A year ago yesterday, I banged my head hard enough to cause lasting damage (that they can’t see on an MRI, but has caused problems from memory and sleep disturbances, to decreased creativity, worse depression and beyond).  It’s taken nearly a year to accept that this ‘change’ has caused issues that I can’t simply laugh off, and yesterday was an odd, pensive day.

Things have been changing for me for the last year – I’ve been adjusting to finding it harder to work, or focus on much for periods of time longer than a couple of hours, I’m in my third year at Uni, starting in two weeks time, and I’ve got a lot of thinking to do about how to repair the damage that an errant hacker did around here.  But we’re back, hopefully this time for good.

And to kick off, we’re looking for new writers, to inject fresh voices, either as guest posts, or as regular writers, to the site.  If you’re interested, drop me a line.

Image by Shutterhack via Flickr

Steps to happiness

Connect
Developing relationships with family, friends, colleagues and neighbours will enrich your life and bring you support

Be active
Sports, hobbies such as gardening or dancing, or just a daily stroll will make you feel good and maintain mobility and fitness

Be curious
Noting the beauty of everyday moments as well as the unusual and reflecting on them helps you to appreciate what matters to you

Learn
Fixing a bike, learning an instrument, cooking – the challenge and satisfaction brings fun and confidence

Give
Helping friends and strangers links your happiness to a wider community and is very rewarding.

Does this sound like anything familiar?  This is my list every day.

Though we rarely talk about ‘the real world’ and real world solutions on Bi-polarbears, I thought it would be a good time to address things.

Panic is not productive

Panic is one of the few things you should NOT do. Unless you really need the money, because you’ll be making a loss, don’t sell anything – your house or shares, if you have them. Sit tight.
Panic also doesn’t help your mental health either – stress isn’t good for anyone, but those with mental health concerns are usually far more susceptible to worries.

Budget and stick to it

Budgeting and sticking to plans you’re making will put you in control, but you can also ‘budget’ your mental health in some ways. If you have a predictable patter, if you can, keep treats for when you’re feeling low – if you’re saving them for occassions you really need them, they’ll last better, and make YOU feel better.

Xposted to Kai@LJ and bi-polarbears
Written, 10th October 2007.

I wrote this entry because I’m of the opinion that people (in general) don’t understand how it feels to be like me. And though this is mainly complaint, I’m going to start with the positive.

Being bipolar is awesome in many ways. It’s something I’ll never change – never remove, because to remove it is to alter, at the core, what I am. I was asked a while back what I’d do if there was a cure for bipolar disorder – and I answered that I liked being bipolar. It sucks when I’m depressed, but I guess that’s my price for being brilliant occasionally. Dave said to me once, that I’m as awe inspiring and bright as a star when I’m at my best. I don’t know if he’s right, but I do know that I see things differently. Colours are, whole experiences for me. Trees are an amazing juxtaposition of terror and wonder for me – I’m scared of the world, on the whole, but incredibly at peace in the heart of nature. Despite the fact that though I see beauty everywhere, it’s incredibly difficult NOT to see danger too.
I think differently too – I tell stories that others just don’t think of – like merry-go-rounds full of corpses, and being shot in the head by one of my characters, cause he didn’t like ‘Mary sues’ – he thought, it turned out, that I was IAB (he’s a police man). And there, I betray my other oddity. I think of my characters as real people, living in my head. It gets slightly schizophrenic in there sometimes – when I’m arguing with my pen names, and my characters. I’ve likened it to a ‘green room’ – and mostly, they wait their turn.

There’s more good to being bipolar than that – my memory doesn’t work well, but I have an unerring ability to see the conclusion of most stories. I’m not always good for that, but most of the time, I see twists coming. I don’t think in straight lines either – I’ve got ‘intuitive’ down to a fine art. One of my counsellors said it was something like parallel processing – I just think I consider things differently.

It’s an unenviable position to be in – knowing, with crystal clarity, exactly how dark things get. How much it hurts, till every breath literally paralyzes me because it’s all I can do without crying. Sitting up in bed makes me cry. Texting a friend and begging them to help me before I do something stupid fills me with shame. Crying in public is about the ‘worst’ of the sins I can commit. I was always told not to make a fuss, not to cry. People aren’t used to seeing others crying in public. We cry in private – just as we hurt ourselves where others can’t see. We do it because we’re already hurting others with our sadness, our inability to interact and be the people they need, so we stay home.

