Mania

Tomorrow I’m attending the Inspire Centre for therapy and assistance to help with my substance abuse issues. Here’s what I have written for them. If you have any suggestions or advice on what I’ve written, please let me know in the comments section below 👍

Last time I had a drink - 9th Sept.
Last time I took Cocaine - 9th Sept.

• Use was plain and simply an escape. An escape from the noise and chatter and chaos that I have to put up with 24/7. It might only have been for a couple of hours, but I needed it.

• It’s like my prescription drugs, that were working brilliantly, became less effective and the Bipolar was more prevalent causing this gap, a void that had to be filled, and I chose to fill it with alcohol and Cocaine.

• I know that my actions aren’t the best way to deal with it but I was just desperate. I know that mixing the two together forms Cocaethylene in the Liver, and this is Cardiotoxic.

• Without the Cocaine I wouldn’t have been able to write this explanation. My Bipolar medication robs me of my ability to express myself and explain my experiences in any way. It makes me numb. It’s a different numbness than that of what the Depression brings, but it is a numbness nonetheless.

• I don’t think I’ve got a substance abuse problem, but I’ve got a Mental Illness problem that isn’t being addressed. My meds worked well for a long time from when I started this combination. Slowly, I feel like the Bipolar chipped away at them and their ability to remedy the problem that the Bipolar caused, became less productive.

• After time, they (the medication) have become less effective, less efficient if you will. There is no cure for this illness but just a remedy to keep it manageable. I feel that they need reviewing and increasing where possible to avoid the dips in my recovery from this terrible affliction that consumes me relentlessly for every single minute of every single day.

• There is an onslaught of gaps in my psyche which are voids of emptiness that are being filled by the Bipolar and not the medication. It’s as though it has been setting me up to fall in its trap. Relentless in pursuit of finding a way in which impacts on me. It’s horrible.

#Addiction #Alcoholism #AlcoholAbuse #CocaineDependence #SubstanceRelatedDisorders #MentalHealth #MightyTogether

Insomnia & Hypersomnia

Insomnia and hypersomnia are two conditions that sit on opposite ends of the sleep disorder spectrum. Both can impact a person’s overall well-being but in different ways.

Insomnia

Insomnia is one of the most well-known sleep disorders that centers on struggling to fall asleep, being unable to stay asleep, or a combination of the two issues. Poor sleep quality is usually the result.

During a Bipolar Manic phase, I regularly encounter bouts of insomnia. I have gone from a single night to going through 5 nights straight without any sleep. This has become, not natural, but an experience I can manage now as it’s happened that many times. I know that I shouldn’t lay in bed and attempt to force myself to sleep and expect it to happen. I just toss and turn and get frustrated by it, it’s not happening. I know that my appetite is effected when I’m experiencing insomnia, so I don’t cook or prepare full meals, I just snack and eat nibbles, I make sure I drink plenty of water too as I’ve found I sweat more than normal when I’m not sleeping (that could just be me? Anyone else concur with this?). I don’t have any fatigue or tiredness at all during the day following a night of no sleep. I just have sensory distortion issues after about 3 days of not sleeping and I feel like I’m being touched or tactile hallucinations and sometimes auditory hallucinations too. I’m just used to these now though so I accept them as the norm.

Insomnia can be further categorised as either acute or chronic.

Acute insomnia is typically short-term and caused by external factors such as stress, traumatic events, work, and even personal relationships.

Meanwhile, chronic insomnia is classified by sleep difficulties that last longer than a month. Typically, this type of insomnia is a byproduct of underlying health factors, and also by taking certain medications, indulging in substance abuse can also be a contributing factor.

Common symptoms include:
* sleeping for short periods
* lying awake for extended periods before falling asleep
* waking up too early
* frequently feeling as if you haven’t slept
* staying awake for most of the night

Hypersomnia

While insomnia is the inability to fall asleep, hypersomnia is characterised as excessive sleeping. Hypersomnia is a pathological state characterised by a lack of alertness during the waking episodes of the day. It is not to be confused with fatigue, which is a normal physiological state. Daytime sleeping appears most commonly during situations where little interaction is needed.
Since hypersomnia impairs people's attention levels, or their wakefulness, their quality of life may be impacted as well. This is especially true for people whose jobs request high levels of attention, such as in the healthcare field.

People with hypersomnia may feel like they need to sleep more because the rest they receive isn’t recuperative. More importantly, those naps may come at odd or inappropriate times such as while at work, when eating, or even in social settings. These individuals may get more than 11 hours of sleep a day, yet still, feel tired.

I’ve been sleeping 30+ hours on 3 occasions within the last 6 weeks, and had at least 7/8 sleeps that have lasted 20+ hours in this period too. I have felt absolutely dreadful when I’ve woken up from these bouts of sleep, and felt as though I’d been sleeping in a washing machine or something. I didn’t feel refreshed or revitalised at all. The sleep seems to go from deep sleep, where there’s no dreaming or alertness to your alarm or phone ringing etc, to a short dreaming phase to a light dozing period where you feel like you’re going to wake up yet you don’t and you fall back into the cycle of these three states again. This is solely just my own experience and explanation of how it feels so far, it might not be the complete description of what I’ve been doing, and that may come next time, and I am surmising the deep sleep state from the fact I have not been woken by any alarm I have set or phone calls I have missed, when normally these things wake me up.

Unlike insomnia, hypersomnia is a chronic condition, and it can impact mood and cognition.

Common symptoms include
* irritability
* anxiety
* persistent drowsiness or tiredness
* poor appetite
* low energy
* difficulty with thinking or speaking
* trouble remembering
* restlessness
#MentalHealth #MightyTogether