Stuck in the mud?

If you've been in a situation of being sick and are stuck for a while, it becomes harder and harder to get back to your old self. Most of the time the longer you wait the harder and scarier it is to change from your routine no matter how hard you want to. Often people around you will either antagonise you to move on or makes you feel that this is where you'll to stay for the rest of your life'. None of that helps or is true!!!!

Bipolar disorder has depression, being manic is a false scene of energy. When I was at my worst I had no energy to even get off the couch or understand what I was watching on the TV. I was on an extreme scale of depression at that time, coming off of a major long term manic episode. I slowly progressed and learned simple and healthy techniques to create energy so I could start my recovery.

The first step in creating a small bit of energy. Create desires and write them down. They don't necessaryly have to be something achievable. For ex, live in a castle, get a job, have a family, fly like in the guy in 'Heroes'. This will give you enough energy to create goals, short term achievable ones and long term possibly achievable ones. Every goal you concur the more energy you'll have to achieve the next one.

Often people get stuck in one place in life because of your illness. You know or may not know that you really can go further that where you are, be like any one else and may exceed them depending on how you look at things. It is a hard hole to climb out of but you can. Write me to let me know what some of your advice.

For me It's especially hard knowing who I was before and what I may be capable of. Feeling as though I lost so many years struggling to become stable. I ignored being bipolar for so long that I just crashed. The movie 'Milk' helped me see that it's never to late to start again and at that moment I allowed myself to think of a future.

I thought of things I could and wanted to do. All those ideas ended up frustrating and depressing me. Then one day I had clarity to organise those ideas in an order of a time line. I wrote them all down and realised what I should be working on first. I had a handful of other projects I put in the category of 'desires'. Hmm it became so much more simple to me. If I only did one or two out of six desires in the future, that would be a great accomplishment!

Most people struggle to some degree with these feelings whether they have a mental illness or not. Share some of your experiences, advice or questions.

Finnding Your Safe and Happy Place

I had to move back home when I was diagnosed, which is a full days drive. I've gotten a lot better but there's one thing that is holding me back. I don't have any of my old friends here or any familiar places to go that has a good memory attached with it, when I was healthy. What do I do? Move back?

It's hard to create good memories because of a lack of motivation. It's hard to get out there and find new friends when the world, most of all the city I live in doesn't motivate me to be happy. There isn't a prescription drug I can take to make me over come this problem. Do you feel this way?

Now that it's spring and the weather is good, I think I'll try and go to a park. I'll look for a tree I find interesting and read or draw under it. I hope this will be a good step in finding that safe and happy place.

Trusting Youself

I depend on two people in my life that I trust to let me know if I show signs of unbalance where I need to see my Phyc Dr. One is my brother, who is like a best friend and the other is a very close friend who I trust, this partly because his uncle has a mental disorder and he is open minded in many aspects.

I was recently faced with an aggravating skepticism that one of those two people wasn't looking out for my best interest. I questioned my own judgment versus that person's advise on my mental status. I realized he was wrong and was leading me astray. He was going through some of his own problems so he couldn't see mine clearly. He used his position in my life to boast to people how great he helps me and how much he has done for me. To top it all of, he has shared my whole medical history like candy, without my permission.

First of all it's good to have at least two people that your completely honest with and they're educated about your mental illness so if you question one opinion, you can get a second opinion from the other person. Also, don't let people get to you by demeaning you and underestimating your ability to think straight. It takes time after being diagnosed but you can be completely normally or even better than normal again. Some people in my life blame anything and everything I think or do on my bipolar disorder. It's like a letter on my forehead but I have an actual personality, even when I'm taking my prescriptions. It's OK to keep some passion and mood, within the grey area, remember when something interferes with your daily life, that's when you should get help to change it.

Accept help and for it when you need it. Most of all, believe in yourself and your future.

Write back about some of your experiences with your or family's mental illness, especially the problems between other people and you. Let me know of some of your mood swings or any other thing you have on your mind and I'll comment back on it. What are some subjects you would like me to write about?

The BIG reveale!!!

How do we tell people that we have the dreaded bipolar disorder? We all go through this with every one in our lives. It seems we are black listed because of the lack of knowledge and understanding that most people have of this disorder.

Do you tell them? Who should and can you tell? When is it a good time? There are no answers for those questions, only suggestions and trial by error. We have no control over other people's reactions, only a hope that our voice, combined with others, might start to break the stigma of mental disorders.