I don’t choose to be bipolar – its part of my genetic code. Therapy – the one that I go to anyway – is designed to teach me ways – not to live with it myself, but to cope with the fact that there are people that don’t understand, or choose not to. Invariably ‘normal’ people think that they won’t ever hit the stage that I’m at. And I sometimes look at them and hope they don’t. It takes a very strong person to survive as a bipolar, and even in my broken state, I’m stronger than most.

And at the same time, I’m weak. I can’t deal with people fussing over me. I can’t stand it for my friends to be put out, but at the same time, I deeply need them. I can’t be alone, but I don’t want company. It’s like having something inside your head throwing a hissy fit no matter what choice you make. Dammed if you do.

The worst of it is the feeling that it’s screaming in there, constantly. There’s this, glassy, numb feeling in my head – like it’s full of ice. Slide down a bit, and my cheeks are burning – it’s either hot, stinging, painful tears, or because I’m mortally embarrassed and trying not to cry. I wish myself dead frequently when that hits me, not because I want to hurt others – but because I want to STOP hurting them.

I’m competitive at the best of times, but when I start falling out of ‘favour’ – either in reality, or because I just don’t understand, that hurts me too. I can’t laugh it off and bounce back now – and I misunderstand and second guess so often it’s hard to get people to actually talk to me. I question everything – from whether the kids are mine, to sometimes, whether life is real. I’ve been known to deliberately do something stupid just to test it – like cut myself. I’m mortally ashamed of that too – perversely though the scars remind me I’ve survived again. Each notch though gets that little bit deeper. I’ve nicked an artery twice doing that and it’s so hard to explain to doctors, cause that’s one of the few cardinal sins of mental health. We don’t hurt others, and if we can help it, we don’t start self harming.
And that’s the thing. It’s not exactly a compulsion. I’m incredibly lucky. I don’t like drawing my own blood, but if it comes down to it, I need some reason for the amount of pain I’m in. If I know there’s something physical there, I can live with it – or at least hang on till I can breathe again without thinking about it.

I’m paranoid too. I get scared that I’m going to burn down the house – or that someone’s coming to get me. I’m highly suggestive – if someone says something to me often enough, even if it directly competes with my beliefs, it’ll stay with me. This means I can be influenced to another point of view, eventually. Worse than that, I actually believe in ghosts and axe murderers and other stuff that, to be honest, is fairly unlikely, but still possible. When the nuclear threat starts ramping up, or they talk about terrorists, I start working out how to get back to David and my children. As far as I’ve worked out, I’ll get about halfway home, if I’m lucky, if it happened at Uni. I’m terrified by that, but I have no control over it, so it’s a fairly moot point. When I’m really having trouble with other stuff though, that starts really bothering me.
Things like leaving the gas fire on – or the cooker – or the boiler randomly exploding, a fire in the garage – a fire next door – a fire in the attic cause of the electrics. Those things I know about and I check for. I wake up about 10 times a night and check the house. Sometimes I just see if I can smell anything in the air. Other times I’ll check the whole house. Where we used to live, I couldn’t hear the rain.
Here, I hear it, and the first time I woke up and it was raining that hard, I thought someone was in the bathroom washing off knives. I couldn’t move for four hours.

That’s called sleep paralysis. It’s also called ‘night terrors’ – something most psychologists think we outgrow as children. It’s got many names – though the most poetic is the Japanese description, kanashibari, which, roughly translated means, bound in metal. I also get the other half of that aspect, hallucinations. Sometimes I forget, but most of the time I remember.

When I’m very depressed, or incredibly stressed, I disassociate. It’s like flicking a switch. One minute I’ll be stammering along – and the next I’ll be gone, completely. I think my nose is bleeding, or at least I’ve been told that I act as if it is, and wipe it, usually till it does. I don’t talk, and certainly don’t recognize people talking to me. And I’m usually inconsolable coming out of it – to the degree that the only way Dave’s found of shaking me out of it – something that a psychologist in Edinburgh corroborated, is getting me to respond to something tactile. It’s a bit difficult to carry my furry blanket around with me during the day, but that’s what worked last time.

