Our Farm

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Bipolar

I've debated about talking about bipolar on my blog, if I should create a separate blog for it, or just not mention it.  Since I don't want another blog to manage, and bipolar is a big part of my life, I've decided to talk about on here.

For those of you that don't know, I will give you a brief history.  Just before Thanksgiving of 2007 I was diagnosed with Bipolar I Rapid Cycling disorder.  I tried two kinds of meds before finding the one that I'm on now.

While trying to find the right meds for me, my mom had to come stay with us to help out with the kids because we never knew how I would react to the meds.  If my mom hadn't come out to help us, I would have had to have been hospitalized during that time which would have created the need for someone to take care of the boys anyway, so it was just easier - and lest costly - to stay home and have my mom there.  I am grateful to her - and my dad for putting up with her being gone - for spending a total of 3-4 months with us while I went through that time.

I have been stable on my current meds since the spring of 2008.  I don't want to switch meds because of all of the hassle that goes along with it.  But at the same time, I'm so tired of getting tired when I take my meds!!!  The only side effect that I've noticed with the meds I'm on is that they make me extremely sleepy.  When I first started taking them I took one in the morning and the other in the evening.  Since that required me to take a nap in the mornings, it didn't work too well when John was working and I had two little boys to take care of.  Then I switched to taking them at 4pm and 8pm.  That freed me up in the day time, but by the time John got home it was all I could do to give him dinner before I went to take a nap, thus missing out on putting the boys to bed and spending any evening time with John.  Then I tried taking both of them at 8pm, but the effects would wear off beforehand, which wasn't good.  So now I'm taking one at 6pm and the other at 8pm.  This allows me to help put the boys to bed and gives me a little bit of time with John in the evenings.  The only problem is, I'm so tired of feeling tired when I take them!  I know I shouldn't complain, but I want to act like an adult!  I don't want to feel like going to bed right after I put my kids in bed!  And by taking my meds at night it makes me drowsy in the morning if I haven't gotten a full 10-12 hours of sleep, which I can only do on Saturdays, so waking up early to spend time with John before he goes off to work doesn't work, either.

It's never bothered me that I will take pills every day for the rest of my life, but the side effects of these pills are really making me second guess my call into midwifery.  Will I be able to attend births in the middle of the night?  Will I be awake enough?  Will my body really run on adrenaline to get me through those births?  There isn't anything that I can take to wake me up unless I want to take another RX on top of what I'm already on, which I don't want to do unless absolutely necessary.

I would love answers from someone whose going through the same thing, but I have yet to run a across a bipolar midwife.  However, I do know of a bipolar doula who says she runs on caffeine for those middle of the night births...but I'm ADD, and caffeine has the opposite effect on me, it puts me to sleep!

So I guess we'll see what happens.  I have yet to attend a birth, let alone one that's in the middle of the night.  My plan right now is to get through school, find out during that time how I handle births (a good part of all three years of midwifery school is hands-on), and when I'm done see if I can handle it enough to become an LM/CPM.  If not, my plan is to teach and/or speak at conferences.

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