I've been depressed since the beginning of June 2020, which is the longest I remember being depressed since my diagnosis more than twenty years ago.
It's beginning to feel like the end. I have barely left the chair in front of my computer, or left my bedroom. Hardly cleaned the house or bathed. Only did it when I was truly disgusted with the situation. The only thing keeping the place remotely decent is my housemate.
I keep on wanting to get up and get everything in order.
But then I remember.
In the last...5 years?...maybe more, I have not been able to keep any project going. After a few weeks I just stop working on them. So my garden project has failed, I don't carry my dogs for walks anymore, my family photography projects is on standstill, and even cleaning the windows on the house aren't happening.
I've reached the stage of 'why bother'. The most anything happens for is two days, and then I'm back into depression for weeks. Why try to move the projects along, why clean the house, why....why anything? It's not going to work out by the end of the week anyway.
This is beyond frustration. This is despair that I can't seem to pull back from. I feel as if I am living in a circle where I cannot move forward and the best that I can do is maintain and clean the small space I am in. Nothing new will happen.
And because nothing stays the same, the circle which I will live in will get ever smaller. I'm a dead man walking. We talk about Robin Williams and why he might have committed suicide, but if he felt like this, I see clearly why he did it, and why it was inevitable.
This may all sound like the talk of a depression episode, but this has been creeping upon for about 5-6 years. The trend is pretty clear.
Just found information on my own website that taking 800mg Tegretol a day pulls me out of depression. I've forgotten more about being bipolar than I should. Anyway, time to start a standard diary
6:35 pm : 200 mg Tegretol
11:35 pm : 200 mg Tegretol
14 Aug 20
Hey, it works. Not depressed, but sleepy. Got rawred at by my dog wanting to go outside.
7:00 am: 200 mg Tegretol
Passed by parents. Still not depressed. Having the super stable effect that Tegretol has. Limed by parents until nearly 3 pm.
1:40 pm: 200 mg Tegretol
4:25 pm: Should have taken the Tegretol earlier. Had the nasty withdrawal Tegretol by the time I took it. Headache passed by about 4 pm, so the 20 minute kicking in thing didn't work here.
Now super stable again and a little creepy. I'm no longer feeling as if my life is closing in on my as I did on the 12 Aug 20, so here's an existential question - Did the depression cause me to feel terrible on the 12 Aug 20, or is the medication causing me to feel flat and not depressed today. Can't tell.
Trying to get stuff done. Will see by tomorrow if it's still working
10:28 pm: Afternoon went well enough. Still not depressed. But according to my housemate, I am acting somewhat creepy (very flat affect). I am getting things done, but this is not really the manic productive; this is the manic spastic where I'm doing things and doing them well, but I'm doing random things with some planning but not a whole lot of planning.
By about 5:30 started going hypomanic, and started getting the nasty stress headaches because of tension in my jaws.
7:10 pm: 200 mg Tegretol
12:06 am 15 Aug 20: Did NOT take Tegretol as I maybe should have. But I am feeling somewhat nauseous and I am afraid that taking another dose will push me into the zombie state
2:22 am: Am itching all over - so I'm getting an allergic type reaction.
15 Aug 20 9:44 am: Took 200 mg Tegretol at around 8:00 am. This morning is running a bit wonky because I went to sleep at 4 am (dogs woke me up at 6:30 as usual). I got up, let the dogs out and made coffee. Making coffee for me and housemate qualifies me as not depressed, so I'm not depressed. I'm also doing things around the house, so not depressed. There are however, anomalies. As I said to housemate, and she confirmed it - I'm being laid back in a not-helpful fashion. So I'm talkative, but slow to action - dogs didn't get fed until about 9:30 am (2 hours late!). I'm NOT slow to action in a depressed (I can't, but forcing it) way. I'm just doing random things. My time sense is also screwed up - I'm feeling as if time is running slower than it actually is. Under this, it will be 12 noon and I will think it is 11:00 am. In fact, I'm getting a whole series of odd phenemenon. I'm still itchy, which is not good - this is an allergy reaction (never had an allergy reaction with Tegretol before). I still have manic tension in my jaw, so have an ongoing medium intensity headache. I'm feeling somewhat neuseasous all the time, which I think just comes with taking 600mg Tegretol per day. There's the time thing, which I never experienced before. Also a bit of large scale coordination problems - bumping into walls kind of thing, but minor.
Overall I'm happy to be up and moving (compared to sitting in front of my computer for, but this isn't exactly back to normal - this is a very heavily drug moderated productivity.
An aside - Tegretol DID pull me out of depression as by Author Information page said. This makes no sense in conventional terms - carbamazepine is an antimanic, not an antidepressant. It does make sense within my idea of mania / depression / epilepsy scale. The carbamazepine acted to reduce the severity of whatever is happening, so slid me to more minor, which in this case is hypomania (which is what my symptoms are closest to). Not saying this is what happens - more research is needed. Would very much like someone to investigate this.
Also I'm getting the manic high sex drive thing. Jerked off twice last night after not in the mood to do anything for almost a week. I could also feel the sensation of being horny. If the Covid thing wasn't happening, I'd be organising to have sex sometime today or tomorrow.
Took 200 mg at 8 am and 200 mg at 7:30 pm. Slept from about 1 pm to 6:30 pm (waking up to feed dogs, because Soldat). By 8:15 to 8:30 my speech was slurring substantially because I could not control my tongue and fine coordindation like typing had become problematic. My housemate thought it was amusing, but also said she would keep an eye on me. While I was a little scared, the dosages of Tegretol for the day weren't that high, so I didn't think I had overdosed. My mental faculties remained clear, even if the physical actions of my body were problematic (I was walking like a very drunk person). Felt a little like being trapped in my body. Also having itchiness - which is usually a sign of allergy to the meds.
By 9:00 PM, most of the speech problems had cleared up, as well as the fine coordination, but the large scale coordination like walking was still a bit of a problem. I was able to go downstairs and close up and do some washing down, so not terrible.
Not understanding why this is happening because Tegretol has never caused any problems before. Did find this on rxlist "Initial half-life values range from 25 to 65 hours, decreasing to 12 to 17 hours on repeated doses." Since I've been taking Tegretol only since Thursday night, if we are in the initial half-life of 25-65 hours, the successive doses might have pushed my blood level of Tegretol to way high. I might not have noticed it before because I take Tegretol as a one-off dose, so this would never have happened.
Of course this leaves me with problems on what to do next. I'll reduce the level of Tegretol, but no idea if I will stay out of depression.
9:30 pm Didn't take Tegretol at all today. Went to bed at 4 am, then