Bipolar Survivor

When you have bipolar disorder, sometimes you have to wait for the results you want. You can’t always have what you want when you want it (as much as you would like to).

Some things may come quickly, such as when you have a quick (and positive) result from a new medication; however, other times you have to wait for longer-term results, such as stability.

This can be difficult, especially if you’re one of those people who is used to getting what they want when they want it. Bipolar just doesn’t work that way.

Not that you want it to be in charge of you (in fact, you want the opposite – you want to be in charge of it), but there are some things that just take time to work out the way you want them to, like bipolar stability, for example.

In order to attain bipolar stability, you have to do certain things. Like take your medication on a daily basis, go to see your medical and mental health professionals on a regular basis, maintain a good sleep schedule, eat a healthy diet, and exercise.

In addition, you need to stay productive, and do other things to maintain a healthy emotional life as well as a healthy physical and spiritual life.

You also need to stay balanced in every way, and you need to do it on a regular, long-term basis. Stability doesn’t happen overnight.

That bears repeating – stability does NOT happen overnight. It takes long term devotion to doing the things you need to do to maintain that stability. That takes an investment on your part, and it doesn’t come easily, nor quickly.

Usually, however, the things most worth having are worth waiting for, and stability is no different. You will find, as time goes on, that you will begin to feel better, and it will have been worth the wait as you attain your goal.

Wishing you peace and stability,

Remember God loves you and so do I,

Michele

There are some days when just doing the best you can is all you can do to manage your disorder. And that’s ok.

I think sometimes we expect too much from ourselves – even more than we’d expect from anyone else, and definitely more than anyone else expects from us. What’s wrong with just coasting along, anyway?

Every day doesn’t have to be a milestone day. It can just be a getting along the best you can day. Really, that’s ok. There are a lot more of those kinds of days than there are the other kind.

There’s more to be said about just doing the best you can. Compare it to when you’ve been in a bipolar depressive episode, and you’ll see that it’s a whole lot better, isn’t it?

Sometimes the best you can do is all that you can do, especially when you’re fighting depression. You can’t expect as much from yourself when you’re trying not to be depressed at the same time. You just do what you can, and leave the rest alone.

Then there are other days when you have more energy, and you can do more on those days. On those days, you can expect a little bit more from yourself. Do a little bit more, maybe go somewhere you might otherwise not go.

The thing is to maintain a balance, and not to expect more from yourself than you can handle at any given time. Just go along with your life, even with the ups and downs of your bipolar disorder. Try not to let them swing you too hard, and they won’t get the best of you.

Get the most out of your good days, and just do the best you can on the not-so-good days, understanding that you will have some of those – that’s just being realistic.

And, as you go along and get more stable, you’ll find that you have more good days than bad days, and just doing the best you can has gotten you that far.

Wishing you peace and stability,

Remember God loves you and so do I,

Michele

Anger is a natural emotion, but it can threaten bipolar stability. Anger in itself isn’t bad, it’s what you do with it that determines whether it is harmful or not. For me, anger is a reaction to something (or someone). Usually something I don’t like that is happening to me or around me, and usually something I can’t control (which usually makes me angrier).

I like to be in control. With my bipolar disorder, I need to be in control. Stability is very important to me. When I’m angry, I’m not in control. So I have had to learn to manage my anger, as I have had to learn to manage my bipolar. But it has been one of the hardest things I have had to do.

Anger is one of those things that comes naturally to us. Something happens, and we react. Many times we react in anger. In my case, I react in anger when my feelings get hurt. I never learned to process feelings of hurt or helplessness, so I turn it into anger.

If someone hurts me, I can easily form a resentment against them. It took me a long time to learn that when I do that, I am the one who is getting hurt, because they are not even aware of the resentment, and they may not even know that they have hurt me at all! So they’re just going along like nothing has happened, while I’m stewing in this anger and resentment.

I learned that, first of all, I need to tell the person that what they have done has made me angry. But in order to do that, I need to step back from the anger, or it will just spill out as one big emotional tidal wave, and not accomplish anything. For example, I can control my voice and not yell at the person. I can stay calm while expressing my feelings.

Most times, the person will either not realize that they did anything to make me angry, or will apologize for making me angry. In either case, I have learned that is enough to allay my anger and to calm down and forgive them, so that I harbor no resentment.

If I were to keep the resentment anyway, it would only hurt me in the long run. Anger turned inward becomes depression, and in our case, leads to a bipolar depressive episode, and I can’t afford that, so I have learned to let it go.

Holding onto anger can also make you ill in other ways. For one thing, it can keep you from sleeping, which can lead to a bipolar manic episode. But it can also make you physically sick as well. It can give you anxiety from the stress of it. It can give you stomach problems and headaches. It can give you high blood pressure. At worst, it can lead to stroke or even heart attack. In my opinion, it just isn’t worth it.

