My son is now 9 months old, and although I've been taking my medication, with the seasonal changes my mood has started to revolve it's pattern. The last two months I've had hypomanic episodes during the daytime, followed with depression and drinking, lots of drinking, in the evening. I scheduled an appointment with professionals last month.
After my evaluation I was finally given the official diagnosis of "Bi-Polar Disorder." I'm actually really relived to have receive this diagnosis because I feel like it's been years of battling just depression or just anxiety that I know mentally has been much, much more exhaustive. I mean, how else do you explain migraine episodes where someone actually sees and hears things that others don't? Or when you feel like finishing off a bottle of bourbon whiskey, taking on the town or a craft project one moment, but the next you don't want to leave your couch, much less your house?
My medication doses are increasing by half. Since I'm still adamant about breastfeeding my son until he is 12 months old, it seems my only two options are: 1) continue my current medication at a higher dose since he's been exposed to them via breastmilk (Celexa and Depakote), or 2) discontinue breastfeeding and start on Lithium. Well, obvious answer for me there!!!
I am willing to do whatever it takes for my son to have the healthiest start in life, especially if it means taking more medicine for me to have a healthy mindset. I desperately want him to continue nursing, and i really don't want to stop, even after one year! We'll have to see where my mind is then, though.
As for the depression and drinking aspect of this game I play, I don't know when or why that started. Let's say about a month ago...
For whatever reason, at the end of the day, after I'm finally able to nurse one last time and lay my little one down to sleep for the night, I need a drink. I need Mommy Time. I need ME time. Sure, it may have started with only the one shot of liquor that first time I had the urge to drink, but the next night I needed a shot and a swig from the bottle. Then I needed two shots and a swig. And it didn't take long that I stopped measuring out the shot glasses and just started drinking from the bottle; two, three, four good swallows and a chase of soda followed by a cigarette and I'm gooood. Hey, I don't need to nurse again until the alcohol is out of my system anyway, so what of it, right??
Well, I guess I was guilty of drinking, and that's when I realized that I don't normally drink that much in the first place. So I called for that appointment because I knew something was changing. Of course, I knew that my behavior at work had already made the swing toward mania because of the way my co-worker would look at me as I rattled off thoughts about new cooking and baking creations, knitting baby hats for my friends and camouflage cases for my hubby, painting and singing and cleaning and OMG CLOTH DIAPERS!! But don't you love the way mania feels?
I think it was hard for me to decide when to start taking a higher dose of medication because I do love the way hypomania feels, even with the depressing blow of wanting, needing to drink at the end of the day. I feel so energetic, creative, imaginative, sexy... But still not in any way normal. And besides, I have a baby now, someone that relies solely on me to help him in life, so I have to be there, I have to be medicated to normality. But I don't have to lose my sense of self.
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