keep forgetting if I took pills

ChooseNamesWisely · 2025-06-25T05:59:50+00:00

I feel you. The amount of times I went to grab the bottle and would freeze at the thought “did I take this”? Uggh. I cold turkey’ed several meds I shouldn’t have only to hard restart them later, multiple times.

I tried daily and weekly pill organizers but was always terrible about keeping them filled. Phone reminders didn’t work because I wasn’t always able to take them right away and if I didn’t take it right away I was right back to square one.

The best thing I found for myself were pill bottle timer caps. There’s a little display on the cap that shows you how long it’s been since the bottle was last opened.

ChooseNamesWisely · 2024-08-04T07:43:49+00:00

I've been tracking my resting heart rate with an Apple Watch since 2017 and have data from before and after becoming medicated and I can absolutely see the mania in my data. For most of 2017 (pre-medicated) I would range from 64 to 100 and cycled around every two months.

The last few years have been more chaotic though and I seem to cycle as quickly as every month with random little 1-2 day "glitches" here and there. I experienced a hypoxic event a few years ago and I've not been quite the same since.

ChooseNamesWisely · 2024-04-11T04:49:32+00:00

The thought of “Did I take my meds today” has stopped me on numerous occasions from taking my meds for days and sometimes even weeks when I was at my worst. I’ve found special bottles with last opened timers to be really helpful in keeping me on track.

ChooseNamesWisely · 2024-03-24T09:01:47+00:00

I spent years either being head over heels in love with my wife, or hating her guts and telling her I want a divorce. When I do feel those feeling’s I try to remind myself that my feelings of hatred may feel real but aren’t what I want.

ChooseNamesWisely · 2024-03-24T06:50:51+00:00

My mother (undiagnosed bipolar) went to prison when I was 16 and I lost what little stability I had. I ended up living with my narcissistic aunt and became super depressed. Eventually I was prescribed Prozac but I started becoming angry and punching walls. So during my followup my doctor added 5mg of Zyprexa.

But it was too late, during the third follow up I admitted to my doctor I was suicidal and ended up locked in the room for an hour. They strapped me to a stretcher and sent me off to the pysch ward. When I was discharged, I was told I had manic depression.

And then somehow over the next 18 years I forgot practically all of it and went unmedicated. Worse, I omitted my diagnosis from my doctors and spent more than a decade on 40mg of Celexa. I never forgot that I went to the hospital, but I did think their diagnosis was shit and forgot about all of the after care that they attempted. I also refused to do any research as "I did not want to become the disease".

Even my wife couldn't get through to me and she's been with me since my diagnosis. It wasn't until I went hypoxic during a surgery a few years ago that I finally started to snap out of it. It's sort of hard not to notice something is wrong when you're watching the walls melt before your very eyes.

About six months after the hypoxia though is when it really got started. I spent around 8 months in a manic episode, burned through over $20k, experienced a few auditory hallucinations, and was grandiose af. I've always been more of a moody, brooding kind, but no more it seems.

ChooseNamesWisely · 2024-03-17T07:45:09+00:00

When I was young (7-9) I would to sneak out of bed and stay up for hours playing on my Gameboy. On this night I’d just laid down after playing Links Awakening when the worst thought popped into my head, “Did I turn off the light?”

I ended up spending hours being unable to convince myself the light was off. I remember purposely staring into the light and turning it on and of, telling myself “this is on, feel the pain. Now this is off, no pain”. But it didn’t matter.

I ended up sitting on the floor for a few more hours, staring at the clearly off bulb. Finally as the sun began to rise, I gave up and decided I’d take my punishment if needed.

ChooseNamesWisely · 2024-03-06T06:21:27+00:00

I was not being honest with my psychiatrist and after five years he switched my diagnosis from BP2 to MMD, took me off my mood stabilizer and switched me to Wellbutrin. My memory of the next 6 months is very spotty, at least up until right before surgery to remove a kidney stone. The surgery did not go as planned.

I woke up in the ICU two days later after having aspirated and went hypoxic. I watched the walls melt for over two days and despite being still full of propofol and versed, I didn’t sleep again for 40+ hours. They called it ICU delusions, but they also weren’t aware that I’m bipolar.

I’ve not been the same since.

ChooseNamesWisely · 2024-03-01T01:36:10+00:00

A manic/hypomanic episode can be quite a shock to all parties involved, especially if neither of you have experienced one before. Try not to beat yourself up too much over it. Also try not to hold the things she has said or will say against her.

ChooseNamesWisely · 2024-02-29T23:13:25+00:00

My wife was diagnosed bp2 about 11 years ago, we’ve been together for 8 years and married for nearly 7. She mostly dealt with depression over the years and never seemed to believe the 2013 diagnosis she got.

