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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
[email protected]Shown: posts 1 to 10 of 10. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by uncouth on August 8, 2008, at 16:37:53
This is a serious post and if it comes across as flippant or mean it's just my language, not my intent.
Do people ever graduate from this site? It's wonderful, I've learned so much, gotten tons of ideas, been more confident in going on an MAOI and trying different combinations....
but part of me wonders if this is just a great informational fodder for incessant drug-seeking behavior, self-medication, and perfection seeking...
Asking this question because I've suffered for many years like many people on this board, and I"m sure I'm not the only one who has felt guilty for spending time here (or questioning whether "one more medication trial" will make a difference, or one more reading of a journal article).
My goal is to be at a state where I don't even have to think about my mood. As BP2/3 maybe that will never happen. Maybe i'll always feel terrible or have depressive episodes. But does ruminating on it online, however "constructive" I may convince myself that posting, reading journal articles is, actually helpful?
Or is that just a bunch of psychological masturbation?
Sometimes I feel like i'm in a medication psychobabble pit of information. The more there is, the more things I feel like trying. Now i've ordered amisulpride online after reading good repsonses from folks on the site....but will I be happy with it?
ONe more ride on the merry-go-round, courtesy of PB.
Anyway this post lost its point. But is there such a thing as PB graduates? Do such people exist? Will I ever be better? Will I ever stop using the internet compulsively, grow up and feel like a 27 year old and not a 17 year old? Will I ever reach my capacity? Are drugs and my valiant attempts at research helping or hurting me in the long run?
The time I have spent in the last 2 years reading journal abstracts and researching on PB...what could it have been spent doing? And if I know it could have been spent in aggregate doing more useful things, things that would in the long run make me happier and a better person, WHY DID I NOT DO IT?
Maybe it's chemical :) Maybe i just need to try ONE MORE MED......amantadine? amisulpride? mirapex? what's next folks...pop a pill and spin the wheel i guess.
Heartbroken and feeling poetic, your friendly neighborhood 27 year old, attractive, overeducated, paralyzed, addicted, waste of potential signing off
-Uncouth
Posted by Justherself54 on August 8, 2008, at 17:46:52
In reply to Do people ever actually 'graduate' from PB? Pain., posted by uncouth on August 8, 2008, at 16:37:53
I'm sure there are many people who have left babble after completing remission...many have left for a variety of reasons and some have reached remission and stayed to support others.
I stay because knowledge is power. I don't feel it has caused any med seeking behaviour. As I'm on a MAOI there is support here for me to answer questions and help me make decisions about my treatment. Many posters have read journals and done massive amounts of research and I am grateful that I can benefit from their knowledge.
I don't feel guilty about the amount of time I spend here. At least here there are people who "get me". No one here tells me to snap out of it or pull myself up by my bootstraps or thinks that I'm on disability because I'm screwing the system.
I think everyone's wish is for a state of being where they feel normal. Whether that's ever in the cards for me? It doesn't appear to be so far.
You bring up questions that I've asked myself many times. Will I ever be better? Have I lost my potential to work again? Will I find a life partner who can cope with all this?
I know there are things I could be doing other than being a couch potato and surfing the net, but at this stage of my treatment and illness I don't have the energy or motivation to do them. I try to remind myself this illness beats me up bad enough and try to accept things as they are right now...not forever...right now.
Hope springs eternal. I have had successful medication trials where I have felt as normal as I could ever hope for...except the meds poop out.
I hope you find the right combo of meds to help you feel like yourself again. Then you can decide to graduate from Babble or stay on as a mentor..and remember, no one has lack of potential..it may be in places we'd never think of looking..
Your friendly, middle-aged bipolar grandma who's still clinging to hope!
