Sulpiride highs

Well I saw my psych again today and going over my weekend with her she reckons I was slightly hypomanic which could well tie in with my starting on sulpiride last week. It is the first time in a very long time I would have given my mood a ten out ten though and it felt good, so I am sad to let go of it. I was happily spending extravagantly though and there were a few other indicators of caution. I have to go for blood tests tomorrow and my doctor has said sulpiride would only be a temporary measure and I would need to make a switch in either my mood stabiliser - olanzapine to lamotrigine or bite the bullet and go on lithium.

I am a bit nervous of lithium as it has many side effects and if you ever want children you can't be on it and pregnant. My doctor does keep saying though it is the gold standard for bipolar and many people do well on it.

All this comes when I was starting to seriously think about the UK ticket and when I should go. If all goes well with the medication switch I could just make the end of summer before it starts turning grey and miserable. I think I would do better with sunshine than without but will just have to see. Guess it is one step at a time. It feels at times though like I'm a lab rat being fed different concoctions and it is all one giant brain experiment.

The crunch is my decision making as that is what invariably throws me into a spin and makes me over think. Am going to have to decide pretty soon what I'm doing about going to England and if it is just going to be a brief holiday or a working trip. Trouble is I invest too much into it and make it a weighty consideration.

On the work front here, my Czech lady bailed on me and so I need to make some business cards and try find other students. My grade 7 wrote her exam on Saturday and has cut back to just two lessons a week for now. Have found someone via Bambazonke though who wants art lessons which I'm quite excited about as it will make me do some art with them which would be good. They are a student with ZIVA - the Zimbabwe School of Vigital Arts, who wants to improve their art techniques.

Mood stabilizer

Well I saw my psych today and discussed things with her. She is increasing my current mood stabiliser elanzapine and I am going to then be put on lamotrigine. She does not want to change my anti-depressants as it could make me become manic. I am booked to go to the Well Woman Clinic next Wednesday to get them to also assess my mood swings around my menstrual cycle.

My doctor did say that some of it has been circumstantial and I need to work through that. The thought of going overseas for a longer period and decisions about my future may have been strong contributing factors. Went past Emirates on my way home and I'll have till next March to use my ticket. For the moment I need to just focus on getting my moods more stable.

I did go past the Chinese Embassy too to see if I can get some more students to use my CELTA. Got an email yesterday saying my certificate for CELTA has finally come through. There is also the possibility of doing a bit of relief biology teaching at Hellenic.

With the whole question of how much is my meds and how much was circumstances I found the following TED Talk by Neel Burton titled "The anatomy of melancholy - can depression be good for you?" interesting.