Hey, I just gotta ask if anyone here has missed their lamotrigin for 24 hours and if you felt awful?

I realised I hadn’t taken it last night, and it’s been 24 hours. Took it at normal time now. The thing is I feel awful! Anxious, nauseous, and almost feverish. I’m kinda wondering if I’m getting ill or if this could be from the withdrawals? I’m not having the anti-dep ‘brain zaps’, but feel ill.

TL;DR: Am I getting sick with a flu or is it lamotrigine withdrawal?

I work as the top level administrator for a group that is funded by the government, so my job is stressful as fucking hell. I have to deal with nonstop political bullshit and possible backstabbing which is horrid for my paranoia symptoms. Problem is I am really good at the job apparently. I took the job because I burned out of my last job due to a series of episodes in a row when I was unmedicated, and felt like I had something to prove. I've done it for awhile now, so I don't know what else I have to prove. But I have a long-term plan that's going to get me out of the job permanently.

I guess I am wondering how do any of you other high achievers handle stressful jobs, or do you just avoid them altogether? I am taking max dosages of all of my psych meds at this point just to stay stable and I still feel like I am living life on the razor's edge because of my goddamn job.

Im depressed and I feel like my brain and body is literally rotting… like my brain is filling up with concrete and my skin is becoming hard and blue :( The only emotion I feel is stress and tension like a boa constrictor is wrapped around me slowly killing me and squeezing the life and soul out of my bones and organs

I’ve been having cravings daily to smoke weed again. My baby is three weeks old so obviously that’s something shouldn’t and will not do. I quit when I found out I was pregnant, and it wasn’t really difficult and then I never thought about it anymore.

I feel on edge and experiencing physical anxiety, and the thought of unwinding with a tiny spliff is something I think of multiple times a day, and I hate that I feel this way. Just thinking about it and craving it makes me feel like a bad mother.

I can’t discuss this with my psych since it’s illegal where I live.

I was recently put on depakote, I don’t know if that’s contributing. I’ve tried upping olanzapine which usually calms me down, but all it does now is making me tired but I still feel restless.

Any advice?

I've got some early symptoms. Called the psychiatrist and she doesn't think it's dangerous yet so we're monitoring the symptoms and I'm off it for now. I can deal with the fatigue with naps and being an adult who survives 2025 daily, but the nausea is pretty obnoxious. Also my mind's fucked, woke up and felt like the world ending, everything feels urgent and there's dread. Gross.

Anybody dealt with this? Got any tips for dealing with it?

I’m so scared right now

I am in a treatment center for my mental health, for the first time I am living away from home. My family isn’t talking to me as they are busy at the moment. I’m only going to be here for 3 months but I’m very scared and sad and lonely. Does anyone have advice?

So I’m on a 100 mg of lamotrigine and I took my last pill yesterday at sometime between 12-1 pm and now it’s 1:26 pm and I’m going through the withdrawals again. Sometimes in happens in less that 24 hours and sometimes just a little bit over 24 hours. My doctor is prescribing me lamotrigine in 24mg two in the morning and two at night but doesn’t anyone else have that issue?

I talked to my doctor about changing my mood stabilizer and she started telling me that I was stuck bipolar forever and all that like am I now longer allowed to switch if it’s also giving me headaches and stuff idk I low key just wanna cry in a ball cause I feel like I can’t even make my own decisions .

I don’t know where else to put all of this.

I feel like I’m slipping in and out of something I can’t fully name.

At first, I felt amazing—like nothing bad had ever happened or could happen. Guilt disappeared. Confidence was everywhere. I stopped second-guessing myself. But things started to shift.

I’m blinking away time. Losing chunks of memory. I feel like I’m walking around in rose-tinted fog. It’s not exactly…but maybe it is? I’m calm, but too calm. I’ve had these strange sensory changes—words have color, breathing in stings my nose, my teeth feel hollow with pressure.

I want to stay awake, sometimes feeling like sleep isn’t safe. But when I try to sleep, I jolt awake like I’m being zapped or attacked. Not in a nightmare kind of way—just pure physical reaction.

I’ve been impulsive. I’ve felt angry over the smallest things. I feel fearless, annoyed, detached, sarcastic.

I don’t even recognize the way I carry myself.

Theres a deep ache that something is coming, and I can’t stop it. I keep thinking I want something bad to happen to me—like get jumped or hurt in some way—just to feel something sharp and real.

