Chemical Depression is lifting

I GOT A REALLY COOL COMMENT JUST NOW reminding me that my depression is chemical. See my intuition was right in earlier life not to buy any depression help book that didn't mention bipolar. Not because I thought I was bipolar but because anything that would help bipolar would help me. And because bipolar is serious. So again, anything suitable for serious depression would be suitable for my milder (as I saw it0 depression. I think I was bang-on right to do this. More right, as it turns out, than I ever could have known. My index-checking has paid off because I still remember the gist of these self-help books even though I got chucked out and made homeless (and taken in by a kind lady named Lona) and I sold my books to a book stall ~ for heroin money. Every book I had was the sort of thing that bourgeois people like to buy and read. Everything from depression self help to the Beatles songbook with musical scores to John Grisham paperbacks. Bourgeois reading par excellence!

In depression there is a well known phenomenon called diurnal variation where the mood starts off at Stygian gloom from wakening and gradually rises as the day goes on. This is what has been happening to me. I oversleep ~ a good 12 hours per day ~ wake up very sluggish and "somnolent". My depression symptoms match bipolar depression to a T. I'm very pissed off with it all but because it's evening and my energy has rushed back I even feel a bit manic now. Whether Dr Shrinko would call this a mood switch or a mere "diurnal variation" I have no idea but it feels fantastic!

It seems strange thinking of my depression as chemical. I always thought it was my fault. The counsellors think I'm "too hard on myself" ... well I don' see why I should go easy.

To me "chemical depression" or biological depression means it's out of my control. Which feels like a luxury. Or it used to. I always assumed my depression was both psychological and biological and I'm probably right. Of course there's psychological fuel to this biological fire. Or vice-versa... Even anger, losing your temper, causes a biochemical imbalance...

So I'm trying to be grownup but not succeeding terribly well. That's why I asked for advice. My doctor is a consultant psychiatrist with HUGE demands on his time he really can't be at the end of a phone with my every neurotic question. I just thank God that I got 1 a consultant and 2 one who specializes in Dual diagnosis. I was VERY careful not to exaggerate and to keep all I said in perspective and I didn't even tell the very whackiest worst (eg seeing the Northern Lights in my living room) yet he somehow knew the level of "hallucinosis" was out of sync with the level of mania. Sometimes I got very very manic but a lot of the time I was hypomanic [mildly manic] and yet hallucinating. Of course this is Dr Nutternut's area of expertise and he recognized schizoaffective disorder when he saw it. I just feel very weird to be diagnosed Severely mentally Ill. What do I do: Lie in bed all day feeling sorry for myself? I don't know what to do?

Now I have to go it's late and I have to leave it here. I hope I'm making more sense. If there's some way I do not make sense or some basic error I keep making I wish you would just tell me. I need to know these things, so I can use them to my advantage.

Many thanks for listening. Take care y'all!


Illustrated: haloperidol (to which I'm allergic, but it's good for some people); mirtazapine (Remerol) and Lithium are all treatments for schizoaffective disorder. Many people are on all three. Antispychotic, mood stabilizer and antidepressant.