Everything happens for a reason

As promised, here's an update after my visit to the hospital last week for the review of my medication.

I've met with my new psychiatrist and she was really easy to talk to. I felt very comfortable and didn't feel I needed to hold anything back. She asked how things had been most recently and took a brief history on how things had been since I was in my early teens. Obviously she can't make a judgement on one visit, but she has said that there's a possibility I am bipolar, or perhaps I may have a personality disorder. Adding to that I may have a combination of the two.

She's started me on a new drug called Olanzapine. This is a mood stabilizer and should be more effective than the previous drug I was on, Citalopram. 

I've never heard of Olanzapine so I did a bit of a digging around online to try and get some information and patient experience about it. Pretty mortified to see that there's a huge possibility I'm going to gain weight! I'm only 59kg so I can afford to put on a few lbs but I'm already very conscious about my weight so I don't want to get fat, then have something else to get depressed about. I've spoken to my GP in regards to the weight gain and she's said not everybody gains weight and there are things I can do to prevent it, eating healthily etc. 

Also, Olanzapine can increase the risk of getting diabetes so I am going to have to go for regular blood test to monitor the sugar levels in my blood.

Although the weight gain is a bit daunting, I do realise I have to try something to help me feel better and get back to being the person I was before. 

You'll notice I've not blogged for just over 10 days. I've not had a brilliant couple of weeks to be honest. I've had a few 'crazy' weekends with lots of alcohol and occasionally I've had drugs. To add to this, yesterday my employer terminated my contract on the grounds of ill health. The time I was taking off with my illness couldn't be sustained by the company any more and to be fair to them, they have been very supportive over the last couple of years. It didn't come as a shock to me at all. In some respects I'm kind of relieved. I was sick to death of constantly having to answer to someone who didn't have a clue about mental illness. They were always asking me why I'd not been diagnosed yet and didn't understand that these things don't happen over night. As well as this I HATED talking to some of their moronic customers. 

On the other hand, I'm now unemployed and we all know what it's like for people trying to find jobs these days. I'm in a really unpredictable situation but I do believe everything happens for a reason.

Never the less, I'm going to keep my chin up and crack on with job hunting. I'm not in any rush to find a job immediately as I've just started taking the Olanzapine and it's making me extremely tired and causing me difficulty getting out of bed (a side effect my GP had made me aware of).

I'll keep you posted.

Tay Tay :-)