bipolar_vs_schiz amy in red i'm sure it doesn't matter to my doctor(s) what my diagnosis is, as long as the treatment is adequate, but one of these diagnoses carries more stigma than the other. i was explaining this on my tiny Facebook page today to avoid my social life being run by gossipy malformeds who can only Maintain Stony Silence or Disparaging Comments Out of My Reach. when really i still have a brain and can still discuss things. probably i have both. was it the drugs in college? well yes and no, i don't have the most resilient of genes, i have 2 of 3 COMT genes skewing bad. AND APOE-e4 two alleles. so in this regard i shouldn't have done drugs, but you know that couldn't be avoided. maybe if they had put me in a different dorm, but you never know what goes into those decisions, either. angelic hierarchies and wounded healerness and ignorance-derived karma. i didn't really know what my goal were anyway. always lived in the moment. didn't dream of partner, kids, any specific career. so that's an argument for Destiny right there. and i suppose not every cancer patient can freely talk about whether they are in remission or relapse. i just hate how shut down our society has gotten because of various social forces. it doesn't bode well for me. 160831 ... amy in red *malinformeds (and to be fair, even i am not fully informed. what if i removed gluten from my diet for good, would i be stable and sane. answer unknown. to complain a little, my mother is not going to help me remove gluten, i have to start always cooking for myself, and i just don't like to plan and cook all day long. i know, waah, right? ) 160831 ... unhinged both run in my mother's family and there is a difference. maybe it would help you to have a doctor that recognizes the difference and gives you the best possible treatment i don't trust doctors at all with my mental health. i sometimes see myself as bipolar, sometimes as depressive and anxious at once. i read a book on the neuroscience of depression that helped me realize some of my own discoveries over the years are backed by science. fuck the pill pushers 160901 ... epitome of incomprehensibility I'm not an expert, but whatever the diagnosis is, it isn't a narrow thing that will absolutely define you. (Of course, this may be small comfort if the people around you have yucky attitudes. I wish I could help change their minds somehow.) I wrote something about this, although the example is all about me, in a_problem_is_not_an_identity 160901 ... amy in red well if i go off the pills i gradually become psychotic. it takes about 6 mos. the other trouble is the hormone switch that happens every month, making me seem fully capable of getting life up and running for two weeks, then disinterested, disorganized, and needy for two weeks. that can get incredibly dark because the disappointment. this description is why my new doctor thinks i might be bipolar. he hasn't said bipolar plus schizophrenic but i suspect it might be some sort of hormonal bipolar with a broken brain, either by drugs or mercury poisoning from graduate school. if it's debilitating enough to not be a matter of adequate treatment and/or coping skills, you can't help but have it define you. people need an explanation (like "i have three kids, age blah blah and blah" or "i really love dogs") to be put at ease. maybe it's my age. "she lives with her mother" these are simple formulae referring to agreed upon generalizations about people that start to define you. and a correct diagnosis might put people at greater ease, or i'll have to resort to calling them "stupid" in order to protect my own integrity. this has everything to do with ego, though. having not been brought up in a religion, this is no help. so i've resorted to saying my hobbies are "museums, drawing, and yoga" (lately) yoga is a bit of a lie, and only surfaces every other month or so. but even these hobbies feel like they might be red flags to those who would say "baseball, running, and cooking" although i don't really know. I'm not talking about dating, though. Nowhere near that yet. I'm talking about getting a job and getting along with coworkers. reading is back. i'm able to read whatever again, probably except long magazine articles, just to be too honest. not having the stamina to read much was a big problem causing me much anguish for many years. thanks for the thoughts. 160902 ... unhinged i wasnt saying you shouldnt take pills for your problem. my uncle was paranoid schizophrenic and very much needed pills (but the dosage was elusive and his distrust of doctors was prohibitive). my cousin has been on lithium since we were thirteen. people sometimes need medication. personally, i resist it, even though there have been times when it was prescribed or other times when any western doctor would have STRONGLY recommended it. maybe pills would have helped, made things easier. maybe they would have made things worse or done nothing at all. my brain chemistry is not something i want to entrust to big pharma. maybe that is a luxury of my upbringing of distrust of doctors. i prefer exercise and meditation. our treatment is a choice. choose whatever helps 160902 ... amy in red my family doesn't