Dealing with bipolar and study stress

[katy034513]

i have bipolar disorder, i am taking medication as per described by my doctor and i am taking therapy, but my situation gets worse when i study continuously for like 10 hours, and not to mention my morning and evening classes, i am experiencing auditory hallucinations and feel anxious or euphoric st times. but i feel okay when i take rest. but i cant afford to cut down my study hours, what should i do? i dont want to discuss this with my doctor as she will give me a higher dose, which i dont want to take

[Zoea]

You are under no legal obligation (and I'm open to be corrected on this) to take the medicine your doctor prescribes. Now obviously, in the general case, take it, but I currently take medication at a lower dose than that prescribed form me. I'm fine with this.

I would talk to your GP since they will be able to give you backup should you need to go to your course supervisor for medical reasons now or in the future. That is what it may come to really.

I hope you get other good advice or more useful advice.

[Stilltrying_]

This is a difficult one, as you have already mentioned that too much studying can make you ill but you say you need to study that much. You don't want to increase your meds which I understand. All I can suggest is that you rest as much as you can and remember that if you don't then you will get ill and then they may have to increase your meds by more. Not any easy answers sorry All I can think is to look at ways in which you can spread out your studying more so you don't get ill ...

Gemma

[Gambit62]

katy, have you tried looking at how you might organise your day so that you are breaking your study down into smaller chuncks - an hour or so at a time with a break in between?

You might also find it useful to think about doing some sort of meditative practice to hep build up your resilience - it doesn't work for everyone but it might help you to be more aware of when you need to be taking breaks.

I recently bookmarked these meditations when I was doing an on-line course on building resilience.

self-compassion.org/categor...

[blackcat64013]

Hi Katy034513,

A Student Assistance Program (SAP) is a free, professional and confidential counselling service provided by schools for their students. Confidentiality is important. Within legal limits, no one will be given any information about your visit without your permission.

The SAP can help students with their concerns and provide support to help them complete their chosen course of study.

The focus is on maintaining the mental wellbeing of students. The SAP can assist you when personal, family or study issues are impacting on their quality of life. The support offered will assist you to overcome barriers to completing their studies.

Through access to professionally qualified and experienced counsellors over the phone or face to face, you have the opportunity to identify problems and find ways of resolving them.

If additional resources are needed, the counselor works to ensure referrals are appropriate, beneficial and affordable.

By adding this advice to the other bloggers, I think you will be in a much better position to cope.

Wishing you well

[VTUI]

I now know that my mother was bipolar, & that is why things were so difficult when I was growing up, & later also. I too had problems with what I know to be/have been hypothyroid untreated, leading to depressions. I am old now, (84) since 1999 I was finally medicated by a Doc. who understood. with NDT, I was much more myself, a real person. Many thing happened, I became ill, had Ca. & chemo th. foolishly moved out of NYC. (2010) After a while the Nurse Practioner here began to push T4. She and her head nurse approached me in a threatening manner, telling me my TSH was only 0.1. at that time I was unaware of the numbers, for sure, and saw an endo (guess) another NP who Rx'd T4 which I tried, and felt so tired I needed to be driven to see my visiting grandson. I would fall asleep in the parking lot where I went for PT. I finally found thyroid UK & Hypo thyroid Mom & STTM & a whole pile of books. Now that I know much more & understand, I find I cannot always get what the Doc, ordered. The Pharmacist says the warehouse is out of stock etc. It appears as though we in the US are also having problems with Big Pharma snowing every one. So, in an area short of Docs. on the ground, I've managed to alienate 2 so far. Sorry to run on, needed to tell someone. Thank you all very much.