Bipolar Survivor

Hey, y’all –

Well, the move went smoothly and we are in the new house, albeit with boxes all over the place!  But I’m going to unpack the same way I packed — one box at a time, so I don’t get overwhelmed.

Today I want to talk about bipolar disorder fear.

People fear all different kinds of things — the usual, like snakes and spiders… all the way to the unusual, like fear of people, or fear of dying.

But with bipolar disorder, we deal with a different type of fear.  Fear of going into an episode.  Fear of what the consequences to that episode might be.  Fear of (literally) losing our minds.

For a long time I believed I was crazy.  I had no name for what I knew was wrong with me.  I just knew that something really was wrong with me.  And I was afraid of it.

Give me a spider any day.  But fear of my bipolar disorder almost paralyzed me.  For awhile there, I wouldn’t even go out anywhere for fear that something might trigger an episode.

I’ve learned a lot since then.  I’ve learned what my triggers are, so I can avoid them.  For instance, I found out that being in crowds stresses me out and can be a trigger.  So I just avoid crowds (I do my Christmas shopping way in advance!).

I’ve learned that with proper management of bipolar disorder, there is no reason to fear it.  I think it was the fact that the disorder was controlling me instead of me controlling the disorder that was part of my fear as well.  I mean, it’s not like you take a magic pill and it cures you from this lifetime disorder.

And that’s another thing I feared — when they told me that I would have this disorder for the rest of my life.  I had a horrible fear of the future and what it might bring (stemming from my need to control everything), much less what a future with bipolar disorder would bring.

But eventually I learned how to manage my disorder.  I learned that I could be in control, and need not fear losing that control all the time.  I developed routines and systems that helped me with that.  I’m not a controlling person any more, but I do have control over my bipolar.

Routine is one of the biggest ways that I am able to manage my disorder so well.  I mean, not to the degree that any change in that routine is going to affect my stability — but routine means order to me, and I like things to be in order.

When you reach stability, there is no longer any need for bipolar disorder fear.  You will no longer be afraid of that episode around every corner.  You will feel more in control of your disorder, yourself, and your life.

The best part is that I can actually make plans again!  I wasn’t able to do that before reaching stability because of that fear of going someplace and having an episode, afraid of what people would think, afraid of losing control… a whole bunch of illogical (and unnecessary) fears.

I know my disorder is under control now, so now I have freedom instead of fear.  I can go where I want to go, do what I want to do, and be who I want to be.

If you are still struggling with bipolar disorder fear, take heart.  It does get better.

Wishing you peace and stability,

Remember God loves you and so do I,

Michele

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 18th, 2009 at 5:44 pm and is filed under Opening Post. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.