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Journal Pan T. Hose's Journal: The Chaos I Live In 8

Journal by Pan T. Hose

Hi,

I am not absolutely terrified any more, but still angry and confused. I got up and have been reading for about three or four hours straight since then, mostly the PsychEducation.org and some Wikipedia articles. I am thinking about one thing which my psychiatrist didn't consider at all, i.e. if it is possible that my problems with mood could be strengthened by my completely disorganized life style and not only the other way around.

I don't sleep regularly at all. Sometimes I sleep at night, sometimes during the day, sometimes I stay awake 20 or 40 hours straight (with or without caffeine) and sometimes as little as 8 or even 4 and go back to sleep (not a nap, but a full sleep). Sometimes I sleep 4 hours a day and sometimes 20 hours. There is no pattern at all.

The same thing with eating. It is not at all unusual for me to not eat anything at all for two days, or eat nothing but a little can of nuts a day for a week, but there are days where I eat enormous piles of food, eating half a week worth of food (i.e. what a normal person eats during at least three or four days) in one day, for few days in a row, or just in a single day with next day eating much less or nothing at all (I am hungry all the time, no matter if I eat or not, so my hunger doesn't force any regularity on me). Again, no pattern.

The same is with caffeine: there are days with 1.5g of caffeine (20 red bulls) and there are days with none. Physical exercises: exactly the same. Intellectual exercises: the same as above. Social interactions, going out, reading, programming, watching TV, driving around, walking around, shopping, eating, cooking, sleeping, exercising, jogging, going to the theater or cinema, listening to music, you name it. Absolutely everything.

Now it strikes me. There is absolutely no aspect of my life style which is even remotely regular or organized anyhow. Literally everything I do looks the same. I don't go out for a week and then take a six hours walk after which I cannot move my legs. I don't read for a week and then read for twenty hours with almost no breaks (when I don't eat or drink, I don't even need many breaks to go to the bathroom). I don't excercise for weeks and then I make forty pushups and constantly work out for an hour after which I am so exhausted that I feel that I am loosing consciousness. Everything, from physical to intellectual, from art to the most basic tasks.

And now, what's even more strange when I'm thinking about it, all of those different aspects of my life style don't seem to be correlated with each other in any way, not even with my mood swings. Everything is totally indeterministically chaotic and completely independent in that. I think I haven't ever thought about it before, but there is no clear connection between my mood, eating, exercising or any other activity.

Now, the question is: what if I started to organize myself? What effect would it have on my mood? After all, even if totally overlooked by my psychiatrist, regular sleep and eating is a basic and essential part of bipolar disorder treatment (and probably any other affective disorder, for that matter).

Could my chaotic life style be actually one of the casues of my problems and not merely an otherwise unimportant symptom of my disease? What do you think? What would you suggest? Should I organize? How do you try to organize your day yourselves?

Now when I'm thinking about it I don't even have such thing as a "day" anymore... There is random sleeping, random events, emotions, which are not organized in the day-night cycles, or in any other pattern for that matter. Does it make sense to try to organize everything? What effect does the failure to organize have on your mood and your life? Any thoughts? Ideas?

Thanks and sorry for typos or chaotic writing (no pun intended, really) I'm in a hurry right now, I have to make some serious decisions and I'm totally confused and completely overwhelmed with all of this, I'm angry and tired.

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The Chaos I Live In More

The Chaos I Live In

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  • I know very little about bipolar disorder, and won't pretend to know anything about treatment for it. But one thing I have learned from dealing with doctors, both good and bad, is that while you can never be sure if they know more than you about many things. (In your case, the question would be how much does your doctor know about the medication she prescribed for you.) There is one thing that you will always know better than your doctor; yourself.

    I personally have no idea if organizing your life will he

    • I know very little about bipolar disorder, and won't pretend to know anything about treatment for it. But one thing I have learned from dealing with doctors, both good and bad, is that while you can never be sure if they know more than you about many things. (In your case, the question would be how much does your doctor know about the medication she prescribed for you.) There is one thing that you will always know better than your doctor; yourself.

      Good point...

      I personally have no idea if orga

  • It's hard to say if your lifestyle is a cause or an effect of your varying moods. Most likely it's a bit of both. I know that when I don't sleep I tend to go manic. Same thing goes for when I don't eat.

    One thing that a lot of people fail to realize when the undergo treatment for bipolar disorder (or any illness for that matter), is that their lifestyle must change accordingly, or nothing will improve. For some, the lifestyle change does not need to be drastic, but for others this is necessary.

    I'm not
    • Have you ever thought of trying marijuana, I know its illegal but sometimes when I can't sleep or dont have an appetite and helps me. just a suggestion b ut thanks for sharing

      • Have you ever thought of trying marijuana, I know its illegal but sometimes when I can't sleep or dont have an appetite and helps me. just a suggestion b ut thanks for sharing

        As hard to believe as it might be, I have never tried marijuana and have really no idea how I'd feel after smoking a joint. I was expecting you'd mention it though, after reading the latest journal of Pyro226 [slashdot.org]:

        "MonkeysKickAss is somewhat out of place in our class. [...] he is a major druggie... well, that may be a little ext

      • Marijuana makes me manic. So it definitely won't help me to sleep. It helps with the appetite, but that's only a minor problem compared to sleep deprivation.

        I can only smoke a little marijuana at a time (one or maybe two tokes, that's it). If I smoke to much my mind races all over the place, and I twitch uncontrollably. Or at least it feels that way. Not to mention that if I mix marijuana and alcohol I get violently ill.

        Sorry to carry on about marijuana, but you brought it up. (-:
      • Timmy's Tales [greendragonsoftware.com] Go to the above web page and read about my tales

    • It's hard to say if your lifestyle is a cause or an effect of your varying moods. Most likely it's a bit of both. I know that when I don't sleep I tend to go manic. Same thing goes for when I don't eat.

      All of the different aspects of my chaos are probably in a positive feedback loop. What I started to think about lately is that now when I talk to my psychiatrist I describe symptoms of bipolar (and possibly some other) disorder, as well as sleep deprivation (or sometimes too much of sleep), excessive

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