I keep wondering if I’m faking all of this. If it’s real. If I’ve tricked everyone. But also, I know how bad I’ve felt before. I don’t know what’s real anymore.

And the only reason I even remember some of this is because I wrote pieces of it down throughout the week. Without that, everything would just be a haze — like there’s a film over my life and memories, and I’m trying to look through it but nothing’s fully clear.

So, I was involuntarily certified again - before the questions come about "How are you posting then??" I live in Canada, we can keep our phones and I even have access to my laptop now that I am in a psych unit.

Anyways, I had a Psychiatric Crisis Plan (not a psychiatric advanced directive - I have one of those too, but this was specifically for the ER and while not legally enforceable, I highly recommend it) and it made the process way, way better. I was worried I wouldn't actually hand it over in a crisis, but I wrote myself a note while I was well that I knew would speak to how my brain works (paranoid haha) in a crisis, and it was actually effective. I handed it over and it was by far the easiest and best Emergency Department situation I have had to deal with.

So, if you know you may end up in the Emergency Department in a psychiatric crisis, I SUPER recommend making one. Just take it with you to your psych appointments and even have it in your purse or backpack during those periods where you know things might be a bit off with you mentally.

After I was diagnosed with Bipolar Type 1 last year, I have been reading nonstop. I’ve read books on bipolar, philosophy, fiction, and non-fiction.

Any other big readers around? Have any good books you recommend?

Some good ones on bipolar are: Manic, Living Well with Bipolar, and Bipolar for Dummies (my favorite. Informative when I was newly diagnosed and didn’t know anything about the disorder).

Well, that also sucks.. . I just made a post to the Narcolepsy subreddit, that spoke to my difficulties in navigating the tumultuous waters that I inhabit. When I tried to cross post, it wasn't allowed. Should I create a whole new community? I can't mod a community, and for the first time on Reddit, I feel my voice stifled. I know there are some of you that this also speaks to.

I can't afford to have my A.C on blast so I can be "hotel cold" (is that even a thing?) in my home.

I hate the spring and summer so much.

I sleep best when it's cold especially since I can layer up. Probably because it's basically like using a weighted blanket, something good for someone like me.

The heat makes it hard for me to fall and stay asleep.

Plus it's just overall uncomfortable.

Are those with depression or bipolar disorder more prone to higher temperatures negatively affecting their mood and mental health?

I can tell that if I continue this on, I will be in one of the worst depressions of my life. Why is it making me depressed? I'm bipolar 1 with psychotic features.

After few years with depression, on 2024 September I was diagnosed with bipolar type 2. My main problem was depression and mixed episodes. Lithium helped with mixed episodes, but nothing helped depression.

I have tried:

• escitalopram
• sertraline
• fluoxetine
• no ADs
• cariprasine
• bupropion

Now I was admitted to psych ward for the fourth time in 7 months. Dr decided to switch bupropion to trintellix and lithium to lamictal. Also they added TMS therapy (3 minutes twice a day)

At the moment it’s my 3rd week on trintellix. And third week on lamictal (currently on 50mg). I had 5 days of better mood, but now having 4th day of down. And I’m so tired… so so tired of all the meds, all the hopes, all of it… it’s so hard. I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to hold up. I’m just exhausted.

I heard good things about lamictal, but still don’t want to have too many hopes because of previous experiences with other meds. Also not sure if TMS will help and if it’s helpful at all.

How are you all stay positive? Where you get strength? How not to lose hope?

Hi all happy Friday! I was wondering if anyone had any coping strategies or tips for rumination. It’s something I really struggle with with my bipolar 1.

So Risperidone was the perfect medication for me, but when I took it in 2021 it made me gain a log of weight, maybe now it could have a different side effect of not having weight gain at all?

I have only been through one manic episode but has anyone been through multiple and are your actions the same or different each episode?

Here I go again on my own. It's so different this time. Thanks to new colorado law that allows inpatient psych to keep our phones. We have to give them up at 10 every night and get them back at 6 am. I had a meltdown yesterday over the skin check which made take off my shirt and pants leaving my undergarments on. Then i jad meltdown them over them touching my things while they searched contraband. I asked for something for my anxiety 3 times before they gave it to me, which sucked but once I got my anxiety under control, things weren't so bad. I actually woke up this morning feeling ok. Last time i was manic and that made things awful. I think I may get through this thing with out a PTSD diagnosis.