trust doctors either. who's going to take care of my dad as he gets older? probably me. (he smokes a lot and doesn't want to be lectured to by a doctor.) there's a real case against statins for high cholesterol, but some doctors (like my mom's) just won't hear it. i keep begging her to get a new doctor because it is clear that this one doesn't listen to her, but she doesn't think life should be this hard, so she doesn't make it any easier. she has to take care of my grandma who absolutely, positively never wants to be in the hospital again, for any reason. so she has no time. anyway, i found this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21196212 there might be new treatments for schiz (or whatever) some day but the question for me will be if i'm rich or well connected enough to receive them. prefrontal cortex needed for meditation, i think, but i could be wrong. i overthink exercise. i'll get better as i get older if Alzheimer's doesn't set in. they say with the two alleles of APOE e4 you have 11 times more chance of Alzheimer's after age 70. i firmly believe it's important to know if you have these genes, but only if what the scientists say is true. this is the main reason why i'm trying to eliminate grains. but then, as i eliminate grains, some brain fog clears and my thinking changes, and that could be why the new doctor thought the schiz was not a correct diagnosis. i wasn't confused enough. bottom line is i'm prone to psychosis, another scary word, but it is a fairly scary thing. when reading was gone, i had a motivation to risk psychosis. but now that it's back, there's not a lot of rationale for going off meds. and it becomes more cut and dry, overall. i've also had the opportunity to work through some of the more discombobulating aspects of my past. so i have more opportunity to take care in the present and think about the future. might be to o late to have children (thanks, friends, for the delay and the judgment "on high") but you never know how hereditary it really is and a positive story about a schizophrenic mother is a rarity although they probably just don't make it to the story-pages. i still might try, just as a last ditch covering-my-bases project. at the very cheapest such a "project" would be $1000, and then the cost of raising the kid, if successful. during my "ok" (two weeks ago) phase this seemed reasonable, but now i think it might be just a pipedream for a nitwit. i can't negotiate dating. damn sure no guy is going to sincerely want me, for me, not some loser he can look down on. and i'm too ethical to try random men one night stands, so this really does seem like the only chance. not sure how some women get away with barely being women, but i know i gave denying womanhood a good try. the repubicans would really be livid with a success on my "project" but i'm sure if i did the one night stand thing, they'd be fine, they just wouldn't want the kid to have childcare, or food, etc etc. as it is they will probably find me a job that a robot can eventually do and when that happens, claim that it's my parents long hours at work and sacrifice that is supposed to take care of my bare essentials and not 1 cent from everybody's monthly paycheck. of course that 930000 a month that's way too much. really it's more like $0.00001 /month from each member of the entire us workforce goes to me (currently). no, really - i'm trying to find a suitable full time and not temporary job that seems the way to go. i'm worth about $40 k a year. i'd be happy with $30 k although i wouldn't have my own place, still. the most i've ever made was $27 k. in 2003. now i'm just complaining and rambling. i have a good life in other ways, but i'm not sure if it's ethical. what with relying on my parents. and that's important to me. it doesn't seem very moral of our society to not give me a job, but there are also young, healthy people who need jobs and want to live life, too. in summary no Paul Ryan you're not right. 160902 ... e_o_i I miss you on red, amy. What you said was a bit critical of how I put things, but you were right - you can't necessarily separate yourself from the "problem" parts of a mental makeup. I am trying to accept mine. This should be easier because mine don't carry as much stigma. They don't in themselves cause things that people think of as overt "craziness" like hallucinations, etc. Mind you, having these doesn't mean someone's always not "with it" - a guy who worked at the CEGEP I went to always talked to himself at the bus stop, as if carrying on a conversation with someone, and he was also reliable and punctual. But would an institution like that let him do more than just janitor-type work? I don't know. On the face of things, my ADHD, anxiety, and possible OCD aren't huge problems, but the damned organizational issues and emotional instability get me down sometimes. Anyway, thanks for putting your thoughts here and elsewhere. Sometimes your writing style would puzzle me, but the straightforward discussion of mental health and money is something I think we need more of. (Oddly, I'm good with money even if I don't make a lot. But that's also luck and living in Canada.) 220611 what's it to you? who go blather from