The mood tracking program I linked (here it is again: https://insights.emoodtracker.com/login) has been very helpful for me. I'm seeing this more and more, almost on a daily basis. Getting all this data to work with and figure out what might lead up to depressive events is something I never had before (prior to my diagnosis, I'm unsure that I even realized I could be helped). Along with the daily mood tracking, I'm keeping notes in it as well, and can go back and look at the ups and downs, check the notes to see what was going on that day, and compare it to more recent or current moods. It has me paying closer attention than I ever have before, and it's paid off. For the first time, back in March, I was able to see a depressive cycle coming on, and was able to fight it off. It wasn't easy and it took the better part of two days, but I held my ground. It felt like a victory.

I had just started lamotrigine when that last wave hit. It was low dosage, as you have to ease into it, so it wasn't at treatment level yet. Now I'm up to full dosage, I've been seeing a therapist weekly, logging everything in the program I linked, and getting exercise. I haven't logged depression since April 13, and that was a mild depression that passed relatively quickly. I was looking at the graph and realized that before I sought help (only a few months ago), lasting this long without a deep depression accompanied by suicidal ideations was unimaginable.

I got off Effexor in early March. It seems to have done a number on me. There's a paper on PubMed cautioning against treating bipolar 2 patients with antidepressants, and Effexor is singled out by name as especially problematic. If you're on an antidepressant and still suffering depression, ask your doctor if a medication switch might be a good idea. After reading the paper, I'm convinced at this point that the drug was flipping me upside down and kicking me into deep cycle depression. My psychiatrist thinks this might have been the case, and the paper shows that it happens to a small but significant number of bipolar patients. I've been on a generally upward trajectory since I got off of it. I do believe that this is significant.

I'm unsure how much of my better mood is tied to getting off of Effexor, how much is tied to the lamotrigine, what role the mood tracking program plays, how much therapy is helping, and if spring daylight is lifting my mood (it absolutely did not do this last year). What I do know is that I've felt better overall than I have in years. I'm not calling it the new normal yet, but it feels good to feel normal, even if it's just for now (hopefully not).

I cannot recommend the mood tracking program enough. It's free, and after a couple of months, you have a lot of data to work with. You can see on the graph where your moods have gone on a daily basis, and in the notes, along with discussions of what moods I was feeling and my thoughts on why they might have occurred, I've kept a nutritional log. I need to log exercise as well. It's really helpful and worth giving a try.

I hope this helps.

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