If you are a supporter to a loved one with bipolar disorder, you are undoubtedly going to run across problems that you will have to solve.  Following are 12 steps to effective problem solving if you are a supporter:

Panicking, reacting or overreacting emotionally colors whatever situation you are facing with a negative light.  It also feeds your negative feelings about yourself, causing you to feel overwhelmed, incapable of facing the situation, unable to face the problem, etc.  It is essential that you remain rational, calm, and nonjudgmental.

It is never a good idea to make a decision until you have all the facts, which is something you rarely have at first.  Take time to investigate the situation completely before making your decision.  Make sure you have all the information you need to make a good decision based on all the facts at hand.

Sometimes, just because you are in the middle of it, the situation can seem overwhelming.  If you take a step back and try to view the situation as if you were someone else not involved so closely, it can help you to have a more objective view instead of an emotional one.  It can also help you to see both sides of the issue.

You’ve heard the expression, “You can’t see the forest through the trees.”  Sometimes the problem is hard to identify with all the “trees” surrounding it.  By searching the situation and identifying the specific problem, you may find it is not as complicated as you thought it was at first.

Sometimes we find it difficult to break the habit of trying to solve not only our own problems, but everyone else’s as well.  Remember that it is ok to let other people solve their own problems without your help.  This does not mean that you don’t care about the other person or their problem, but that you trust them enough to solve their own problems their own way, without your help.

If you decide this is, in fact, your own problem to solve, think about what you can do about it.  Sometimes that can be enough, and you can mentally brainstorm a solution.  If you do not have to make a decision right away, however, you might want to make a list of advantages and disadvantages, or pros and cons, or even write out alternate solutions to a given problem, and then make your decision.

For example, you may have just dropped dinner on the kitchen floor.  Instead of looking at it as a catastrophe, look at it as a chance to take your husband up on that oft-promised romantic dinner out.  Or, for instance, your landlord has just given you a 30-day notice to vacate.  Look at it as an opportunity to find a better place to live.  For every negative problem, there is a positive solution.  Sometimes you just have to look a little harder and be a little more creative.

This is like #7, only about your emotions.  You can choose your emotions.  In other words, you can not only choose to be optimistic problem, but you can also choose how you react emotionally to it.  At first you may react with fear or anger, but you can choose to replace that initial emotion with a positive one, such as hope or courage.

There may be times that the best decision you can make is to make no decision at all for now.  You may not be able to do anything to help your situation at that very moment in time—you may even have no control over the situation at all.  But at least do not do anything to make the problem worse.

It is best to face a problem non-judgmentally rather than judgmentally; that is, don’t think of it in terms of right and wrong.  It is better to think of it in terms of what would be the most effective decision or choice.  Sometimes asking yourself, “What would work best in this situation?” is better than agonizing over “What is the right thing to do?”

Think of good-better-best solutions, then pick the best.  Although it is good to compromise in some situations, doing the most effective thing in any given situation should be the best solution for the problem.

When everything is said and done, do what you can do to improve the situation or solve the problem, and leave the rest alone.  Having worked steps #1-11, step #12 is your action step, the step where you do what you have decided to do.  But always remember this:  Sometimes the best decision you can make is to make no decision at all (or to postpone your decision until you have all the facts).