Hubby got to thinking tonight (he's a Normal), and was wondering if I'm so focused on ADD and bipolar that I'm not getting better. That it's inhibiting healing and possibly triggering more mood swings instead of less. It's been 1 1/2 months since I was diagnosed bipolar. Do you find this to be the case, even at times, for any of you? The whole point of being educated, informed and even these forums is to cope better with what's going on, not make life more difficult. I guess he thinks I was healthier when I hyperfocused on Harry Potter. So....I don't know, I guess he could have a point. Or maybe I should only hyperfocus during the weekdays and not on the weekend. What do you think? What would, or do, you do? Or am I possibly just relieved to finally have a reason for all the stuff I didn't understand about myself for 30 years?

Hubby got to thinking tonight (he's a Normal),


Oh, first time for everything, huh? J/k... sorry, couldn't resist. :)


and was wondering if I'm so focused on ADD and bipolar that I'm not getting better. That it's inhibiting healing and possibly triggering more mood swings instead of less. It's been 1 1/2 months since I was diagnosed bipolar. Do you find this to be the case, even at times, for any of you? The whole point of being educated, informed and even these forums is to cope better with what's going on, not make life more difficult. I guess he thinks I was healthier when I hyperfocused on Harry Potter. So....I don't know, I guess he could have a point. Or maybe I should only hyperfocus during the weekdays and not on the weekend. What do you think? What would, or do, you do? Or am I possibly just relieved to finally have a reason for all the stuff I didn't understand about myself for 30 years?

If it's only a couple months, I wouldn't worry about it. You're right, you do need to be an active and informed participant in your treatment, and if reading about ADD and bipolar and participating in forums helps you do that, that's great. It seems like you're really motivated to change, and that will help you in the long run.

It's only when something like this takes over your life that you really have to worry. For myself, I've checked out a lot of the meds used to treat my conditions (ADD, nonverbal learning disability, and agoraphobia w/out panic), read journal articles and books, participated in forums, etc, and I feel it's helped me a lot when it comes to therapy. In fact, my therapist said I probably know more about my learning disability than he does. :) To be fair, though, I think he generally treats adults and doesn't have a lot of experience with learning disabilities.

What I'm doing seems to be helping me, so I'm going to keep with it. Hope that helps. :-)

It's important for us to become our own advocates as far as our health and well being goes. And that includes becoming educated, informed and finding ways to cope with our illness and the accompanying stress. I was diagnosed with Hepatitis C earlier this year and researched it 24/7 at first. Drove others around me crazy, some thought that I was letting "life" pass me by with my obsession and maybe to a certain extent, I was. But, I tell you, when I walked into each Dr. appointment armed with questions and concerns, I felt like more of a "partner" in my treatment. I never would have been able to decifer all the medical jargon, test results, treatment options, etc. otherwise. Nowadays, I rarely talk about it, unless someone else brings it up.... except on the HCV support forum I belong to. I'm more at ease (that isn't the word I want, but it'll have to do) with it, but that doesn't mean I don't still think about it (alot). It just doesn't rule my life anymore, like it did at first. Some people just don't get it, that with ADD or any other health issue, we can't just turn it off on a whim or compartmentalize it, especially at first. We live it every minute of every day. Hopefully things will balance out for you in the near future. Hey, thank goodness for these forums, huh? When times get rough, it's always good to have a place to go to bounce ideas around, to vent, whatever, with people that have been there.