Immanence

Bipolar again

For the longest while, I wouldn’t write about bipolar disorder at all. 300mg lamotrigine + 4 mg clonazepam + 100mg Seroquel had gotten me “cured”. Then it became clear I had nonmanic ADHD symptoms and Ritalin was added to the mix. Another month on 300mg lamotrigine + 4mg clonazepam + 100mg Seroquel + 15mg Ritalin divided in three daily doses. I’m fine, I’m better than ever, my mind is working, I have intellectual hobbies again. I reduced my clonazepam to 2mg on my own. I’m going so well my doctor suggests weaning off the Seroquel. It’s a neuroleptic, after all, and as rare as they are, neuroleptic malignant syndrome and tarditive dyskinesia are both permanent damage that won’t go away if they happen — even if the neuroleptic is taken off. So we reduce it to 50mg.

So the going starts turning weird. Friday I’m bubbling, elated, fast, colourful. Sunday I start relating weirdly to people. Monday I discover an imaginary buffer overflow vulnerability in mp3 cell phones and yell to the world to take measures against it. While working (on d-a-y-j-o-b stuff) chaotically, making some progress while not being able to report on what I’m doing at all. Then at night I am feeling completely out of place, my sister having moved out of the house and everything feeling small and unreal. My body feels too big. My parents seem too old and slow. I freak out. I take 100mg Seroquel and 4mg clonazepam again. It’s almost impossible to wake up at morning. I take my morning Ritalin. I put on my robe and my wizard hat. I get to work and discover I left my meds at home. I work frantically though somewhat chaotically until my boss interrupts me for a status report I’m somewhat able to deliver — at least wiithout my annoying colleague pressing on. I can’t get back to work. I obsess over electronics. I want to see alternating current on an oscilloscope. Ok, oscilloscopes are prohibitively expensive. Sucks, oscilloscopes look really cool. But I’m not manic enough to justify buying professional equipment for nothing. I want to learn how to solder. I want to learn “electronics” in general. I had a plan to slowly build a robot over the Arduino platform but now I’m looking at random projects looking to make something buzz or blink for cheap. The fun is in cheap. I don’t hesitate to overspend in glossy imported art books but the fun in electronics is make them cheap. I’m supposed to be working. Shit should be moving forward. Every lost day a bad day. It’s not a lost day but I can’t organize my mind around writing a status report to my overseas colleague who’s coordinating (actually doing most of the work). I want to take my logfiles home and write the report there after I’ve had some clonazepam. I don’t have much clonazepam at hand since I told my doc I had cut my daily intake. (That was true). So I have to think twice between indulging in a 6mg zone-out. The notebook computer where the quant work is done can’t find the wi-fi spot. My pen drive is broken. I try to cut my pen drive apart to see its insides. With a razorblade. I finally decide I’m gonna print the paper my annoying local colleague claims to be the solution, but can’t find it at arm’s reach so I print a paper on the dual approach. My bus home will only leave in 45 minutes. Now I’m frantic, now I’m confused, now I’m hyperactive and I have no clonazepam at hand. I have to burn that time, I have to disappear through a hole in time and I don’t even have clonazepam to help me along. I start writing frantically in a stream of consciousness style, probably writing even worse english than usual. Time’s approaching, I hope I can snuck out without being noticed since I haven’t written that status report email. Does my iPod have “Vet for the insane” from that spaghetti-western/goth-metal band? What was it called? The album is Dawnrazor. Fields of the Nephilim. The lyrics go “I wanna go home — what am I here for?”. I’m going to try and snuck out now. If I have to improvise to anyone on that email I’ll crumble to pieces. At least two hours of traffic separates me from a hit of clonazepam to shut this down. I’m probably gonna regret having written a stream-of-consciousness entry like this one, for countless reasons. I’m outta here. Maybe I’ll post something desperate from my cellphone. Through Twitter, yes. Clever little plugin for Wordpress. I’m obsessed with electronics, web programming doesn’t seem like fun anymore. It never was. Ok, I’m going to face the risk of crumbling apart if someone queries me on work status and face the world at large — and the hour and a half or two hours crummed inside a (comfy, I must admit) bus on the way home. Maybe I’ll watch the Monty Python episode I uploaded to my iPod again. Maybe I’ll try to emulate that heavenly feel of clonazepam and depakote listening to “In the waiting line”. Ok, that’s probably not gonna work.

Damn, I’m going crazy again. What was that hack thinking?

Breadcrumb trails:

ADHD, Ao, Bipolar, Bipolar Disorder, Boss, cell phones, Clonazepam, Colleague, Daily Dose, Dawnrazor, Depakote, Dp, dyskinesia, electronics, Ipod, Lamotrigine, Measures, Meds, meta, MP3, neuroleptic malignant syndrome, notebook computer, Parents, professional equipment, Ritalin, Seroque, Seroquel, Stream Of Consciousness, stuff, Suck, Traffic, twitter, web programming, wi-fi

Related posts:

• The algebraic imbroglio and (unrelatedly) why there aren’t more first-person accounts of bipolar disorder So I find myself in an algebraic imbroglio. Basically -- if there's a basic way to explain this -- there's...
• Mudanças súbitas de humor (provavelmente) não são distúrbio bipolar! Esse é um dos mitos mais irritantes difundidos por toda parte. Tanto a variante I como a II caracterizam-se por...
• On an award for “bipolar blogs” of late I found out about  PsychCentral and its "top ten bipolar blogs of 2008" list recently because two of the online journals...

© 2008 μ = m // dayvan cowboy // music is math ↵.