The sum of all of this that sometimes I can’t cope with the real world. Not because I don’t want to, but because I don’t want to put people in the position of needing to work out how to handle me. It’s really unfair, but I’ve never met a group of people, on the whole that knows what to do with me. More importantly, I don’t interact well with the bits of the ‘world’ I should, and that distresses my friends. Which is disruptive, which, in turn, triggers yet more guilt in me. So, I usually choose not to put myself in that position willingly – there’s no promising I won’t go there, occasionally, unwillingly, but if I can avoid it, I don’t go out at all when I’m having a bad time, and head home if I know I’m going to be triggered into it. Therapy triggers me a lot. Not always, but often enough to make me cautious.

Those of us with mental health problems can count ourselves in esteemed company:

Hugh Laurie
Stephen Fry
Axyl Rose (front man of Guns and Roses)

Virginia Woolfe
Sting (front man of the band Police, and pop star as a solo artist)
Sylvia Plath

As you can see, each person on this tiny list is considered excentric, or has at one point gone off the rails in one way or another – some succumbed to the urges that the illness inspired, and others have fought back.  Some are winning, in a public way, and others are working on it as they go.

Mostly though I wanted to highlight that it’s not something that we’re facing alone – and that it affects us no matter where we are in our lives – and where we are in our carreers.

There are two incredibly powerful words in any language – and no matter what language you encounter, there’s bound to be a way to say it (though, maybe not in two words ).

More powerful than I want, I need, I’m dying.
More powerful than even ‘I do’.

Those two words?
Thank you.

“The Secret” is the reason that most people know about the concept of gratitude, but I heard about if for the first time when another member of Ryze, Marilyn Jenett, in about 2004.  Three and a half years later and I’m still enacting something I researched after she piqued my interest.
The concept I discovered, following Marilyn’s initial lead, was that all it takes is to say thank you.

I get up in the morning – every morning, with my children.  I take care of the breakfast chores, and then I sit down in our dining room, with my diary and I make my gratitude list. 
No matter how bad a morning I’m having, no matter how awful the day before.

For example:
Our car’s gearbox has been trouble from day 1.  We were driving ‘home’ – a 450 mile or so journey from where we’ve settled to the family homes in the city we both grew up in.  It was the weekend before Christmas. Exactly half way, the gearbox ‘died’.   We made it safe to a service station (thank you), we got home, because we had breakdown cover (thank you).  And then his mother rented us a car for Christmas, so we could come home (THANK YOU).  We had a wonderful Christmas with our families.
When we got home, we discovered the car wasn’t worth repairing.
So why did I write ‘thank you – the car broke down’ this morning?
Well, though it’s going to be really ‘tight’ money wise, my partner and I have found a way to buy a four year old car, that’s a good model, low mileage, and a great family car.  Today, the 11^th of January, we get our car.

I write about how I’m grateful for university, for our house, for my children, for my partner.  I write about the good – the bad, the indifferent.  I make a point of choosing something bad to be thankful for, so that I can see the silver lining in my world.
No matter how bleak it is, there’s always something to be thankful for.

More than that though, I’m thankful for being what I am.   I am bipolar one.
I live with bipolar disorder instead of suffering from it.  I’m thankful that I’ve learned that lesson, and I’m thankful that I get to learn a little more every day about the realities, and coping mechanisms that I can work on, because these things are good to share with others.  I get to say ‘thank you’ every day, for helping others, and impacting lives that need support.

D Kai Wilson is a writer, editor, and mental health advocate.  Her nonfiction book, Pictures in the Dark, and her free report on supporting and taking the first steps to managing bipolar disorder are available now, from http://picturesinthedark.com and http://bipolarhometruths.com/ .  When not writing articles, fiction and nonfiction, she is a full time student at her local University, cares for her family and plays online.

NOW – I’m shouting from the rooftops wherever I go.  You don’t NEED to be cowed, to be held back by whatever disorder you face.  I’m back at university this year,raising my kids, living well, and thriving wherever I go.  I’m updating my book on Bipolar disorder, and am looking forward to releasing that officially as soon as its finished.

So in this new year, look at what you’re doing, and how you’re living.  Adjust the things that don’t work – and move with the things that do.

Happy New Year everyone!

First and foremost, make sure you know what you actually want.  Resolutions shouldn’t be made because you want to sway people, or because they ‘make us look good’ – but should be genuine improvements on your life, and the lives of those around you.
Work out where you want to be in a year – do you want to have cleared debts, moved to a new neighbourhood?  Lost weight, improved on a job?

