BipolarCentral
Your One Stop Source For Information On Bipolar Disorder

Loved One With Bipolar Disorder?
Discover How to Cope and Deal with
Your loved One's Bipolar Disorder

Do You Have Bipolar Disorder?
Learn the Secrets to Cope and Deal
With Your Bipolar Disorder

Child With Bipolar Disorder?
Learn How to REALLY Help
And Support Your Child

Dating Someone With Bipolar?
Secrets to a Successful
Relationship Revealed

Marrying Someone With Bipolar?
Learn How to Support Your Spouse
and Avoid Common Mistakes

Need Money Because of Bipolar Disorder?
Learn How to Be Successful Even if
You are Dealing with Bipolar Disorder

Drug Addiction and Bipolar Disorder
Secrets to Beating Drug Addiction
When Dealing with Bipolar Disorder

Need Affordable Health Insurance?
Information You Can't Live Without
If You are Dealing with Bipolar Disorder

In Debt Because of Bipolar Disorder?
Get out of debt fast!

Improve Your Emotional Health
Reduce Your Stress Levels and
Increase Your Brain Power

Bipolar Manic Episode Safety Plan

By Michele Soloway

• STAY SAFE (However you have to).
   
• DO NOT BE ALONE, IF AT ALL POSSIBLE.
   
• BE ACCOUNTABLE TO SOMEONE (who will know you are in an episode, who will make sure you take your meds, who will help you not spend money, etc.)
   
• Don’t make any major decisions.
   
• Don’t even make any minor ones, if you can help it.
   
• Stay in your safety zone.
   
• Avoid using the telephone if possible (you will talk too much, and will most likely not remember the conversation anyway).
   
• When you can’t sleep, do something constructive with your time, rather than increasing your anxiety by worrying about the fact that you can’t sleep.
   
• Do not have ready access to money (incl. credit/debit cards, checking account, etc.)
   
• Avoid the Internet (too easy access to spending – eBay, shopping sites, etc.)
   
• Take care of your needs (grooming, eating, etc.)
   
• HALT (Never get too Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired).
   
• Do what you enjoy (reading, watching movies, gardening, etc.).
   
• Do what you can to reduce your stress (take a bath, listen to soothing music, walk, garden, meditate, etc.).
   
• Exercise to walk off excess energy or stress.

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.

Back to Article List

This Week's Bipolar News

Living With Bipolar Depression
North American Press Syndicate  
(NAPSI)-The more you know about a condition such as bipolar disorder, and in particular the depressive episodes of the condition, the better able you may be ...

Harvard Psychiatrist Must Suspend Clinical Trials Over Conflicts
InjuryBoard.com
The New York Times reports, “Dr. Biederman’s work helped to fuel a 40-fold increase from 1994 to 2003 in the diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder and a ...

Fortunate Folks Like To Give Back
Detroit Free Press  
"It came out of the pain I had inside of me for many years," said Prechter, whose Heinz C. Prechter Bipolar Research Fund supports groundbreaking genetic ...

Click here for all Bipolar News.

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

Terms of Service | Privacy Policy

Copyright 2004-2008, BipolarCentral.com