Sorry this post is several days late, I had covid with major brain fog and completely forgot to post it. So, that’s how my life has been going. I honestly can’t complain because I was able to take time off work to fully recover. Nowadays not everyone can afford that luxury. I’m doing well other than some remaining fatigue. Happy to be back!
You confused me with April lol Ughhhhh Covid.
Yes I get three paid sick days a year. Only once have I stayed home sick with a cold, it’s all been mental health days. I will otherwise go to work on my deathbed.
Medication, exercise, meditation, diet, therapy. Having a plan for when the mood does strike (a fallback to a calm place and a convenient, practiced excuse, for example). Find safe ways to express some of your more powerful and less socially acceptable emotions (I found a spoken word group and deliver the gamut of the emotional experience to them. I believe my experience with a myriad of emotions actually helps me to perform and empathize to my audience). Practice what you’ll do when your mood swings unexpectedly so that your body’s memory can help and you’re not placing all the strain of handling on your brain. Vacation occasionally, rest to help relieve stress often, and build a support network (family, friends, a club…) to help you when unexpected or sustained stressors arise. Did I mention Medication, Exercise, Meditation, Diet, and Therapy?
Medication, Exercise, Meditation, Diet, and Therapy?
This comment is very spot-on! There are no easy shortcuts here. You have to work hard to manage mood swings. Medication was the biggest help for me followed by all of the above. I highly recommend finding a support group, there are plenty of online ones (just filter by “Bipolar”).
I’ve realized I’m in the middle of a cunningly deceptive depression and that has engulfed me before I knew it and feel powerless to stop it. When I got suspended from work, possibly being terminated, a few days ago, it’s spiralled out hand now.
I’m so sorry to hear that! Depression can indeed be sneaky and take over before you realize what’s happening. And troubles at work can certainly make it worse. I sincerely hope things start looking up for you. If you are on meds, can you get them adjusted?
I slept last night straight thru for the first time at home in… I can’t remember. (Hotel sleeping is the bomb but unsustainable). My brain is mush but won’t stop. My body is exhausted. I don’t know what I did to sleep last night but I hope to replicate it tonight. Still kicking ass and taking names at work so there’s that.
Your therapist should be helping YOU make that realization. They actually have an ethical obligation not to make recommendations like that, as far as I’m concerned.
But friends are definitely supposed to tell one another what they’re seeing, that’s what friends are for!
Sometimes when my wife has to deal with hard decisions about family things, I listen but then have to tell her I’m not sure what would be the best way to handle it is. I recommend her to ask her therapist because her therapist was a social worker and has dealt with some of the situations she chooses to face.
I can be overly cautious and not want to offer any thoughts that might lead to a bad outcome.
Sometimes we explore chatgpt for answers together, but it can be awful for that. I’m glad you have a friend to talk about an insecurity with.
I’ve had lots of bad advice from friends or family that I have to just ignore, and that can eventually make me want to stop talking to people about those issues. I am a little too stoic and lean on thinking I should just toughen up.
If you have a partner it’s definitely important to be able to talk to them in a deep way, if they are short and it seems off, it might be good to see if you can extract what really might be making them act that way. Everyone has their scars.
This might be more about opening up to close people for the first time since a while and feelings that go with that, and less about any therapist or external help holding you back. It’ll always be different to discuss with close people, because they have a different place in your life compared to the psych, who is conveniently outside of it. I think this can co-exist happily.
Therapy is great, but a good social support system helps as well. They have different effects and neither is perfect. I’d recommend using both, especially if you have some good people in your life willing to listen and offer sound advice.
“Save it for Tuesday” is a shit attitude in my opinion. A little more constructive would be “I’m glad you opened up to me and here’s what I think but that also sounds like something to discuss with your therapist.”
I can’t offer any other good advice as I’ve only seen a therapist once but I’d assume it’s possible to get as much as you can out of one person and then find someone else who can help you grow further.
(Just realized this is the bipolar group and I’m depressive and anxious but not bipolar, fwiw.)
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