In August I wrote about my poor life conditions, since that time I have received a little money of what I am supposed to get. Someone is doing his best for me to deal with that side of my life, he has good hopes that he can mediate for me. So I compartmentalise that part of my life as much as possible. Yesterday morning I received news that it's likely I'll be paid by the end of this month. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed.
The good news is that I'm now in therapy, at least for my bipolar problems. Outside the therapy I'm doing my bit to get to grips with it. You can find many tips for improving sleep on the net, which is one important factor in keeping the mood swings at bay. I adjusted my lifestyle to that a couple of months ago and now I'm seeing some results. But since bipolar isn't the only problem I'm facing, it's a little improvement. My sleep alternates between sleeping well the first half of the night and a restless tossing and turning of the other half and vice versa. Today was the first night in months(!) that I slept straight through for 8 hours and woke up without alarm or other outside disturbance. It's not due to my mood regulating medication, one of them has as a side-effect that one can experience vivid, bizarre, lucid dreams or nightmares. I have experienced them almost every night since I started these medications. Some dreams were actually funny, leaving me with a grin for a little while after waking up, but they can and have produced the horror-like nightmares. These dreams do influence my mood for the first half of my waking day. After that my mood slips back to the level it was before sleeping.
Four days per week I go to group therapy. The group is designed to stabilise for either re-integration or further therapy. It's all very basic and I am having difficulties to actually use the therapy for my own problems. One of the remarks in the psychological report of the tests (of 5 days!) they have done was that I'm too cognitive for my complex web of problems. They forgot that I managed to get into my forties without crashing 'only' twice, which of course does require someone to have strong cognitive abilities. Perhaps too strong for this therapy. All too often I outsmart the therapist and have things to add that haven't been thought of. My sister's friend U. suggested I should write a book about my survival tactics, he was and still is thoroughly impressed with how we managed to cope with life and the influences of the mental illnesses on it.
The survival tactics we (my collective, or group of separate identities) employ didn't stop certain symptoms to occur. As far as I can recall, I might have been having these psychotic effects from a very early age onwards. Some of these psychotic effects have been accepted as part of my life from that time onwards. The sightings of shadowy figures were labelled ghosts, the other odd sights, smells and sounds as well. I just learned not to talk about them as I was the only one seeing, hearing or smelling them. The downside is that because of that, nobody ever knew something was wrong. Not only that, reality is a very vague concept for me, I just learned to identify the reality that is commonly accepted and remained silent about anything 'out of the ordinary'. Some psychotic effects do still scare me, especially the smell of burning hair or flesh. I'm sure my ex-es can recall me looking for something that caused a strange smell. Lately it manifests itself as the smell of a wet dog (amongst other things), and since I have no dog or one nearby, nor any source that could cause it, it's all in my head and annoying as hell. Likewise with the sounds that my telephone should make upon a message or notification arriving. There is nothing in my home that can produce the same sounds and upon checking it is clear it's not my phone.
Whilst trying to find the right medication for the bipolar mood swings, I also had one that should work anti-psychotic. I hadn't noticed it took away the first level of psychotic effects. (If you've been psychotic due to bipolar or experienced a variety, it might be useful to start grouping the effects in levels. This will help your psychiatrist enormously.) I only started to notice the difference when I was taken off those mood-stabilisers. Now I don't have anything anti-psychotic, partially by my own request since I know what they are. Perhaps more appropriate is to say I know what people expect not to see, hear, smell or feel. (I don't have many touches psychosis thankfully!) So I can differentiate between what is real and what is not. The advantage of having them from a relatively young age is that they are less scary to me than for someone experiencing them for the first time. Due to that I managed to stay on my feet a lot longer than is normally expected.
Currently I'm experiencing the level one symptoms, yet my mood is reasonably well. (There seems to be a theory that the psychotic effects are linked to the levels on the bipolar scale.) I'm cautious though, I keep a close eye on how good my mood is, to prevent an upswing that might lead to another manic episode. I've also started to track my mood, a simple spreadsheet on my PC and a wonderful app on my phone. If you are bipolar or suffer from depressions, you might find it useful too: T2 Mood Tracker and some tips for additional categories can be found here: Custom T2 scales.
As I mentioned above, I've started therapy at the beginning of September. So far I can't say that the therapy caused any progression, but other factors have. I'm still seeing my own therapist who is remarkable in seeing through the switches between alters (or identities). Recently we (some of my collective) tried watching the TV-series "Quantum Leap" again, but had to stop watching since the recognition of both the discomfort and sometime humiliation was referring too much to our own problems. In the series Dr. Sam Becket is thrown back and forth through time, occupying someone else's life to set things straight that have gone wrong. The initial arrival always causes him to be disoriented about time, space and situation he is in, sometimes highly embarrassing or humiliating. When I 'wake up' from a switch it is often much like that. I don't know where I am (unless it's an easy recognisable place), who I'm with (if it's a person I don't know at all, but another in my collective does) and what conversation that person had with the preceding alter (or identity). The confrontation with these effects with each episode of the series was just too much for us to handle. I'm quite sure there are people out there with MPD/DID who can identify with this. I discussed this with my therapist and she understood it immediately. As she said (with which I wholly agree), it is part of the healing process. There have been other events that contribute to my healing, but none came from the group therapy that I am currently having. The value of the group therapy is that I can help others with my experiences with coping and staying on one's feet. Hopefully soon I can find some useful things in therapy for myself which enable me to deal better with my bipolar, as the rest isn't supposed to be discussed there.
So despite that my basic life needs like food and a home are not quite as it should be still, I am feeling a little better at the moment. Hopefully I can maintain it and prevent a swing in either depressive or manic direction.
