Question by Alanarama: can anyone with bipolar disorder please help me?
hiya, i am 22 years old, i have suffered with “depression” on and off since i was 14 years old.
i had prenatal and postnatal depression when i was 17-18 aswell.
anyways recently i have been tnhinking maybe i do not have depression as such, but bipolar disorder. the reason i say this is, i am so up and down all the time!
like take last week, i was soooooooooo hyper my bf actually asked wots up with me coz im not usually like that. was acing very outgoing and over confident, i even got up and sang karaoke (ha), i cleaned the whole house top to bottom in a day, and still wanted to do more, i got told to “shut up” on more than one occasion as people cudnt get a word in ages and i had repeated the same thing numerous times. I was getting up an hour before i needed to,i was wanting sex 2-3 times oer day and felt on top of the world. then one day boom, i come crashing down, i just wanted to lay in bed all day n cry in a heap n not move, even possibly not wake up if i could help it. i had no sex drive at all, nothing could make me smile, i felt hollow and “not there” .
yesterday i woke up happy as larry in a right good mood, then around 3 oclock in the afternoon for no reason, i dissolved into tears and then would not speak for the rest of the afternoon coz i felt so “dull”.
now throughout my life when i was younger people always used to coment on how i was the life and soul of the party n really hyper and i did alot of thiings that sometimes got me into trouble, but at the same time i was being treated for depression coz i felt so low? i have in the past, spent money recklessly that i didnt have to spend…..£100′s on new clothes i dont need instead of food for the week or the rent….i can also get VERY angry VERY quickly for no apparent reason, be fine one minute,actually flip out on my other half or my son one minute, and the next have no idea why i am in such a mood and start crying coz i think im cracking up.
ive al;ways been up and down since my early teens, and im just worrying now how it might be affecting my son, its not fair on him. the possibility of bipolar has never been examined in me. i had years of treatment for depression (councilling and antidepressants) but i took myself off them as it wasnt making any difference what soever.
ive been to the doctors and explained how ive been feeling later, and they said “thats just what its like to be a woman” and when i persisted and got referred to a counciller, she made me fill in a questionaire about how depressed i had been in the past week, obviously i had been on a high that week and when i filled it in it showed now signs of depression so i have been discharged.
i KNOW that i am not right in myself, i shouldnt be feeling like this, like im cracking up…..so my question is do u think i am bipolar? and if so how do i go about gettin my doctor to investigate it further? and if not any other ideas what it could be? thankyou in advance i hope someone can give me a good answer xx
forgot to say, i have taken 3 different online bipolar screening tests and all of them came back with i have moderate/severe symptoms :/

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I’m in my sixth month of pregnancy and I have been extra tired. I wasn’t expecting to be tired yet for another month or so, being farther along. Has anyone else experienced this? I was extra tired when I first found out I was pregnant at like 4 weeks but that was due to my anxiety (such big news) not letting me sleep. Then the whole second month I was busy with vacation and summer activities so that had me tired but other than that I don’t know what to account it for other than me waking up at six in the morning and not being able to fall back asleep. I have so many appts, from OB appts to prenatal classes/parenting classes, getting ready for the baby, working every night-it goes on and on.

I’m 8 weeks along and I’m still on Lexapro. They say not to take this into the 3rd trimester but I am wondering how I am going to deal with my depression if I go off of it? has anyone here experienced taking Lexapro while pregnant too? Have you stayed on it your whole pregnancy? My first prenatal appt isn’t until 2 weeks from now. Any answers from others with experience is welcome.

Thanks, T
I think I have decided that I will cut back slowly – first from 20 mg then go backward until I am down to 5mg. I’m going to talk to my doctor about this when I go see her on the 29th but I may see my regular doctor that prescribes it for me before then. Thanks for all who replied! – T

I’m 21 weeks and will start 22 on wednesday. Had my prenatal yesterday where I was checked to see if there had been anymore dilation. I’m still at 1 1/2 cm and since this is our second child the nurse/midwife says this is normal, my cervix is still 4 in thick so she’s happy about that. The issue is the braxton hicks! I finally let go of the anxiety I had a few weeks ago when the fill-in OB/Gyn freaked me out.
She wanted me to watch them and make sure to call if more than 4 an hour. However then I learned that really nothing to worry about unless coupled with some other danger signs. This time though, my doc said yes to call if more than 4 an hour for a 2 hour period even with no other signs! Needing prayers so I don’t get the anxiety back and also to stop having them or so many. Anyone else in the same boat?

