Well, I’ve finished with my Christmas shopping. Not like last year, where I was still buying things on Christmas Eve! Nothing like waiting till the last minute, eh? This year is so much better, because doing too much at once is definitely not good for my bipolar disorder.
I used to feel overwhelmed all the time. It didn’t matter whether I only had one thing to do that day, or a dozen things to do, I still felt too weak (unmotivated) to do anything about it. That was when I had bad depressions.
It was like a cycle – I was depressed because I couldn’t get anything done and because I couldn’t get anything done, I was depressed. Do you understand what I mean?
Then things just kept piling up and piling up and I just got worse.
What saved me was my therapist (wonderful woman that she is). She taught me how to chip away at bigger tasks by making just a dent, but to make that dent each day, and I would eventually get the whole task done. See, I was looking at the whole task and being so overwhelmed by it that I wouldn’t even touch it. Once I got started, though, just a little bit at a time, I kept getting better and better. My self-esteem got better and better as well, and eventually I came out of that episode.
These days I don’t let anything pile up. I’m so afraid of going back to that time, and of having another depressive episode, that I take care of things right away. But it took work to build that into my daily life. I can do it now because it taught me that the more I take care of right away, the less will pile up, so I won’t get overwhelmed any more. And do you know, it hasn’t yet? I can’t remember the last time I was depressed (or that I had a pile of stuff to take care of).
Procrastination is the enemy of someone with bipolar disorder. Even if it’s only a chip or a dent, we need to take care of things as they come up in order to avoid feeling overwhelmed and depressed.
Wishing you peace and stability,
Remember God loves you and so do I,
Michele
