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Mood Changes And Bipolar Disorder

By Michele Soloway

Remember the old saying, "This too shall pass"? Well, it would serve you well to remember it when your emotions fly from "pole to pole," or from one mood extreme to the other, when dealing with bipolar disorder. One of the most important things to remember is do not make any major decisions when you are in an episode, whether manic or depressed.

If you have bipolar disorder, you cannot trust your emotions. When you are "high," you may easily get along with others, and even find yourself outgoing when you are normally shy. You may let little annoyances go easily, and forgive quickly. Things that would normally bother you, just don’t. You are very upbeat, and life is good.

When you are "low," however (and you may "crash" very rapidly from high to low), you may feel depressed; or agitated, irritable, short-tempered, critical, and full of self-pity, seeing the glass as "half-empty," as they say. Every little thing is an annoyance to you, and resentments pop up as quickly as dandelions on a spring lawn. Now life doesn’t look so good to you—not good at all, and you are no longer that outgoing, upbeat person.

In either case, whether high or low, your emotions are a reflection of the disorder and not yourself; therefore, they cannot be trusted. In fact, for those who have rapid cycling BP, this is complicated by the fact that they can sometimes change moods as quickly as a runway model changes her gowns!

Mood changes in bipolar disorder go beyond the simplicity of optimist vs. pessimist. Bipolar moods are like optical illusions—they have the power to change the way you see things. They change your perspective to the point that you believe things are different than they really are and, unfortunately, you may base your emotions on that altered perception. Then your emotions are based on incomplete, illogical, and/or faulty information.

The problem is that whereas optical illusions only trick your eyes and are a harmless event, bipolar mood illusions are much more dangerous, as they trick your mind. They cause you to use poor judgment, make bad choices, act irrationally, and even affect your memory. Bipolar mood illusions can make you do things you would never do in your normal state of mind; for instance, I know someone who got married during a manic episode.

Understanding that during a bipolar episode moods are only an illusion and cannot be trusted can take you a long way toward controlling them, or at least minimizing their harmful effects on your life. Acknowledging that your moods will still come and go, the difference will be that you will be more consciously aware of them; therefore, having more control over them, lessening the impulsivity so common in bipolar episodes.

You can learn to respond to bipolar mood changes in a new way by using a method called "Self-talk," which is a verbal way of acknowledging the "This too shall pass" philosophy of changing moods. In this method, you say to yourself, for example, "I know I’m in a bipolar mood, and I’m not seeing things the way they really are right now. I’ve been here before and I got through it, and I’ll get through it this time, too. This too shall pass." It doesn’t matter what words you use. It doesn’t even matter whether you say the words out loud or just silently to yourself. The point is that you are exhibiting control over your moods. The more control you have over your moods, the more power you have over your disorder. Medications can only go so far—you have to do the rest.

About the Author

Michele Soloway has dealt with bipolar disorder from a very young age. Her grandmother, mother, herself, and her teenage son all have the disorder. She also lost her sister to suicide because of bipolar disorder. Michele has a blog for bipolar survivors at http://bipolarsurvivor.blogspot.com, and is also a contributing writer to www.bipolarcentral.com.

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Featured Article:

Being the Ultimate Perfectionist

                                                           By Michele Soloway Sexton

I am the ultimate perfectionist.  Yes, me.  I even got a fortune cookie one time that said, "You have a yearning for perfection," do you believe that?"  Even Confucius knows it!

But it's a real battle for me.  I expect things from myself that I would never expect from anyone else, and it really messes with my bipolar disorder, because, well, no one's perfect, and no one can live with that kind of stress.

So I was talking to someone about it lately, and they told me, "It's ok to strive for perfection, as long as you don't expect to arrive at perfection."

It's ok to make mistakes.  That's what I've been learning.  If you don't learn that, you'll be bound up in fear (another thing that's bad for our bipolar disorder). 

Click here to read the entire article

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