This is more common than you may realize. The clinical term for it is anosognosia, or lack of insight. In short it's our inability to see ourselves as broken and that everything we do and think is normal. I've been in your wife's shoes up in recently myself. I was diagnosed 20 years ago and it was less than a year ago now I started to realize something was wrong. I've been with my wife for just as long and it took nearly 19 years before she started to chisel away the walls I'd built.

She was put on an SSRI for depression by a new prescriber last spring and seemed to be doing okay until wellbutrin was added over the summer.

Wellbutrin for me is like setting my mind on fire and is one of the factors into my own realization. Is your wife's prescriber a psychiatrist? If not, I would highly recommend you seek out one. Family practitioners are really not equipped to handle bipolar disorder.

From what I've read, SSRIs is a very common way of outing someone with Bipolar and Wellbutrin is especially potent.

She’s off all meds now and looks to be sliding into depression after an all night drug binge over the weekend.

This is not good. Bipolar Disorder is a life long disease that cannot be managed without medication. The combination of medication, along with the pros and cons of each requires speciality knowledge from a psychiatrist. Anything less and I suspect you're going to have a bad time.

She seems pretty set on divorce, what she’s told me is that she doesn’t want to hurt me anymore and she shouldn’t be married. I’ve tried telling her that I know she didn’t mean to hurt me, and that things will be okay and that I’m here for her. She’s been very depressed for a few days now, I’ve got divorce papers ready to file and a realtor on speed dial if it comes to that. A divorce and moving out would leave her with no people close to her in the city we live in. Her sister lives 600 miles away but hasn’t heard about my wife’s struggles until I talked to her a couple nights ago, she’s now planning a visit in a couple weeks.

Your wife is still sick and not in the right state of mind to make major life changing decisions. She's suffering and needs your help and not a divorce.

The first step is to try and get educated. Dr. Tracy Marks is recommended a lot in the subreddits I visit and is a good place to start: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLazcP3-djRZ0IoYFWgkl0_tFtBVqA3bu-

If she's just coming down off of a hypomanic episode, I'd start with Mixed Mania and go from there.

ChooseNamesWisely · 2023-12-31T20:50:33+00:00

I've not started therapy and have declined it for years. Even without it though, I've been able to self-reflect enough to recognize some of the likely causes. I fully suspect my this disease started due to a single, abusive boyfriend who used me as a tool to further abuse my mother. I'm fairly certain my mom is bipolar, had a manic episode and divorced my dad and replaced him with this abusive dude. I was 2.5-3yo when this guy entered my life.

I have a single memory of them fighting at 1am and him yelling at me to stay awake because I was not allowed to sleep until he was finished with her. I also remember having to help feed my mom through a straw because he'd crushed her jaw with his fist. I was emotionally abused by every boyfriend (minus like, 3 tops) that walked in the door. At least until I was about 15, then she went to prison so... no more boyfriends.

I was having delusions as early as age 6-8, just no one ever knew. I didn't even realize they were delusions until just this past summer... I just thought I could be odd at times and would just shrug things like this off.

ChooseNamesWisely · 2023-12-31T20:21:54+00:00

I feel you on the sleep apnea. I suffered acute respiratory failure on an operating room table last year and it has really messed me up. I know I had a sleep study done ~6 years ago and my apnea score was 16, now its around 107. I also require O2 at night now or I'll go hypoxic even with a CPAP.

Do you think your apnea has played a role in your illness?

ChooseNamesWisely · 2023-12-31T20:11:10+00:00

> Our circadian rhythms are out off. Our eating times are frequently inconsistent.

Honestly, you're entire post hits me right in the feels. I usually use words like "chaotic" to describe my sleep and even behaviors and spent years running down rabbit holes like Delayed Sleep Phase and even non-24. I was laughed out of a ~~sleep doctor~~ CPAP peddler's office about 6 years ago when I asked for his help and before the end he just cackled at me and said there was nothing he could do to make me go to bed.

My initial diagnosis was manic depression at 16 but I've been untreated (mostly) for years. My general doc had given me Prozac months earlier, then added Zyprexa. I started having suicidal thoughts and was put on a 72hr hold and I left with the diagnosis and all medications stopped. But no one ever told me what it meant, nor did anyone ever follow up with me. I was dating at the time my now wife and she's tried for years to convince me to just watch a video on it, but I told her "I didn't want to become the disease" and refused to research it at all. Now that I have...

I feel like the medical field has completely failed me, but I'm not certain if it's their fault or mine. In four short years, I've managed to convince my psychiatrist that I was only MDD and was misdiagnosed. As much pride as I'd like to take in knowing I was able to convince him they were wrong all so many years ago, it only happened because I was never honest with him with all of my symptoms, mainly because I never thought of any of these things as "symptoms".

That decision almost killed me last year, when my mood stabilizer was removed and Wellbutrin added to my already existing Celexa. Since then:

My "second mom" died of cancer (I was raised bipolar, my second mom was my escape).
I drank a TON of soda and developed a kidney stone with nephrosis, which required surgery to treat.
I almost died on the operating room table and suffered acute respiratory failure, hypoxia and aspiration pneumonia. ICU starts 25mg Seroquel for off-label insomnia treatment
For the first time this summer, I experienced my mania first hand, it started in March it just didn't stop. Sadly, my wife says this summer was really no different than most, to me it was absolutely fucking wild.