Please no horror stories lol given the nature of this request (on the brink of anxiety) that wouldn’t be best:) thanks

My daughter is 1 weeks old today and I feel so overwhelmed and somethimes depressed. I love her with all my heart, i have never felt a love like this before, but I feel like I need a break already. I was diagnosed with prenatal depression when i was 35 weeks pregnant and the zoloft has been working, i just feel like they may have to up my dosage. This has been the happiest time of my life, but it has also been the scariest. Anyone else feel like this?

I gave birth 8 days ago to my second, a daughter. With my first i never had any depression, i felt great before, during and after his birth.

My daughter had to spend the first 5 days in hospital. She has a little problem with her bum and will need surgery. Anyway when i got home with her eveything was fine, my fiance still had 2 days off work (he could only take a week) and we were coping fine. Our son is only 15 months old. However on monday when he went back to work and i was left with the 2 kids, everything changed. It wasnt that bad on monday i guess, because my son went to sleep before my fiance left for work and didnt wake up until about 9.30 when i just put him in bed with me and we went back to sleep.

However yesterday my son was awake and so was my daughter, i was breastfeeding her and i knew my son was getting tired. He came over for a cuddle to put him to sleep (he falls asleep on me) but i couldnt give him a cuddle because i was busy with my daughter. He just looked at me with a really sad look on his face, looked down at my daughter and started crying and going ‘mum mum mum’. It just broke my heart. I havnt spent much time at all with my son since the brith of my daughter, we had to spend the 5 days in hospital and i saw him maybe for an hour each day and since i have been home i have had hardly any time with him because im always busy with her. I feel like i want some time just me and my son, how things used to be. However i know that is unreasonable because my daughter needs me and cant be away from me for more than maybe 30 minutes in case she needs to feed or something.

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I am now 21 weeks pregnant & I think I am seriously suffering from prenatal depression. I’m very embarassed and don’t know how to ask for help from my obgyn or my boyfriend/family.

I’m feeling detached, not happy & like I don’t care about taking care of myself in order to stay healthy for my baby. I find myself hating my body & the way it’s changing & watching birthing stories, crying at how happy these women are & wishing I can feel the same. I force myself to eat… I can’t sleep properly & have crazy dreams. I’ve started to hate my life & all those who love me… I know I love them inside but my brain is fighting my heart. I swear. I don’t want to leave my house and I fear the public.

Does this sound like prenatal depression? What can I do to cope until my Dr’s appointment on Monday & how do I go about bringing up my feelings and concerns to my Dr? Thank you very much for your (hopefully!) caring, non-judgemental responses.

I had post partum depression with my first son who is now almost 3 years old. It went away when I started taking thyroid meds. as well as vitamins and progesterone to regulate my female hormones. Then I got pregnant again and started feeling depressed again. The doctor advised me to take the progesterone every day for the first 3 mos. of pregnancy because thats when your body may not have enough. It really helped me and I didn’t know exactly how far along I was because I couldn’t get to a prenatal doctor so I ended up taking it well into my 4th month. When I found out how far along I actually was I stopped taking the progesterone and about a week later my symptoms came back, not full force but still there. Blue mood, fatigued….I’m just confused because I know the cause of ppd and the depression in the first trimester was because of low progesterone but now that I’m almost 6 mos. arent’ I making lots of progesterone?( I heard all pregnant women do)… I was also thinking it could be my thyroid getting sluggish again but my test came back normal from the prenatal doctor.

I am 22 weeks along, and wonder if anyone else has experienced this. Before becoming pregnant, I had been on Prozac and Klonopin for GAD and depression. I am 27, and have had these disorders since age 14 (GAD since childhood). None of it is due to enviromental factors, I had a great childhood and life but internally I was always a wreck for no apparant reason. Since I became pregnant, almost all my symptoms are gone. I feel fantastic, and I am on no medication. Has anyone ever heard of this? Now I am wondering if my problems were caused by either a hormone or vitamin deficiency (I take prenatal vitamins and my iron pills daily). I am so relaxed and peaceful, and everyone around me notices as well.
What do I do after the baby comes to stay this way?

How can a time that should be so exciting make me feel so horrible? I have been suffering from morning sickness for 6 weeks. I have had to quit my job as a massage therapist. I wake up in the middle of the night feeling horrible and it lasts till i go to sleep… Today at the Dr. I even found out the small lump in my breast is not nothing, but because I’m pregnant they can’t do much. I am filled with guilt because the only thing that allows me to eat and even get out of bed is very small hits of pot. I don’t need anyone telling what a horrible person i am for exposing my baby to drugs. I just need to know someone else out there feels like this. We wanted to be pregnant so bad but now I am so sad all the time.