But my spymotoms were: not being able to concentrate, holding to my mom and dad all the time, crying a lot, not eating, not sleeping, having anxiety attakcks, not thinking straight, always changing opinion, not havinh my own opinion that is etc..

So shrinks again gave me AD's, this time different ones cus i had major side effects after first ones. And thing were getting worse and worse, no one will ever understand the suffer I was going through.
Then I came to this really cool doctor, went there with my mom so we both told her what is happening, I was in a horrible state of mind so I really needed someone else to be with me, to tell what's going one. All this started affecting my everyday life, my school, job and the worst, my relationships with parents, relatives and my boyfriend which i LEFT thinking it was his fault I got sick. And I am still not sure what caused all this.

But nevertheless, this doctor said I have CYCLOTIMIA. That's why AD's didn't help but made it worse. Now I am taking antiepileptic pills called Lamictal. Today the 5th week of me taking these pills began. I am still far from being good, I read somwehre over the internet, that mood stabilizators need a lot of time before they start working. I am lifting the doze up very slowly, every 2 weeks till the biggest doze ob 100mg.

My state of mind is actually still bad. I am sad pretty much all the time, I am questioning about everything, seing everything in a bad light, I am pesimistic, I have lack of energy etc.. I am analyzing things all the time, I can't seem to stop my mind not to thing about everything. But no matter what I do think things will get back to normal. I started sleeping well and I eat pretty much normal amounts of food. But still it's hard for me to concetrate, to actually say something smart, it's hard for me to put in words what I am thinking. My parents and my sisters noticed that for the last couple of years and I just not being myself, confident, and talking about something I think., In a conversation all I do is repeating others, but not giving any effort to say something new.

About my personality, well to tell you the truth, I don't really know anymore who I am. These last 2 years were so horrible to me that I have lost my trail. I don't remember how I was before, all I know is I was the one helping others, everyone, from family to friends came TO ME to tell mne their problems, I loved to help them and I was ALWAYS ALWAYS little ray of sunshine, always thinking positive. So you can all imagine what a shock all this is for me, to go to depression and all.

Major factor (I think, though still I can't think straight) for this happening is of course stress. This anxiety that I was writting abowe started after my graduation plus I had quite a lot of problems with my boyfriend.

Well so this is my story, I apologize for my english, am not from UK or USA and it's been a hile since I used it I hope I will get some response from you that'll make me feel like I am not alone.

Thankfuly I have a great and supportive family and boyfriend but like I said, it's horrible cus I keep thinking it's my boyfriend fault cus he hasn't got a job and he's not half as abitious as I am. But when I think of leaving him in this state of mind....I think I'd totally break down.

So waiting for any response.... Take care all of you and thatnks for "listetning"

Hello everyone! My name is Ryan and I'm 25 years old I've struggled with mental illness since I was about 12, but despite therapy, medications or evaluations, nothing helped. I started to see a new psychologist and psychiatrist who had both been recommended to me. I had concerns about my severe anxiety but also the strange patterns my moods seemed to follow, like everything was black and white. I was either elevated or "blah", and had lots of trouble being social, as well as problems with snapping about the smallest things. When I do snap I become defensive, irritable, withdrawn, spiteful, and I feel like I don't even have time to stop it, I'll throw tools, punch things, destroy something if it has a small problem that bothers me, etc. however I've never felt or become violent towards anything living, just material things. After a few months of hard work and "uncovering my past" (mentally abusive father who suffered from OCPD, being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age 9, to name a few), I was diagnosed with Cyclothymia in January. I had also been diagnosed with GAD and ADHD. The diagnoses and treatment of Cyclothymia in addition to the treatment for GAD and ADHD have made life truly more enjoyable for the first time that I can ever remember as stated previously I am also a T1 Diabetic with a lengthy battle history with complications. But, I'm here, feeling good, and glad I joined this board! All things aside I have a profound interest in psychology and love to learn and help

Welcome to the forums, Vtecyourlife, Cocinella, and LuckyDisorder. The cyclothymia forum isn't as active as it could be. But please post here. I check when I can and answer when I feel I have a helpful answer.

Vtechyourlife, you seem to be in a good way. I think that describes me most of the time. But there are times I get into a bad way and I just can't snap out of it.

Cocinella, you write very well in English. You seem to have a good group of people to support you too. I hope the meds work well for you. But keep in touch with the doctor about them. Sometimes they don't.

LuckyDisorder, what you want to do with your life is your business. You seem to be judging yourself unfairly--by what would make other people happy. You might benefit from a therapist's help to sort through your feelings.

Hi,

My name is Completely_Blank. The name comes from the fact that my mind was completely blank when asked to come up with a username.

I was recently diagnosed with BPD, and I am seeking counsel and medication. I have really dealt with it my whole life, but I always denied that I had any sort of mental issue. I always figured that "it was must me" and I needed to learn to deal with it.

I deal with these episodes from time to time, and it really destroys my ability to excel in different areas of my life (romance, work, school, etc). I want it to end, and I intend to use this forum as an outlet when I feel like I can't go on anymore.

So hello ;D

Welcome to the forum, Completely_Blank.

