The Latest

I haven't been posting much recently, a possible reason may become apparent a little further down, but big deals maybe happening and someone may be interested.  I'll start with what I think is the biggest deal although it may well not be what most would consider the most important.

It seems that my "magic blue pills" are no longer magic.  For the last two months I have been ill on over half the days.  The last couple of days I have been truly exhausted. Saturday night my hands were writhing trying to keep myself under control from the energy.  The cycling between different states has been the fastest in my life, although I have had far more severe experiences in the past. It used to be that I didn't really know who I would be the next week or day, now I don't know who I will be between the morning and evening.

There are several possibly reasons:

The first possibility is that the pills have changed.  This is a generic drug and while it has worked for me in the past some generics don't work for me, and industry quality assurance is very poor.  Fortunately we have different insurance and are fortunate to have enough money to pay the co-pay (down from $150 to $35) for the brand name version.  So my psychiatrist and I have agreed to try this approach first.

The second possibility is that my disease has simply progressed to the point where the pills cannot entirely cope. Since my disease was worsening (after all that's why I got help) this seems quite reasonable. The psychiatrist's suggestion would then be to try another mood stabilizer in addition to what I am taking now.  I am extremely wary of this having seen people slowly but surely poisoned by the side effects of their medications, some of which would be considered. I absolutely despise the idea of a choice between unpredictable misery and poisoning myself.  Someone with rapid cycling bipolar disorder who hates all of the possible choices they can make is an extremely, extremely bad situation.

The third possibility is that this is simply a particularly bad time for me, something that might happen every few years for the rest of my life.  I have coped with much, much worse than this in the past and can cope with such periods happening once in a while.

In summary;  I am going insane again and I find this quite alarming.

The other part is quite different.  My darling wife has been offered, and has accepted, a new job in a different company, doing quite different things. It amounts to an enormous promotion, from an extremely advanced level of keyboard monkey to the director of an entire department of seventeen people.  I am very proud of her for her courage to take this great leap, very proud of her for knowing she can do it, and most proud of her for negotiating a better compensation package.  This is the sort of feminism I really like, a woman taking risks, being confident in herself, and believing that she is worth as much as any man. In the business world meekness is punished.  My love has come a long way, what a woman!

Now for my selfish bit.  This means we will be staying in Houston, I expect for at least three years, bringing our time here to a minimum of eight years.  Or using a different scale, about 1/10th of my life.  We will be moving closer to the city, closer to this new job.  The area looks much more promising than where we are now, but it is still Houston and I hate it here. I hate the pounding heat in the summer (although October through March is lovely).  I hate the willful ignorance, the lack of caring, the machismo, the certainty, the superficiality, the lack of creativity. I am probably, on average, happier than I was in Portland but that has nothing whatsoever to do with where I live.