If you have bipolar disorder, you need to learn to manage your anger just as much as you need to learn to manage your disorder, or you will pay for it in the long run. It will affect your stability and possibly even your health.

Wishing you peace and stability,

Remember God loves you and so do I,

Michele

I’m down in Florida visiting my parents and their neighbor dropped by (she has bipolar disorder) the other night. She was very distraught because she had applied for life insurance and was turned down because of her bipolar disorder. She said that it really bothered her because here she has been stable for awhile now, but she is still being penalized just for having the disorder. She said it was enough to depress her again.

I know how she feels. The same thing happened to me. I had been stable for awhile too when I applied for life insurance and was turned down just because I have bipolar disorder. It really depressed me as well. It’s like I was being punished just for having the disorder and even though I know it’s not my fault, it’s like the insurance company was making me feel like it was. They said they would take me with my disorder, but they would have to rate me, and with the rating, the premium was way too high for me to pay, making it way beyond my reach. So, like my parents’ neighbor was saying, I felt penalized just for having bipolar.

Things aren’t always easy when you have bipolar disorder. No matter how stable you are, there will still be times when you will still feel different from other people who don’t have it (like the insurance example). Things will pop up that you’re not sure you can cope and deal with just because you have the disorder – but you will find with time and effort and perseverence, that you will be able to cope and deal with more of these things than you thought you could at first.

Time is the key factor in learning how to deal with things when you have bipolar. You learn as you go. What you couldn’t deal with a year ago, you are more apt to be able to deal with today, as you have become stronger and more stable. And a year from now, you will be able to deal with what you may not be able to deal with today.

Another key factor in learning how to deal with those things that pop up with your disorder is perseverence. Just don’t give up. Keep plugging away at things, no matter what. Like with the life insurance thing. I hated that that happened to me, but I couldn’t let it pull me into a depression, so I fought it. I hated how it made me feel, but I couldn’t let it trigger me into an episode, so I didn’t let it. I had to let go of it, as it wasn’t something over which I had control. I had to protect my emotions and my moods so I wouldn’t go into an episode – that was most important. So I worked at staying stable in spite of what had happened and how it made me feel.

You can’t let things that happen to you (negative things) steal your stability – and they will try to! You have to hold onto the stability that you have, so that you can build on it and gain more stable time and become stronger in your recovery. That’s how you gain control over your bipolar disorder instead of it having control over you. You fight one battle at a time, and you do the best you can with it. You have more control than you think you do! Like I was saying with the insurance thing – you can stop your emotions from swinging into a depressive episode by controlling your thoughts. You can keep yourself from dwelling on negative thoughts, which would bring you down. Think instead on positive thoughts that bring you up and make you stronger and more stable.

No, things are not always going to be easy, even when you are stable. Things are bound to pop up that you have to deal with, like insurance companies that want to rate you for having bipolar disorder (if they’ll insure you at all). Or difficult situations that you’re not sure how to cope and deal with at the time. But given enough time and perseverence, you will be able to cope and deal with them, and emerge stronger and more stable in your recovery from bipolar disorder.

Wishing you peace and stability,

Remember God loves you and so do I,

Michele

If we were to let everything get to us, we’d be in bipolar episodes all the time, and we can’t have that, can we? So we have to find a way to let things go.

It’s when we let things pile up they can overwhelm us to the point of keeping us bound up – they can either wind us up and trigger us into a manic episode or depress us to the point of a bipolar depressive episode.

That’s what usually happens when we take other people’s problems and make them our own. We have to let them go. I’m not saying to be heartless or not to be a good friend, but you can listen to someone’s problems and offer a supportive ear without taking those problems onto yourself – it’s when you take them onto yourself that you get yourself into trouble.

You have to learn to let things go when you have bipolar disorder. You can’t let things build up, or they will tear you down. A journal is very good for this, as you can write everything down and, once it’s written down, let go of it.

I keep a God box for just this type of thing. When a friend brings a need to me, I listen to their problem, write it down on a slip of paper, put it in my God box (my prayer box), and then I let it go (let go, and let God), because I know that I can’t handle it.

I’m still being a good friend and a good listener, but I’m not taking their problem onto myself, because I know it’s not good for my bipolar disorder or for me. I don’t think of it as being selfish, because I am doing what I can, but I’m not going beyond my limits, and I’m not making myself sick (I did that too much before).

When you’re facing too many stressful situations at one time, you need to let some of them go, or they will overwhelm you and mess with your bipolar disorder, too. Try to look at them objectively, and ask yourself if you can do anything about the situation. If you can, do. If you can’t, let go of it.

In many cases, the situation will work itself out. In others, the situation will be there at another time when you will be more able to deal with it without being overwhelmed. Or you can ask for help (you can always ask for help).

