Lucky. The only thing treatment does for me is make me feel “meh” all the time.
The lows aren’t as low anymore but the highs aren’t as high, either. And I still have depression. Makes me wonder what I’m spending all this money for.
I want to encourage you to not give up and keep trying different meds. I was also “meh” until we introduced Vraylar, and it made a huge difference. I also found that treating anxiety helped a ton. Some of what I thought was depression was actually my body trying to bring me down from anxious hypervigilance. Whenever someone tells me they are on the meds and still “meh,” it makes me think it’s either not the right combination or not the right dose.
Also, if you have a history of trauma, addressing that can go a long way. You can have bipolar and trauma, and have some of your depression be a result of neurological and biochemical differences and some of it be a result of PTSD.
Oh don’t worry I’ll never give up. Tried Vraylar too; did absolutely nothing and it costs $1000 for a 30-day supply, so even if it did work, I could never afford it.
[There was a long rant here but I removed it because reasons]
I appreciate the words of encouragement, though. I started working out again and trying to eat better. Finding some employment would help too so that I’m not constantly stuck at home feeling sorry for myself while my girlfriend is paying all the bills. This is a me issue that I don’t think can be solved with drugs, pharmaceutical or otherwise.
I wish I could find a therapist I liked so that I can address the trauma…
It’s great to hear you have no intention of giving up, man! If insurance didn’t cover Vraylar, I’d be shit out of luck. Working out and eating better can be huge, and the structure of employment (not to mention feeling good about having a job) can go a long way. Finding the right therapist… I could talk about that for hours. I’m a trauma therapist myself, and I’ll be the first to admit there are tons of therapists there who just go to grad school for 2 years then do the bare minimum number of hours of training and don’t challenge themselves at all, so they simply aren’t that good. Then you have the issue of specialty, cause you want a specialist for trauma and not just an average therapist. And good specialists have no need to take insurance, so they are usually private pay at $150+ an hour (depending on the area, of course). And trauma takes a long time to heal if you go once a week for an hour. Add bipolar to that, and many therapists are lost because they simply don’t have the training and experience.
Sorry, ended up ranting myself, lol. I sincerely hope better times are ahead for you!
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