#cavestudio

[midnightat4]

Midnight at 4 - Pilot

[keakealani]

cavestudio replied to your post: I really don't like this.

How long has it been? One of my close friends who tried meds told me that her doctor said for the first two weeks or so it gets a lot worse before it gets better.

It's only been about a week. I think it depends on the med, too. This one, as I've mentioned before, has a very gradual ramp-up time because there is a slight risk for some potentially-fatal side effects at higher doses, which can be identified and dealt with more easily if the dose is smaller. I've heard both of people feeling better right away and people needing much more time to get it to work, and everyone has different dose levels and whatnot that work for them.

I am worried that it's going to get worse before it gets better - there is a major risk of suicidal behavior in early treatment of bipolar and depression in general because if you start to feel better and then it doesn't quite go as planned it can be a lot more destructive. Right now I'm trying to be very vigilant about that and keeping my roommates/family/boyfriend in the loop so things don't happen badly, but at the same time it is still a concern.

And of course beyond that, my diagnosis is by no means absolute, which means there's also a huge margin of error with just being treated incorrectly. Although honestly, the more I sit with this pseudo-diagnosis, the more I begin to see it, and see that it's affected my life in more ways than I initially thought.