Taking anti-psychotics & mood stabilisers to treat bipolar

My story: treating bipolar with anti-psychotics and mood stabilisers

The problems I was facing before I was on medication were mainly around social problems, and people not speaking to me when I was either very depressed, or very manic. And I had general internal problems of being unable to get out of bed in the morning, and feeling my mood change, and this creating a lot of anxiety in itself.

When I needed to get help, I was lucky enough to have two parents who recognised what was happening, because I had a manic episode and then I got checked out at hospital, and went from there.

I was diagnosed with bipolar, but I didn’t really remember any of it initially.

But when I was better (because I was hospitalized for four months) and was able to understand my condition, there were plenty of people for me to talk to. But that was in hospital.

But when I came out, I had lots of support as well.

Initially I was on Seroquel. I came off that after a couple of years. That was an anti-psychotic. And then I got stabilized on Lithium, which is a mood stabilizer, so now I’m only on that.

The Seroquel – there were lots of different possible side effects. I don’t remember what most of them were, but the only one which impacted on me was weight gain.

In combination with growing anyway, I put on four stone. By the time I lost it, I lost two stone and kept two stone (I had aged from 13 to 16, so I grew up a lot).

That was pretty much the only negative side effect. The positive side effect was that my mania stopped after only a week due to the medication.

But this was a short term solution, because I go t released after a month and got depressed, and then had to come back.

Then I was put on Lithium, which as far as I know has no side effects – it has never had any on me.