Once you have your overall goal, split it up into managable chunks over your year. If you split it down well enough, and you can achieve each goal, you’ll be garuanteed to reach your projects by year’s end, and possibly reach your goal sooner if you have a breakthrough in your monthly plans.  And if you have a setback, its easier to adjust smaller goals than ‘the uber goal of dooooom’(tm).
The final thing to remember about goals is that as long as you are TRYING, even if you don’t reach the main goal you set, you should have at least achieved something of your goal, which will stand you in good stead for achieving anything you go onto later.

I’ve got three resolutions this year:
1) LOSE WEIGHT -I was placed on anti depressants this year, before finding the route cause of my depression, so I came off anti depressants but the weight has been harder to lose.  So I would like to lose enough weight to fit back into my dresses.
2)CONTINUE WITH MY STUDIES -I have had a blast in my first term of University, and my tutors have been wonderful, so I’m hoping that will continue this term.  I’ve got four essays to hand in when I return, so I’m really looking forward to that.
3)KEEP UP WITH MY IMPORTANT SITES – there are several things I want to keep up with, my books site, my blogs, and here, so I’m making time to write every week.

It’d be great to see what your resolutions are and how you handle them, so let us know!

And her reaction was exactly what I’m talking about.
Bipolars tend to jump to conclusions. Even *I* do it and I work with words on a daily basis. We don’t always understand that just because we’ve got a perfect grasp of what Bipolar disorder actually *IS* that others need something to reference to.
So – I’m going to explain one myth that I talked about specifically.

Myth: Bipolars have an excuse for ‘bad’ behaviour.

Fact: We are just as in control of our reactions as most others, most of the time. Bipolar disorder isn’t any more of an excuse for rudeness than having a bad day, PMT or sleep problems. Sometimes our control is a bit stretched, especially in times of stress and difficulty, but the fact of the matter remains that we cannot excuse our bad behavior any more than anyone else.

The MYTH is that as bipolars, we can be excused for everything we do, simply because we are bipolar. We can be bad tempered, throw tantrums, beguile, lie, cheat, steal….you get the picture – because we’re bipolar?
And I say NO.
I say that just as people with PMT are expected to operate within the bounds of acceptable human behaviour, on a day to day basis – so are bipolars. Of course, there’s exceptions to the rule – sometimes we’re not ‘behaving badly’. Sometimes we’re out of control – which is why I’ve picked up this myth where I left off.

Being bipolar is sometimes like having a designated driver. We’ shrug into’ that persona, because its the only way to do our ‘every day’ things. We drive ourselves through the day, to the safest places we can find, until there’s nothing left, and we’re on our own again. Its not that we’re drunk, but in control of an imperfect reaction to the world. Which means we CAN be dangerous too. Or just sad. Or too happy to control ourselves properly.

Bipolars ARE just as capable of being ‘normal’ – or within the bounds of what society expects of its inhabitants. But sometimes, just sometimes, we need a designated driver to pull us out. Be that our alteregos, or our personas, or our carers.

In the next couple of months, I’m going to be specifically writing content to support – thank – and explain work with our carers. Because though we’re strong, wonderful, amazing, perfect souls, our carers are ANGELS.

People with bipolar disorder — or manic depression — suffer from an accelerated shrinking of their brain, researchers at the University of Edinburgh have found.

…”Although we do no yet know the cause of this brain shrinkage, it may be that repeated episodes of illness harm the brain and lead to the decline. Another possibility is that the brain changes are caused by stress or genetic factors, which tend to lead both to more frequent illness episodes and to greater brain loss. Further research will be required.”

[source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070720103036.htm]

Its probaby a very odd thing to reference, but the first thing I thought of was witchdoctors, shrinking our heads.

The post goes on to talk about something I’ve been saying for a while – that lithium (possibly) makes our brains shrink.
Anything that increases certain  elements in our blood damage our brains – that damage is sometimes used to control other disorders and health issues, such as epilepsy, and migranes, but in the case of bipolar disorder, I believe this may be a very bad thing.

I believe that stronger, and more in depth studies of bipolar disorder will have to be completed, at which point, we, those of us that have to agree to the treatments, or are placed on them, can choose whether we want to run the risk of damage, shrinkage or anything else that may, or may not come up in the course of our treatment. With informed choice, its possible to build, and rebuild our lives effectively, and survive.

I’d also recommend exploring ‘Stir Crazy’.  It looks like its quite a good blog – and we’ve blogrolled it here.