Posted by Phillipa on August 8, 2008, at 17:57:37
In reply to Re: Do people ever actually 'graduate' from PB? Pain., posted by Justherself54 on August 8, 2008, at 17:46:52
Terrific answer I stay to learn and to give support to others as best I can. No addicition as also spend time doing things outside. Trimmed Daises, Rode my bike yesterday, And We went shopping. Oh I cleaned the toilets too. Some do go and go to other boards, some I talk with are too ill to even post, others do get better and probably leave. I know my age and that any future work I do will be computer based. And many neighbors who work for large companies work from home on the computer so that is a gift to them, no traffic, save on gas, and dress however. And of course if you are on a thread they twist and turn sometimes and you learn something the thread wasn't about. Also have made a lot of internet Buddies here. Love Phillipa
Posted by Sigismund on August 8, 2008, at 18:01:45
In reply to Do people ever actually 'graduate' from PB? Pain., posted by uncouth on August 8, 2008, at 16:37:53
>but part of me wonders if this is just a great informational fodder for incessant drug-seeking behavior, self-medication, and perfection seeking...
This sounds right to me.
These are very wilful times, though the pain people feel is real enough.
Posted by Quintal on August 8, 2008, at 19:49:24
In reply to Do people ever actually 'graduate' from PB? Pain., posted by uncouth on August 8, 2008, at 16:37:53
It feels like I'm trapped in an abusive relationship with PB. I think I stay with it mostly because this is one of the few places left where you don't feel like a freak for writing a post consisting of more than two sentences in real English.
>Or is that just a bunch of psychological masturbation?
I think most people are here because they struggle to maintain friendships in real life, and this is a kind of substitute/avoidance/distraction, maybe a bit like the endless meds trials. Gives people something to talk about and a sense of purpose for being here.
Q
Posted by uncouth on August 8, 2008, at 20:46:07
In reply to Re: Do people ever actually 'graduate' from PB? Pa, posted by Quintal on August 8, 2008, at 19:49:24
Endless med trials....i'm not sure I would ever have the "motivation" or even the will or the idea that i should keep trying different medications if it weren't for PB.
-- AND IM NOT SURE THATS A GOOD THING --
It's a balance I guess...what to take into your own hands, what to give up to God, what to trust your pdoc for.
In the end, only you know how you feel and what's "not right". But then again, since when are you (e.g., me, all of us) such an objective witness to our own mental health. And do those of us who haven't ever been hospitalized, never attempted suicide, e.g., not in the 99.9% percentile of deep depression, are we simply making ourselves worse by engaging in repetitive trials, repetitive research, PB-ing, and incessant research?
That's my fear. That my self-identity has collapsed into a "depressed person who has a biological illness". Hard to remember that i'm more than that, when every day i'm dealing with a taper up or taper down or wistfully wondering if this augmentation or that treatment is better or worse.
Granted, i think for those of us not working by choice (me) or by necessity it makes it vastly easier to dwell on these sorts of problems, but my fear, and something echoed by many people who I think support those who are depressed but haven't been their themselves so do not understand the acute pain (thank goodness!), is that naming it, accepting it, medicalizing it, treating it, lends itself to a sense of inwardness, self-focus, sabotage etc....and easily excuses simply not living life because life is hard sometimes.
But then again, those thoughts could just be part and parcel of depressive thinking, and the illness itself...right?
Thus the trap, the paradox, the pain, the rumination over the rumination, the depression because one is depressed, the hopelessness because DSM says we're hopeless...the pit that gets deeper and deeper the more one tries to dig out by one's own strength.
I think everyone on this board should read the Psalms, start to finish, in one or two settings (Peter Gomes, Pastor at Harvard Chapel suggests this to those in acute pain and suffering) and get a sense that the despair of depression isn't unique to those who live in an era of (thank goodness) biological treatments. And that maybe, maybe, the answer and the solution to the paradox of rumination-squared, of despair over despair comes from God and nowhere else.
I don't know. I don't know. I just don't know where the line blurs between "excuses" informed by science and the admission of character flaws (admission, acceptance, repentance is the first steps to repair and healing). What is within my power and what isn't? Am I kidding myself by thinking I'm actually "doing" something positive for myself by researching more meds, by trying something that one person happens to rave about on this site? Am I really that sick that I should see the need to import naltrexone as a last ditch strategy against internet addiction and the like....or is this just one more action that takes me away from real life, keeps me self-diagnosed as "depressed", and seeking a drug fix to all my problems (ironically in this case because of the particular drug, but you get my idea).
