Depression and DD

When I was in my late teens I was diagnosed with clinical depression and put on an antidepressant that made me sick.  It made me feel "tweaked".  I literally had all the symptoms of a person under the influence of Methamphetamines.  I wasn't sleeping for days, couldn't sit still or stay focused on anything, loss of appetite, etc.  I went back to the doctor and was put on a different one, but I've never wanted to be dependent on a pill for my mood, so I also started visiting with a therapist.  We worked together to develope ways of recognizing when I was going into a depressed cycle and how to stop before I got to the self-harm part.  I worked very hard to develope these "tools" to prevent myself from hitting bottom on that cycle.  I've come a long way.  I still get depressed and without medication, I will from time to time and depending what's going on in my life, I will get depressed more often, but the cycles are shorter, much shorter.  I still occasionally have thoughts of self-harm (not suicidal, they're different), but nowhere near as often and I never act on them anymore. 

Everytime I do enter into a depressed cycle, I often wonder "should I go back to therapy?" or "should I get back on medication?"  Here lately, I've been thinking about that medication part a lot.  Here's why...my mom would often tell people or me that I have bipolar disorder, now I've spent a good portion of my life trying to figure out what is "wrong" with me, so I knew I didn't have the "manic" episodes that are common with bipolar disorder, so I didn't take her claims seriously.  I can date my symptoms back to 4th grade which was in 1994, been researching for myself since high school about 2000-2002, when I finally got a diagnosis.  My actual dianosis from my doctor at the time was "clinical depression", I accepted that because I didn't know any better.  I've also since been diagnosed with OCD, but that's a whole other story.

So, I work over night in an addiction treatment facility which specializes in dual-diagnosis, meaning we treat people with psychiatric disorders along with their addictions.  I spent a few nights ago researching something that came up in a conversation with one of my clients, I discoverd a disorder known as bipolar II.  In both bipolar disorder and bipolar II disorder there are depressed moods ('k got that).  In bipolar disorder when the individual is not depressed they are manic, which is extreme high causing the individual to act irritionally and often dagerously. (Nope, don't got that)  Also, there is usually no in between, just extreme high or extreme low.  (Nope, not me either).  But wait!  There's bipolar II, which instead of experiencing a manic episode, they have hypomania, often characterized as euphoria and extreme optimism.  (Wait! That sound familiar...)  Also, in between depressed episoded and hypomania episodes, their moods are relatively normal, they lead normal lives and are perfectly fine. (Oh!)

Now, I'm not into self-diagnosing that much, but I think this is important information for me to know.  1) bipolar II is different then clinical depression and treated differently.  It says that you should NOT treat bipolar II with antidepressants unless mood stabalizers or antipsychotics don't work (oops!).  It also says that sometime therapy can treat the person if their hypomania episodes are not detrimental to their health and safety or to those around them.  So, it's possible I made the right choice by getting off the antidepressants and seeking therapy.  I don't need medication at all unless my hypomania symptoms were to worsen to the point they are dangerous (which can happen, but not always).  The idea of seeking therapy again is an option if I feel I need it.  I think I'm going to go to a psychiatrist to maybe see if I have bipolar II instead of clinical depression.  This I think will help me move forward in how I feel about treament.

Ok, maybe since this is a DD blog I should somehow relate this to DD, right?  Here it goes...should I get spanked when I'm either in a hypomania phase or a depressed phase?  Good question right?  We've often thought about and discussed spanking during depression with each other with inconclusive ideas yet, except maybe we just try it.  I feel safe with him and I trust him, so I feel like even if it were to go badly, it wouldn't send me over the edge because it's gotten to the point that even if I plaster a smile and act as if everything is "fine" to the rest of the world, I can tell him my deepest pain easily these days.