Living Mental
This
work has been a documentation of my life with mental illness. It has been about my journey and some of the
things I have done that have helped me make peace with bipolar disorder, what I write is really not about bipolar.
What I write is about me, for bipolar is not more important to me than my
life and living it. I have discovered
life is about balance, and an important factor in creating balance is to create
priorities. Living is most important,
and the bipolar must find a place within my life’s parameters, not beyond them. However, I wanted to, in this last section,
outline some specifics for those who have just discovered the uninvited
presence of bipolar in their life. I
believe there are some things that should be universally addressed in the life
of anyone who has bipolar disorder. I
take my cue from my own life and the lives of those I’ve known who have bipolar
as well as those who have someone in their life with bipolar disorder.
When
that diagnosis is rendered, the most important thing that can be done to
conquer bipolar is to believe in it.
Accept that it exists and it exists in you. Everything in you will scream out a denial,
but if you can refuse to believe the denial, you will have won the most
important battle of your life.
You
will most likely be terrified. Why
not? That is a natural reaction in
human beings who face something they don’t understand or is life threatening,
and bipolar is both. The way to combat
fear is with knowledge. Understanding
what you are up against is crucial, especially with mental illness, because you
will hear all kinds of things from people you know, the media, and just about
every venue, about mental illness that is completely incorrect. Know your facts. Know what you have. And when someone says something that is rude
and ignorant, enlighten them with the truth.
Medication
should either go right before education or directly after. If you have educated yourself thoroughly on
bipolar you will know that the most effective way to live with the illness is
on drugs, the legal kind. Do no embrace
alternative methods of medicating.
Alcohol and drugs have side effects that will kill you. Find a psychiatrist who can prescribe you
meds, not an M.D. Psychiatrists can
better assist you, even if it sometimes seems like they do not know what they are
doing. And that will happen; trust me. Finding the right meds for your body takes
time and trial. The more you tell them
about how the meds make you feel, the sooner they will get you correctly
medicated.
Then
after you have connected with a psychiatrist, get a referral for a
therapist. This assuming, of course that
you are independently wealthy and can afford all these things. But if you are an average American, you may
only be able to afford what I could and that is the psychiatrist and the
meds. Good enough. Go to the library. Go to www.nami.org
. Go to the Internet and type in bipolar
disorder. You will find what you
need. I did. I did it all on my own. I had very little support from anyone for
years. My illness was my problem. Your illness is your problem.
You
need to immediately start working on the three areas of your life that need to
be balanced. They are the biological,
which you will manage with meds, plenty of sleep, eating healthy, taking
vitamins, and exercising. Exercising is
so good for the brain, not to mention the body.
Then there is the environmental.
This one may be a bit tricky for a while but basically you need to make
sure you are putting healthy things into your mind, and kicking negative things
out. You can create negative thoughts
all on your own without fostering them.
You will find as you go what kinds of things you need in your life to
help you feel comfortable in your space.
Then
there is the sociological aspect. This
area involves all your relationships with others. It is important to weed out relationships
that drain you, for you need all that energy for yourself now. The very fact that you have a mental illness
is probably why you are drawn to needy people.
There is something about mess and drama that stimulates the bipolar
mind. But that is negative stimulation
and you do not want that.
Next you want to start journaling,
writing down your thoughts. This may be
difficult. It was for me, but it will
help you over time to find patterns in your mood cycles. Get in the habit of journaling. It is very therapeutic and will help you to
begin to reframe your thoughts during dark days when you want to simply
disintegrate.
I
recommend you simplify your life for a while until you can get all these things
put into practice. I would give it all a
year in terms of creating solid habits. Do not start anything new like a job or
a relationship if you can at all help it.
You need to get regulated and that takes time and consistency.
These
things are basics. Remember not to let
anyone define you by your illness. I
would not be afraid to speak very openly about your illness, for that is the
best way to eradicate stigma. Someone
else’s problem with your illness is just that, their problem, and just as you
face the consequences of not taking care of yourself, so they will face
consequences for discriminating against you.
Do not be afraid to fight for yourself.
I have fought back a couple of different times when I have been
discriminated against. It just did not
sit well that individuals would be allowed to change the course of my journey
due to their own paranoia. And too, if
you are able to fight back, it is good, for someone might come along after you
who might not be able to.
Most
importantly, I encourage you to find your spiritual nature—that part of you God
designed to respond to Him. I promise
leaning on Him is the best way to get through whatever dark roads might lie
ahead. If you could not read a map, but
you knew where to find the one who made the map, would not you go to him for
directions? You were made. Designed.
So go to the one who made you to get help figuring out your particular
design. As, for me? Well...haven't you heard?
I
am Beautiful. That is my name. That is what God calls me. I do
not know how it is so. I just know that some way; somehow, he gave me beauty for ashes.