I guess these questions don't have answers. I wish I didn't have to even think about them. And maybe PB did that to me too!
Posted by sunnydays on August 9, 2008, at 1:17:34
In reply to Do people ever actually 'graduate' from PB? Pain., posted by uncouth on August 8, 2008, at 16:37:53
I remember the name of one person in particular, but I don't want to give it out here just in case they wouldn't want that. Once they 'got better', they left on a very positive note. Came back once a few years later for a quick update, but then left again.
sunnydays
Posted by Hygieia's Bowl on August 9, 2008, at 9:14:23
In reply to Do people ever actually 'graduate' from PB? Pain., posted by uncouth on August 8, 2008, at 16:37:53
> Asking this question because I've suffered for many years like many people on this board, and I"m sure I'm not the only one who has felt guilty for spending time here (or questioning whether "one more medication trial" will make a difference, or one more reading of a journal article).
>
I had not been at this site very long when I read an interesting statement by a poster who had admitted to a near total immersion into an extreme time of analysis of med properties and what those chemicals and their combinations "should" do. At the time, they had achieved stablity. The nugget was (somewhat parapharsed):"These meds tend to work best if we use them and attempt to get on with the business of life in lieu of continuing to attend the business of illness...."
Now, in this day and age of information feeling like it is the intelligent/educated way to go and thinking other than that appears foolish, that idea doesn't play very well... BUT....
The reasons folks arrive here tends, to me, to be much more clear cut than the reason they remain. I think - as it has been true for me - there is a limited amount of time and a window of time in which message boards like this one prove effective in terms of medication concerns. Most regulars to any community message board probably would disagree, which is fine, but I think it's good to explore the reasons why we are still involved and what need that serves for us. I'm still trying to figure mine out. Right now, in my case and a finding that doesn't instill pride in myself, following/occ. posting appears to be a fix of a nosey voyeuristic nature.... following the PB miniseries - I'm pretty sure that is way too selfserving and isn't healthy nor compassionate nor fair but it is what I find myself doing .... : )
Posted by B2chica on August 11, 2008, at 8:43:31
In reply to Do people ever actually 'graduate' from PB? Pain., posted by uncouth on August 8, 2008, at 16:37:53
i really respect your quest for an answer to this question.
i have asked myself similarly before.
but i also wonder if PB makes me unsatisfied with the results i do get from meds.i have had some meds work to a degree, like now i can function, but i'm tired and have about a three hour section of the day that i get very depressed (must be lul from meds).
i could be satisfied from that, that it's MUCH better than a few weeks ago.or earlier this year when i was on lexapro, i was doing pretty well, but lex was making me SO tired i was going to bed at 9 or 9:30 and had no "ME" time in the evenings. (plus the anorgasmia)
and i did have little cycles but they were little, nothing major.
couldn't i have been satisfied with that?no, i wanted better. part of me thinks because i do read this site and get hope from others who HAVE found a med or combo that allows them to feel well without SE, and live fuller lives.
and THAT's what I WANT.so i get back on the med trials. looking for that perfect combo.
sometimes i think i wont be satisfied until i try every med out there.so yours is a very good question.
but for right now, PB is nothing but helpful for me, and does not hinder me. it is a ray of hope. a place where i do see others that struggle with meds not working.and i am very thankful for that.
and someday when i find the right combo, i will probably leave. but i like knowing this place is here. because knowing my past history with meds...i'll probably be back.
b2c.
Posted by dcruik518 on August 13, 2008, at 15:56:03
In reply to Do people ever actually 'graduate' from PB? Pain., posted by uncouth on August 8, 2008, at 16:37:53
Uncouth, I think "graduate" is a weird choice; you imply that people who are not using this site are somehow at higher level or better than those who do. Can you absolutely know that's true? Isn't just as probable that those who use PB are getting educated and hence getting better treatment for their conditions. I tend to think of this as a somewhat elite group of patients and feel lucky to be a part of it--though I have gone for years without using it. I think you're probably exactly where you need to be. ~Dwight
This is the end of the thread.
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