Bipolar Disorder: It’s All In Your Head!

I remember the day I went to my first appointment with the psychiatrist. I was so severely depressed I couldn’t really think of what to say. My aunt–who I had lived with off and on during college–came with me to my appointment and she answered most of the doctor’s questions. She knew me pretty well from the outside, but she didn’t know what went on in my head. The result of the visit was that I was misdiagnosed with depression and anxiety disorders and put on an antidepressant, which triggered a manic episode.

“It IS All in Your Head!”

For the first several years after I was diagnosed I struggled with feelings of frustration, discouragement and even anger as I tried so hard to get well but nothing was working. One of the challenges with treating bipolar disorder is that it really is “all in your head.” Even though people sometimes use that phrase to diminish or dismiss the symptoms and challenges that come with bipolar disorder, it is actually quite accurate.

Bipolar disorder is a chemical imbalance that affects your mood and mind. This creates a paradox for you because your doctor diagnoses you based on symptoms, but the only one who can really provide accurate information is you. How do you know what information is relevant? 

How do you know if the thoughts you are having are rational or if they are being caused by the mood imbalance? How do you know which thoughts and behaviors are unhealthy if they feel normal to you? How do you know what to talk to your therapist about if you don’t know what is causing your problem in the first place?

Challenges with Using a Mood Tracking Journal

One of the things that was recommended to me over the years by doctors and therapists was keeping a mood tracking journal. I really wanted to get well so I kept trying but it was so challenging for a number of reasons.

First, I had a really hard time remembering to do it. Self-discipline and consistency was something I craved for years, but felt incapable of having because of the dramatic shifts in my mood. When I was manic I would have racing thoughts that would fly by faster than I could write. So much of what I wrote in a manic state was incomprehensible, and I often would get so frustrated with writing that I didn’t want to do it because it was too slow.

When I was depressed I struggled to function at all, and making my brain think was difficult if not impossible. I didn’t want to write about how I was feeling, and when I did I often would tear the pages out of my journal because I was embarrassed by what I had written and didn’t want anyone to see, including my doctor and therapist.

Second, I would usually go two or three months between appointments with my doctor and then it was only a 15-20 minute “med check” appointment. How was I supposed to convey the information that was in my journal to the doctor in any beneficial way? The questions the doctor was asking me weren’t in my journal anyway. He would ask me questions about the effectiveness of the medication. What time of day I was taking it? How did I feel afterwards? When were the side effects occurring in relation to when I was taking them? How intense were the side effects?

I usually didn’t remember the answers to all of his questions and it was so frustrating because nothing seemed to help. I was continuing to experience mood cycles and I didn’t ever know if I could trust my own mind. The mood journal wasn’t helping me with that.

The other issue with using a mood tracking journal was that it was so subjective and inconsistent that it was impossible to see patterns or identify triggers. I started to suspect that I was actually triggering mood cycles in myself through thought and behavior patterns, but the mood journal wasn’t helping me identify the triggers. I was guessing based on what I was experiencing, but the thoughts and behaviors were so normal that I couldn’t really see what was happening before it was too late.

Trying to keep a mood tracking journal was so frustrating for me! It wasn’t helping me understand my mood cycles or triggers and it definitely wasn’t helping me answer my doctor’s questions. It just felt like one more thing I was failing to do.

Trying Out Mood Tracking Apps

I wanted a tool that would help me understand my brain better and help me provide better, more complete information to my doctor and therapist so I could get more effective treatment. That was when I started to try out mood tracking apps. The idea of using a mood tracking app came to me when I was trying to remember to take my supplements consistently. I really struggled with that, I kept forgetting to take them consistently at the same time, and sometimes I forgot to take them altogether, or I couldn’t remember if I had taken them.

I decided to set alarms on my phone to remind me to take my supplements because I had my phone with me all the time. Then one day I had the thought, what if I could keep track of my mood on my phone, too. So I started looking for and trying out mood tracking apps.

Finding Bearable

The first few apps I tried weren’t very good. They had limited function and understanding the information that I was tracking was not easy. Then I found the Bearable app. 

  • I want to mention here that I do not receive any compensation or benefit from Bearable for talking about or sharing the app. I love the app because it has helped me so much and I want you to know about it because I am hoping it will help you, too!

The Bearable app is amazing! It is really easy to use, super customizable and the “Insights” tool it has to analyze the information that you track is fantastic! It helps you see patterns and connections in the data you track. It will help you understand your mind and your cycles better and enable you to provide a goldmine of relevant information to your doctor and therapist so you can get more effective treatment.

I love that it is so simple and easy to use and it’s on your phone. Most people carry their phone with them all the time and so you can simply set alarms to remind yourself to enter the information a few times a day. The information you enter only takes a couple minutes, too, it is so easy! You just click through the items you are tracking and tap the buttons and you’re done. You don’t have to think too hard about any of it, which is really helpful if you are depressed or having a hard time thinking.

