A new adventure

Recently, I've been diagnosed as having bipolar 2 disorder. I'm not sure what this means or how it will affect me, but I'm trying desperately to act and be normal. It seems that there is a new normal now and that being bipolar will not allow me to reach that new normal state. Lately, I've been hypomanic. The symptoms of being hypomanic are that I need very little sleep, talk way too much, and I am extrememly goal driven. I also get distracted easier and after long periods of concentration or focus, I must get up and walk around. My pdoc is trying to get my antidepressant medicine cut down, so that I can start mood stabilizers for the bipolarness. I feel like this was all just at once, but in fact there is a bit of a history of it, which I'll probably go into another time, but for today, I will detail how I came to be diagnosed as bipolar 2. About 3 months ago, I started to have severe depression even though I was on 20mg of Celexa. I had been initially diagnosed as depressed for the past 9 years. I was in the process of being weaned off of the Celexa from 40 mg and my pdoc had approved this change. As I went from 40 to 20 I started to feel the symptoms of depression creep back. The pdoc immediately increased my medicine to 40 and quickly after that to 60mg of Celexa. The initial doses of Celexa worked, but I was still feeling very irritable and depressed. We added Wellbutrin and Abilify. Wellbutrin made me extremely suicidal and I probably should have ended up in the hospital, but I was able to make it through the thoughts. And Abilify just made me irritated with people and constantly move around. I could not stay still. Both of those medicines were stopped. I started Remeron. Remeron seems to be working but in conjunction with Abilify did not make me feel so great. I have felt OK with Remeron and Celexa and that's how the bipolar was diagnosed. Waking up at 3am although I had 2 Ambiens to help me sleep through the night. I was in a hypomanic state when I purchased a plane ticket to visit my sister during spring break impulsively and have been all over the place in terms of being goal directed, but I'm not able to finish any one task. I have all these half completed tasks all over the house. I went to see my pdoc and I was really excited to talk about my blankets that I've been working on and I told him about the impulsivity that I've been having. He goes into the bipolar questions ASAP. "Do you have racing thoughts?" Well yes, but doesn't everyone? "Do you have impulses that you can't control?" Yeah, that's new. "Do you find you don't need much sleep?" Yeah, that's new. "Do you have grandiose ideas?" I think so. "Do you have the feeling of being better than everyone else?" Sure, but I had a great visit to a school today. "I think you're bipolar 2", says the pdoc. "What do you think about that?" Are you kidding? I'm not going to be able to think about it much right now. I can't just turn off the bipolar diagnosis that I just heard and talk about feelings about it. So I don't. Instead, we talk about the need for new medication. Stay on Celexa and Remeron and add Saphris, a sublingual medication. Since I started Saphris, I've been able to feel my mood change a bit, but going to bed is quite the nightmare. It makes me toss and turn like crazy! So I continue to take the Ambien to help me sleep. This morning, I'm up at 3:30am and have been up since. I'm still looking for resources on Bipolar Disorder. I'm not sure what the new normal is with this disorder, and I would like to know. I've been fairly open with people about what is causing all these problems with me. Others notice that I am not acting like my old self, others know and see how I'm acting now. It was easier to tell people that I am depressed than to say I am bipolar. I feel like when you say that there is a big difference between the two. People understand being depressed. They don't understand being bipolar, which frustrates me.