Free Living Bipolar by Landon Sessions Page B

you have enough fluid in your head that it would never do that. But never-the-less, it feels like your head got smashed against it.
    The first time the memory lost lasted about a day or two. I lost my memory for a day the first time I had the ECT’s done. But then something changed, probably after the sixth time I had ECT’s. My memory didn’t come back… at all . It just didn’t come back. My short term memory, my long term memory, both just stopped. For example, my dad would do flash cards with me, and I would do well for the first six, but then my nothing -- my memory just stopped, and it kept getting worse and worse. My memory was terrible.
    I had shock treatment done around eight times, but I don’t particularly remember all of them. The first time I had ECT done the nine month manic episode went away. While ECT did help some the experience was absolutely miserable. Today I still have memory problems. Sometimes it’s really good, but it just takes work. Like if I’m listening to music, watching a music video, where there is audio and visual I will remember it a lot better. But when I’m sitting and reading a familiar book, even though I read it years ago the memory of it is gone. Sometimes I have to sit and read and I have to read pages over and over and over and over again.
    Now I can’t be in school. And I tried. I tried so hard to be in school. I’ve gone to so many classes and I’ve had to leave. And the process just becomes painful. I want to finish my degree. I would love to finish my college my degree. But I can’t even read a fiction book!!!
    MEDICATION
    When I was little…well, not even when I was little, I’ve struggled my entire life with finding the right combination of meds. When I got clean from drugs it became quite obvious that one mood stabilizer wasn’t going to do anything for me. However, I can’t survive without lithium . That’s the one medication that if I don’t take it my life becomes miserable. I take nine hundred milligrams of it right now which is very low. The lithium level is kept at .7 for my body.
    I’ve always been very, very sensitive to prescribed drugs. Anytime doctors would increase the lithium to above .7, I go into lithium toxicity. My whole body starts itching; I’ll be covered in sweat. There is too much salt, so I’ll be retaining all this water, headaches, and things like that. Even without the toxicity being on lithium is having a life of excess, sweating, holding in water, being a little lethargic, if you eat salty food -- and I love salty food -- you get itchy afterwards. I get headaches, I can’t be out in the sun light, or I get sick.
    Notes on Neurotoxicity:
    Neurotoxicity occurs as a result of exposure to natural or man-made toxic substance, called neurotoxins, which alter the normal activity of the nervous system causing damage to the nervous tissue. Eventually, this can disrupt or kill neurons which are key cells that transmit and process signals in the brain and other parts of the nervous system. Symptoms of neurotoxicity may appear immediately after exposure or the symptoms may be delayed. Symptoms include limb weakness or numbness, loss of memory, vision, headache, cognitive and behavioral problems and sexual dysfunction.
    The Term “Neurotoxic” is used to describe a substance, condition, or state that damages the nervous system, and/or brain. Generally the term is used to describe a condition or substance that has been shown to result in observable physical damage.
     
    Neurotoxicity is kind of like your high I guess -- but wrong. I use to envision the road had pot holes everywhere, so when I walked I tripped over the pot holes because I saw them, but they weren’t really there, but I saw them. It was bad.
    I’ve taken a sleeping pill since I was 14, and I have to because I can’t sleep on my own. I have to take a thyroid medication in order to counteract the lithium. I’ve been on almost every single mood stabilizer offered. Some of