I hope you find being here helpful. However I think you posted in the wrong section? This is Cyclothymia section. Did you mean bipolar or borderline by BPD?

hi
my name is jody and im 51. i have been thinking whether to post in here id like to say how my cyclothimia has been and developed. i have had cylothimia since being young .at first it was just put down to been a moody teenager ect but it showed a regular pattern. i went through life up and down with the highs slowly becoming higher and the lows lasting longer. my farther was a doctor and it was only in the last year he told me he knew i had a mental problem and should have done something about it but never did,dont ask me why.i lost every job ive had walking out at the height of a hyper period and soon after crashing,spending money on fantasy ideas,all the things you read about. as i got older my hyper periods got more dangerous although at the time i didnt accept that its just what my docs have told me.as a result of part of my hyper periods i caught hepatitis c and hiv.when they told me i was in a hyper mood and didnt care,the gum clinic told me after when i was back to earth my reaction was confusing.in 2010 i started a 48 week treatment to cure the hep and it worked but was hell to do. after the treatment finished my cyclothimia slowly became worse and more unpredictable until in early 2014 due to my moods affecting me i had an unpleasant breakdown. there was a lot to it and again the psyc doc said part of my actions were dangerous. i have a problem with that as ai have periods of hyper that i cant remember and i still argue i was ok they have blown it out of proportion.without me knowing i had been monitored by my gum doc and my gp for some time and they sent me to the pysc who`s initial diagnosis was cyclothimia.the last year i have had to get some other problems under control one of which involved been put on anti depressants.the world started going odd then. i was under a different psyc for the antidepressant it wasnt prescribed for the cyclothimia or as an anti depressant. if you dont know ssri anti depressants are not recommended for people with cylothimia as it can make it worse which it did but by this time i had been changed to my local mental health consultant.my medication for the problem requiring ssri was changed and i was started on a mood stabilizer. that gave me problems every time the dose went up,suicidal,depressed,angry,uncontrolled rage. i had reached the stage by then i just wanted something to work,the cycloyhimic moods were driving me down.the mood stabilizer has helped now im up to the higher dose but i now seem to have really bad down periods and short hyper ones.recently the psyc has updated my diagnosis to hiv complicated cylothimia with behavioural problems. as yet they havnt explained what all this means all they will tell me is they are monitoring me. at the moment i leap from being a tasmanian devil to a charming person.i have had long talks with my crisis team as what they are calling behavioural problemshave become apparent since the cyclothimia changed.they have eplained that possibly because of the amount of years ive had it along with the trauma ive experienced my resistance to the results of the cyclothimia is breaking down and problems i didnt know i had are becoming more pronounced.
as some of you may know with hyper periods you rule the world and are invincible. you lie ,cheat infact many things like that but for some you arnt aware you do that you just want to climb.at first you shrug of the crash that always follows a high coping with it in a dysfunctional way. as life goes on i developed a protective mental state for the crashes. i put right what i can and ignore the rest.i dont care one bit about the things or people who fall into the cant put right category.every mood crash makes me a tiny bit worse. the cyclothimia over the years has driven my mental state down. one of the traites of bipolar.cyclothimia is you can be be manipulative,use people and not have a care for them.i never realized i was until basically i lost interest in life. it has come out as a growing problem for others round me,for me at the moment i really dont care.some times with a person i know i think im going to mess with your head just because i can. when the cyclothimia was more normal and i went high i could talk my way in to any job and wangle my way up the ladder. recently ive been trying to sort my self out but its hard when things like that can take over. i wanted to believe it was part of the cyclothimia but it has been suggested that it was separate to it and the cyclothimia just gave it an outlet but now the cyclothimia is changed /subdued because of the meds it has become a new problem. after 40 years of moods,every job lost,self induce life long health problems ect ect i have lost caring about life.im not on a stack of medications for my moods/mental health problems mainly as the meds im on for the other problems load my system and the doc is carefull about my health implication think thats why so much waiting and monitoring. ive told my crisis worker i feel this isnt going to end good and he is working on helping me.im now not sure at times whether ive climbed high or im just playing with people or both.

Hi Jody... I'm new here but i thank you for your courage to write and let it out. I am trying to get to grips with my highs and lows and hopefully will have the ability to write it out. Best wishes to you.

I discovered about a two years ago that I have cyclothymia. As a pastor this was difficult for me to accept. You see, my understanding was that my faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior would prevent me from having any form of mental illness. How wrong I was. Not that scripture says this is so, or that I was ever taught this, but in my mind, I thought that I would be perfectly fine mentally if Jesus has really transformed my life. Now, I had no problem believing that physically, no one was perfect, but for some reason I had the idea that mentally I would be unbroken as a follower of Jesus. Since that day in 2013, I have been growing in my understanding and treatment of cyclothymia. Today I began a blog, my first ever, in order to begin to share my story. Hopefully it will be of help to someone. Here's to a life of loving God with all that I am: physically, emotionally and mentally. If you want to check out my blog, you can find it at: https://pastorwithcyclothymia.wordpress.com

Too tired to tell my story, except to say I have been cyclothymic since 1997 and seem to have non 24 along with it, but I am not blind. I can't sleep at night, and I fight to stay awake during the day.
I have tried staying up all night, then all day in order to try to "catch up" and become "normal" but it has never, never worked.
Does anyone else out there have this reversal of day and night, and if so, how do you cope with it.
thank you!

I have been suffering from cyclothymia pretty much all my life. In my teens and 20's I drank heavily but I never suffered from alcoholism. My drinking continued but how the alcohol affected me had changed. I guess, when manic I drank a few beers to fall asleep, and suddenly I could not. More I drank more alert I was. Anyway. I had a quiet eventful crazy life and in my 50's I was finally diagnosed with this illness. I took me at least a year or more to digest it and its implication. (I also have a daughter, she is 15)
So I am here to say hello. I am taking 750 mg lithium just to make it til retirement 62. I do not know if I continue with it or not. Also I take some Ambien when insomniac, with lithium I only need 5mg (it used to be 10mg).
God bless you all! and remember; you are NOT your illness!