Just remember – rather than being overwhelmed, LET IT GO! It’s never worth going into a bipolar episode over!

Wishing you peace and stability,

Remember God loves you and so do I,

Michele

There are different bipolar attitudes that we can get. We can mope, be indifferent, be depressed, be manic, be excited, be open, be optimistic, be disappointed, be worried, be antagonistic, be irritated, be negative, or be positive. As for me, I opt for the positive.

I have had all the other attitudes at times, believe me. Yet none of them got me as far as having a positive attitude has gotten me.

And it doesn’t cost you anything! Actually, it does. It costs you energy. Sometimes you have to put forth more energy than you think you have to overcome your natural negativity to be more positive than you feel like it at the time. But it’s worth it.

Being positive can keep you out of bed! Many of us know what it’s like to spend days or even weeks (for some, even months) in bed without the desire or ability to get out from under those covers. It’s a horrible place to be. You feel so helpless and hopeless. You can feel as if this is the way it’s always going to be.

Some people, when they are that depressed, even turn their thoughts to suicide. I know that when I was that bad, I would go to bed at night and pray to die. I just couldn’t see any way out of my situation. Every day was the same, and I was so depressed, I couldn’t get out of bed. If I couldn’t get out of bed, I couldn’t seek treatment, so it was one big bipolar cycle. Like I said, it was horrible.

I was finally able to get treatment, and the bipolar medication got me stable. I have not only been out of bed since, but my life is productive now. I try to find something to do each day that gets me out of (and keeps me out of) bed. Being positive has improved my life to an amazing degree. I now believe that I never have to go back to the way I used to be.

I am positive toward myself and my recovery. And toward the future. If today is this good, I assume tomorrow will be as well. And when I do have glitches, I deal with them. None of them are so bad that they ever drive me back to bed, so how bad can they be? Nothing will ever be that bad again! That’s how I keep my positive attitude. It’s a choice. Every day, it’s a choice.

Wishing you peace and stability,

Remember God loves you and so do I,

Michele

If anyone ever gave you the idea that once you went on medication for your bipolar disorder that you would never get angry again, they were wrong. And if you believed that you would never get angry again, you were wrong. Anger is a human emotion, and it happens to everyone. It’s how you handle it that counts.

When we’re unmedicated (untreated) or undermedicated, or we’re off our medications and go into a manic rage, we can experience some really strong feelings of anger – that’s why it’s called a manic rage. That’s when our anger is out of control.

When our anger is out of control, it is almost too late to do anything about it. It takes a lot to rein in that anger once it’s gotten to the rage stage. If you can recognize it then and intentionally rein it in, you can gain control over it, but it will take effort and energy on your part to do it. It has to be a conscious choice and a decision at that point to turn back the rage.

The point is, you don’t want your anger to get that far, though. You want to be able to control it so that you don’t go into a manic rage.

You will get angry. You need to accept that. Everyone gets angry sometimes. But you need to handle it in a positive way.

One person uses what she calls the 10-10-10 rule. It works like this:

She asks herself, “Is this worth getting angry over? Will it have been worth getting angry over 10 minutes from now? 10 days from now? 10 years from now?” In other words, she tries to put her anger into perspective.

For us, anger is usually a knee-jerk reaction to something someone else has said or done to us. Part of our management of our bipolar disorder is learning how to be proactive instead of reactive. So we learn how to manage our anger instead of reacting in anger.

Even using the 10-10-10 rule, as good as that is, is still reacting. So how do we manage our anger in a proactive way? First of all, we try to keep our stress levels as low as possible. That way, there is less chance of us ever getting angry in the first place.

Then we surround ourselves with positive people. Positive people are less prone to make us angry. And less prone to get angry themselves.

We also try to avoid situations in which there is a chance that we might become angry. It’s kind of like avoiding triggers to episodes. You know what types of things (and people) make you angry. So you avoid those types of things.

For example, I hate waiting in line. It can make me angry to have to wait in line for a long time. So I don’t go places (like the movies) where I know I’m going to have to wait in line; thus, I avoid the trigger to the anger in the first place.

Should you find yourself getting angry, however, there are still some things you can do. Self-talk is one of them. You can use positive self-talk to calm yourself down.

Tell yourself (think) things like, “I do not have to get angry over this – this too shall pass.” “This is not this person’s fault. They can’t help it.” (which is especially helpful in traffic). “I will not get angry over this. I am choosing not to get angry. I will stay calm instead.” These are just some examples. Use whatever works for you.

Anger, although usually a reaction, can also be a choice. You can choose NOT to react in anger. And, in our case, it is the better choice to not react in anger, so that we don’t get to the manic rage stage, and so that we maintain our stability.

Wishing you peace and stability,

Remember God loves you and so do I,

Michele