Broken sobriety

I'm sad to say that I broke my rigorous honesty today. So my day count of sobriety starts over.

I went to see my psychiatrist, basically for a med check. I've been diagnosed bipolar II (the mild kind) and I am supposed to be on two medications. But ... on several occasions I have stopped taking the meds, and I did that during my recent love affair (that ended a month ago because I cheated). When I am happy and things are going well, I think I don't need the meds. That's probably untrue; I probably need to stay on them forever, and the fact that I acted out when I had a fantastic relationship going is one indication that it was a mistake to stop.

When my lover broke up with me a month ago, I started taking my antidepressants immediately, because the loss of this woman I love threw me into a depression. But I did not take the other drug, the one for bipolar. So today, after hearing about my distress over the breakup, my psychiatrist said I need to increase that medication. This medication must be somewhat dangerous, because you are only supposed to each week increase 25 mg a day. So over the next month I am supposed to go from 200 mg per day to 300 mg. But I am at 0 mg and it will take me 12 weeks to get to 300.

If he had directly asked me if I were taking my meds, I would have told the truth. But that's not good enough. I committed a lie of omission rather than a lie of commission.

I talked with my sister about it tonight (technically last night, since it is 1 a.m.), and she suggested maybe I should call the psychiatrist tomorrow and tell him the truth. When I said I did not want to have to find another doctor, she agreed that would be a hassle. But she also said it might be worth it, to maintain rigorous honesty.

I don't know what to do. Maybe that phrase "facing life on life's terms" means calling him and getting dropped as a client and finding a new psychiatrist. Or maybe I should just build up the medication without telling him.

But I swore off the secret life. Damn, life is full of hard decisions! But I have ...

Hope