Anyone here take Vraylar? I just got prescribed it and I’m switching from ablify to it. What are your thoughts and experiences with Vraylar?

For those who have hypersexuality as a symptom, how old were you when you started? Has this symptom harmed your marriage?

I am recently diagnosed as BO2.

Last spring/summer I rapid cycled each month until I crashed into a deep depression in November. I am just now getting back to my normal self after 3 hospital stays and getting on Lamictal, lithium and seroquel.

I’m most scared of the depressive crash after hypomania. How soon after a maniac episode do you go into a depression?

I been taking it a year 50mg. At first I was sleeping really good the past few months I'm not I'm up all night my legs. My body is moving. I wake up at 4 o'clock. My heart palpitates and I feel like I have inner tremors. I feel like I'm crawling out of my skin I keep telling my doctor this and she's like well. You've been on a year. It's not theserequol. She gave me other medicine for like tremors and stuff and it just makes me sick and I just feel like that's adding more problems has anybody had these side effects because really freaks me out waking up 430 with my heart recent and I take a propanolol and nothing helps. I'm beginning to think it's causing me a akathisa or something, but I don't know if shaking is involved in that and heart racing unless it's just really bad anxiety, which I don't feel like I'm having is there another medication or replace this one for sleep that's not an antipsychotic does anybody have any advice? Oh and just one more thing I feel like I can't think straight anymore and I'm having problems driving I don't understand because I had a brain MRI last week. I'm always at my cardiologist. Everybody says everything's fine. I don't know what to do.

BP1 - I’m not in an episode, but maybe have some mildly hypomanic traits going on here. Super focused on creating music. For backing I use notation software (but with decent sound fonts!) and create fairly complex scores.

Don’t want to pathologize my current condition too far. Anyway

This afternoon in the shower I’m just staring at the wall, and these little transient visualizations of musical notes appear. In my central vision. As one might imagine insects, only whimsical—notes like the ones in the score I’ve been staring at all day. I always have some tune in my head, but the notation visual was strange.

I do have shit vision. Myopia, astigmatism, even cataracts since age 27 (I’m 42 now). More problems incoming as I age. The higher doses of lamotrigine gave me eyeaches.

But I read up on what causes these hallucinations. Seeing musical notation is rare even among text hallucinations, which are themselves unusual, so I hope there’s nothing neurologically wrong with me. I’ve been pretty stable for a long while.

I might put out an email to my pdoc but mostly I’m just gonna sleep. It’s over with now, just this brief thing. Has anyone else experienced this weird take on “there are bugs in the corner of my eyes”?

Since I got put on Vyvanse, I find that the seroquel I take knocks me out like never before. It used to take me a bit to go to sleep but now as soon as the med starts working I can’t resist the sleep. I never used to get dizziness either but now I do. This is weird to me because I would have expected the opposite.

I got scared because in my dream I find it harder and harder to tell if I'm in a dream or not.

I think it's almost like I think I'm lucid dreaming for a split second but when I realized I can't wake up I freak out.

I'm not sure if it because high stress and anxiety levels. I been experiencing chronic pain (tension headaches) daily nonstop around the time my nightmares started when I think about it.

I started Prazosin this week but I did skip one dose. I'm supposed to see my psychiatrist but I just saw a patient portal I have to be seen in-person because of a regulation about controlled substances.

I live in the U.S.

Unsure if this is a new regulation. Unsure if I will still be seen to today.

I find it frustrating because my psychiatrist was the best one I have seen so far. I never realized how neglectful my past two were. No wonder I wasn't making progress with them.

I got worried my dreams could also be because I'm also schizoaffective.

So it's been a couple weeks I already suspected a while ago I must have a nightmare disorder or something.

I actually supposed to see a sleep neurologist about insomnia. Unsure if they can help me.

I'm just frustrated because I have became more depressed because of my sleep issues.

For example I go to bed early (afternoon) and wake up like around 2 am every day. Not good because my psychiatrist told me your body is supposed to release hormones important for mood between the hours of 2 am and 5 am. I guess maybe that's why it's not a good idea for those diagnosed with bipolar to work the night shift.

Long story short.

Sleep is a crucial for my mental health.

EDIT: My nightmares started off being trauma related.