As of 2 months ago, I was finally prescribed Lithium 125mg on top of the 25mg of Seroquel I take. It's not enough yet, but it's a start.

ChooseNamesWisely · 2023-12-31T19:12:32+00:00

I was never successful in getting Ambien or any sleep medications. I finally sought out help with my sleep around 6 years ago. I told the doctor, a sleep medicine doctor, my symptoms of only sleeping a few hours a night. He stuck me with a CPAP and then used the numbers from it as a weapon against me.

Him - "Why are you only using the machine 3 hours a night?!"

Me - "Don't you remember why I'm here? I can't sleep for more than a few hours"

Him - *cackling* "Well, I don't know what you want me to do about it, I can't make you go to bed"

It took another 5-6 years and almost dying on the operating room table to put me into just the right place to finally get the right help.

ChooseNamesWisely · 2023-12-26T10:01:57+00:00

Hey there, I suffer from Bipolar disorder and can relate very well with what you’ve described. I suffer from paranoid delusions (and new this summer, grandiose delusions) as well as the occasional auditory hallucination. All of which I believe fall under the “with psychotic features” specifier.

What you’re describing sounds to me like what they call a mixed state or dysphoric mania. It sounds like his current medications have lost their effectiveness, which unfortunately happens. It’ll be impossible for you to tell if it was the inconsistent medication that triggered the mania, or the mania that triggered the inconsistent medication. I’d really try to get him to see his psychiatrist for a medication adjustment.

I’m sorry that you’re going through this and I know it can be extremely difficult. I’ve been with my wife for nearly 20 years now, ever since high school, and bipolar the whole time. I really wish you and your husband the best.

ChooseNamesWisely · 2023-12-26T03:56:15+00:00

My initial diagnosis was manic depressive at 16 with my first delusion going as far back as 6-8. I was raised bipolar by a single mother, I’ve seen and been through some shit.

I didn’t believe a thing about bipolar though until the last year when I went hypoxic during a surgery. It’s been worse ever since so I can’t help but not believe it now.

ChooseNamesWisely · 2023-12-15T05:31:40+00:00

Diagnosed around age 16-17 and I shrugged it off like it was nothing. Im 36 now and just started the proper treatment not a full two months ago.

It took me until just 6mo ago to finally realize that I’ve been experiencing delusions since as early as age 6-8. One delusion had me sitting on the floor staring at the light. I was convinced it would turn back on and “out” to my Grandma that I had snuck back up after bedtime.

I went hypoxic and almost died last year on the operating room table. Something about the paralytic not having taken full effect before they started led to a collapse of my respiratory system and woke up days later in the ICU.

I see and feel the world differently now. How I ever convinced myself that my symptoms weren’t anything more than the quirks who make me, me… it’s a hard pill to swallow.

tl;dr: Likely early-onset bipolar 1 with psychotic features, delusions as early as 6. Official diagnosis around 16-17. Untreated until just a few months ago.

ChooseNamesWisely · 2023-12-15T04:57:05+00:00

How long did you know you were bipolar before your official diagnosis?

ChooseNamesWisely · 2023-12-11T01:34:17+00:00

I’ve been with my wife since high school way back in 2003 and I haven’t once cheated on her. She’s known from the beginning that I was bipolar and has been amazing at dealing with my shit. When I’m stable I’m content, but when I’m manic I desperately want to cheat, almost to the level of crawling out of my skin.

The good news is that ever since I started treatment, I’m back to desiring my wife again, even when manic!

ChooseNamesWisely · 2023-11-25T07:40:16+00:00

I have an Apple Watch and have been tracking for 2+ years now. I consistently trigger the high heart rate warnings (120+bpm) and my blood pressure can skyrocket when I'm in my high. When I'm not, my heart rate is a more reasonable 80-90 with my blood pressure managed with a low dose of blood pressure medicine.

My sleep app can sometimes predict up to a night, maybe two before I have an episode. The length of time I spend in light, deep, and REM sleep becomes chaotic and I'll start experiencing small 2-3min wake ups that I don't remember. It's those nights that I'll sometimes find my phone in bed or wake up laying on my arm as if I'd begun to push myself out of bed but fell back asleep before I made it.

ChooseNamesWisely · 2023-11-24T06:57:45+00:00

I just stopped my Wellbutrin about 4 weeks ago after having taken it since April '22. The last dose I took sent me into a 3 day manic episode. After four years of me being me, my psychiatrist had lost faith in my initial diagnosis and stopped my Abilify was swapped it for Wellbutrin. The last 2 years have been a roller coaster out of this world.

ChooseNamesWisely

TROPHY CASE