I've told some friends of my disorder soon after I met them, most didn't want to stick around. Then I thought I'd wait until they got to know me before I told them, still most had a hard time with it and they slowly removed themselves from my life. Even my family's reactions was interesting. Most of them have become more supportive now. I think the hardest reaction for me to deal with is when a friend finds out and doesn't pull away but you know they're looking at you differently. Is that a mercy friend or just some one who is trying there best to understand you while keeping that guard up, waiting for you to go crazy?

Yesterday I told an old friend of mine that I have bipolar disorder and briefly went into some other details of my life. He has been a friend for about 15 yrs but we didn't stay in touch for about 10 of those years because I moved away during that time.

I was trying to put off telling him as long as I could. The biggest fear was that I didn't want to lose this friendship, I had no idea how he'd react. In the past, people who I'd never imagine a bad reaction from, surprised me. It got to the point that not telling him would harm our relationship so I rolled the dice.

So far it's all good. :) There is a lot of effort that goes into worrying about what other people will think.

Christmas Ho's, or No's

Today is Boxing Day and I'm not quite sure what it's supposed to feel like. One year it was actually boxing, I mean moving day, into another house and all the other times there was just stress from every one's expectations that could never be met.

I paint. I paint a lot. I have found that's the one thing that keeps me sane. When I'm overwhelmed, stick me in a corner with some brushes, paint and hope there's canvas b/c I don't care where the mess lands. I can shut the world out, breath, have a flowing train of thought that is not directly focused on my issues. It's not just only that I get out my frustrations through it, it's that the emotional knots, like in my back, relax so I can think clearly. The swirly thoughts in my head and emotions flow through my body and I focus on my painting and may solve some problems not even thinking about it.

I can't paint to just paint, it has to be for some one or for myself, expressing what I can't vocalize in words. Today I feel like I can let go, and sell a painting of mine that describes my journey. This is because I'm letting go of that visualization.

The black background forces your eye to an attractive naked women with the head of a pin-up girl who easily rests in a champagne glass as if it were one of those old, spacious armchairs that your Grandmother had. Her right arm is elegantly and forceless while raised over her body holding a bouquet of broken hearts, mirroring themselves to be tulips. The other arm relaxes, hanging over the edge of the glass while still being in control.

How many times have you shown that face while your tearing apart inside? The pressures of this season is my most challenging. I want so bad to put that face on so I can attempt to please other's expectations but I have to stop that even though the pain of their disappointment feels so great now, maybe I can salvage some good feelings for this season for the future.

No matter what I say or do to my family, warning them that I may not take part of every tradition, their disappointment and my guilt will unfold if I'm not capable of performing. This year I've decided to start and heal my future Christmas' and live with the consequences, a temporary pain, and say NO.

A small introduction

I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder a few years ago. I wish I wasn't alone. Every one I knew either didn't believe the diagnosis or they refused to learn enough about me and what it was. No one could relate to me.

I had wished I found something on the Internet to help me at that time to sort out all that confusion I had, especially what other people put in my head during such a fragile time in my life but relief didn't come easy when no one had any understanding of what I was, or had gone through. No one knew how to help me. It wasn't there fault.

There has been things that has helped me balance the belief's of the Physiatric society's and the spiritual community's beliefs so that I now can restructure my own origional beliefs. I can still beleive things that the general Doctorsmade me feel was a mental issue, while still knowing what is real and what is not. The quest to find balance comes with time. To get Doctor's help, doesn't mean that your spiritual feeling you've had are false. From my experience and from what I have heard from others, this is a major concern. There is a balance to be found.

I have to deal with people's ignorance all the time when I tell them about my mental disability. Some react in fear and others empathy. The fear often comes from the unknown. Bipolar disorder is displayed in movies and on TV shows as crazy people that are not under control. I know that others thought's are rarely expresed to me. I feel the struggle in some in how different they think I am. I feel as if all my faults are blown up out of praportion so it's blamed on my disorder and they walk on egg shells around me. I'm under a magnafiying glass when some one knows. Very few work at fitting themseves in my shoe's. When that hsappens it's such a comfort, but as any sikness, you'll never know unless you've been there.

How do you treat some one with an illness that you don't have? A cancer patient who has lost their hair, or a paraplegic? For me, and us, it's living with this in this society.