Very long post. Plz read. Bipolar 2. Recovered & have questions.

This will be a very long post but I hope you read it and help me. My life greatly depends on this. I’m a 25 year old female and I strongly believe that there’s hope for me and that I can live a healthy, normal and functional life.

I think I’ve had low grade depression since I was in middle school. It became stronger with the years. When I was 22-24 I had very severe depression.

When I was 21 or 22 I took my first hit of marijuana, I experienced an extremely bad panic attack and numbing that lasted a day or more. I felt horrible. Everything felt strange. And the most idiotic decision in my life was to try it again, hoping next time I’ll feel better. Between the ages of 21-24 I’ve I consumed a lot of weed. Sometimes I felt great sometimes it was horrible. I wanted to escape depression so I kept doing it. I won’t say I was a daily user although sometimes I did use it everyday for a week or so. I think that’s when my delusions started. 

My delusions first started as me thinking that a guy I knew (kind of a boyfriend in a long distance relationship) connected with me through social media posts in a secret metaphorical way. It started with just him. I had a tumblr page (a social media website) that he never knew about, and he had a public twitter that I used to stalk. I thought the songs he posted, and most the tweets he wrote even about politics or sports had metaphors and secret meanings about me. And I’d post thing as a replay to him, also with metaphorical messages. That went on for a year or couple of years and it was completely unnoticed because I never told anyone about it even him although we used to speak through the phone and on skype but I never brought it up, because I thought it was our secret. It didn’t interfere with my life.

After 1-2 years of this mild hallucination I was going through severe depression, I had to come back home, I was in my 3rd year of university and I just couldn’t handle school or living abroad. Back home I had no friends (I had one but she stopped wanting to be friends with me) I’d spend most of my days in our house on the roof smoking cigarettes, I have a very loving and understanding family but they weren’t able to help much because I was in a such a bad place mentally. 

Then it started, I became paranoid and delusional. My delusions and paranoia primarily related to social media (Twitter). I thought that my ex’s family and friends were talking badly about me, that almost every tweet they tweeted had a hidden message or a metaphor about me and my family, saying really horrible things about me and us. I confronted him about it and he was shocked and scared. He tried to convince me and calm me down and kept swearing that nothing was going on and asked me if I was on something and I just kept accusing him and his family and friends. He ended up blocking me everywhere. Which I don’t blame him for.

I was suicidal because I felt like my reputation was ruined by them. My family took me to the ER because I was so paranoid, I started acting recklessly, trying to cut my self with knives, thinking of overdosing etc. my family went through a lot. 

Then I went to see a psychiatrist, I don’t exactly remember all the meds I was on I wasn’t keep track and was in a bad place. My older brother knew my medication and he’d give to me everyday. I’m very thankful for my family. Anyway nothing helped with depression, and I’ve tried a lot of SSRis and SNRis. With time, my paranoia calmed down. And I started a Twitter page that nobody knew about. Suddenly I started thinking that my family knew about this page and stalked me there. And also my ex and his family and friends. I even had my tweets protected and thought they can still access it. 

I’ve accused my little sister of stalking it many times, and I think I’ve harmed her a lot along the way. Instead of thinking that my ex and his family and friends are trying to ruin my reputation, I was thinking that they’re very fond of me and their metaphors are really praise for me. I was not on antipsychotic and this lasted for around 6 months. Besides accusing my sisters and brothers of stalking me on Twitter on many occasions which was probably frightening and heartbreaking for them, I was very calm, no suicidal ideas or anything. From the outside I seem normal because I was immersed in this imagery world where I communicate back and forth through Twitter with people who liked me a lot. While in fact, many of them didn’t know I even existed (ex’s friends and family). 

I was against antipsychotics, my physiatrist with the help of my family tricked me “long story, she told me it’s multivitamin” and put me on Risperdal consta, in 4 weeks after the 2nd injection I “woke up” from the delusion. I realized it was all in my head. In split second, I just “woke up”. The depression didn’t go though. 

I stayed on Raspirdal for a few months then I insisted I go off it -because I had a suicide plan that wouldn’t work while on antipsychotic- so they lowered the dose then stopped it.

The following months I was just compulsively planning my suicide. I met a girl during that time and we became best friends but it didn’t help much. She even knew about my plans but couldn’t help because I was so determined. When I met her I’ve already ordered something called Numbetal from Mexico and it took months to arrive. So everyday I’d check the tracking compulsively and read a lot on suicide forum. That was my life for a around 5 months.

When the Nembutal arrived I’m not exactly sure when, and I don’t know if it’s because of stress, but the Twitter delusions came back. The same “they’re ruining my reputation” paranoia. The people who thought understood that “language” or metaphorical messages was so great. I was terrified. So one night I just took the nembutal. My sister and brother found me a while later. Nembutal kills very fast. I ended up in the ICU, and was in a coma for 3 days. When I woke up, I was screaming “they’re ruining my reputation etc” and they delusions didn’t go away.

I saw another physiatrist couple of weeks later and he put me on Lamictal (first time) and Raspirdal. After couple of months, my life suddenly changed. Im not depressed anymore, the delusions went away. I’m a completely different person. I’m happy. For the first time in a very very long time I can actually feel happiness and not spend my days planning suicide. I’m mostly stable. I can do things, I want to do things. I spend everyday or every other day with my friend. I feel love for my family which I couldn’t experience when I was depressed. I try to find any voulnteering opportunity or event going on in my city. I actually shower without anyone telling me to do so. I put on makeup and put effort in the way I look. I’ve registered for online summer courses from my university which will start soon and plan on finishing school which was impossible 6 months ago. I’m so happy and thankful. 

My main concerns are this: 1-That the delusions will come back at some point (I don’t think they will. I seriously think that after two times of this delusion, it will just not happen again)

2-that I might develop auditory or visual hallucination that I’ve thankful never experienced (again, I don’t think it will happen. Just anxiety)

3-While I’m currently so happy on Lamictal and Raspirdal, I keep reading about long term damages from antipsychotics. 

The following I’ve found while looking online:

“Chronic use of neuroleptic drugs do cause loss of cortical grey matter, which is most notable in the shrinkage of the frontal lobes. They also enlarge the basal ganglia. These neuropathological signs also correlate with the severity of schizophrenia, so these drugs may eventually worsen the condition they were supposed to treat acutely.”

I’ve also read that it ruins the muscles and stores fat, and that will take years to reverse even if I stopped it. I’m very out of shape and have very weak muscles to begin with, I’m just starting gym and I feel really weak. 

I know there’s a possibility that the delusions will come again. But I want to keep a positive outlook and considering the fact I’ve never felt happier or mentally stable they probably won’t come back. 

Should I consider stopping Raspirdal? I’m okay with Lamictal and I think it’s helping immensely with my depression, but I’m very anxious about the long term effects of Raspirdal. I was considering staying on it for life but now I’m not so sure.

I’ll definitely talk to my doctor about it but I actually do believe that psychiatrists don’t know everything. Mine is by all means a good one but I’m from a third world country where psychiatry isn’t very developed so I’d like to hear different opinions from people who’ve done research or have personal experience.

What are your thoughts? Please share any insights or comments you have. I’ll really appreciate it.

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