Another thing that is really useful is how many different factors you can choose to track. Some helpful factors you can track are mood, energy level, medication or supplements (and any side-effects), sleep, and symptoms. There are so many different factors that can affect your mind and your mood cycle. You can choose what to track and customize the app to make it work for you.

One of the best ways it has helped me is understanding my mood cycles more clearly. This has helped me in two ways. 

Symptoms

The first is understanding the symptoms of my mood cycles. I don’t experience manic episodes very often any more, but any time I become really productive and feel inspired to do a project I start to get anxious that I might be getting manic. This is because for years anytime I was highly productive and feeling inspired it was an indication I was entering a manic episode. I discovered that the anxiety I felt worrying about whether I was getting manic was actually triggering mania in me.

Using the app has helped me identify specific symptoms that are characteristic of mania for me. Now using the Bearable app if I start to worry that I might be entering mania I look to see if those symptoms are present. If they aren’t then I work on my mindfulness to reassure myself that I am not manic, just productive and inspired. 

If I find that the symptoms of mania (or depression) are present then I have my Mental Health Emergency Response Plan to proactively manage my mania (or depression) to lessen the impact on me and my family and shorten the duration of the episode.

Triggers

The second way this app has really benefited me is to help me identify triggers that cause mood cycles. I have worked through many of my triggers with my therapist and eliminated them through therapy. Some triggers I have eliminated from my life through boundary work. Other triggers I have learned to manage in a way that lessens their impact on my mood cycles. 

Therapeutic vs. Analytical Tools

I have learned that journaling and mood tracking apps serve different purposes and they both have value as tools for treating bipolar disorder. Journaling has tremendous value as a therapeutic tool when you are working with a therapist to process trauma, work to change unhealthy thought and behavior patterns and implement healthy boundaries. I have used it for this purpose and it really helps. 

The Bearable app is an analytical tool. You simply track the information each day in an easy and accessible way. The app then does the work for you to analyze the information you have tracked. It is designed to help you understand your bipolar disorder better and provide more complete and accurate information to your doctor and therapist so they can help you more effectively. 

If you are ready to learn how to live well with your bipolar disorder, join my FREE “Better with Bearable Mood Tracking Challenge” going on now, through April 25. The challenge will help you learn how to use this amazing tool to live a more healthy, balanced, productive life with bipolar disorder.

Bipolar Disorder: Monitoring Your Mood

When you have bipolar disorder it can feel like your disorder is in the driver’s seat of your mind and you are just along for the ride. It can create a helpless, hopeless feeling when you feel like your mood cycles are happening unpredictably and you don’t have any control over them. That helpless feeling can make you feel like your life is not really yours. You are being “lived” by your disorder. 

Like Diabetes?

Years ago I had a doctor try to help me with accepting and understanding my bipolar disorder by comparing it to type 1 diabetes. It was a helpful analogy because diabetes is a straightforward, clear cut disorder with an easy to understand issue–your body is unable to regulate its blood sugar naturally and so you have to help your body. 

As I have learned more about diabetes from friends who have it I have been amazed at how similar the experience of learning to manage diabetes is to learning to manage bipolar disorder.

Monitoring Blood Sugar

When someone is diagnosed with type 1 diabetes she is informed by her doctor that she has a disorder in her body that makes it impossible for it to naturally regulate its blood sugar. She is instructed that she will need to give her body assistance by monitoring her blood sugar multiple times a day, every day, for the rest of her life. The information she gains from monitoring her blood sugar level will help her know if her body needs insulin or additional sugar to keep her blood sugar within a safe range.

She also learns that she has to be careful about food choices to make sure her body doesn’t get overloaded by too much sugar and cause a serious overcorrection that can be dangerous. She might have a small piece of cake, but remove the frosting, or if she’s at a restaurant and orders lasagna she might take half of the piece of lasagna home to avoid eating too many carbohydrates at once. The doctor can teach her some of the basics of how to make safe food choices, but most of it is learned by experience.

She will learn that there are other factors that can impact her blood sugar level. Stressors can have an impact, in either direction up or down. Sleep, the amount and quality, can impact her blood sugar. A friend of mine once told me that there are over 45 different factors that can affect your blood sugar level. 

Each person is different and it is important for them to learn to proactively identify which factors impact their blood sugar and manage those factors by making choices or setting boundaries that help them proactively care for their disorder more effectively.

It’s Not Fair!

Someone with diabetes might feel like it is unfair that they have to be so vigilant in  monitoring and managing their blood sugar all the time. I would agree with them, it isn’t fair. But fair has nothing to do with the reality of their situation. 

A friend of mine who has diabetes also has a son with diabetes. She told me that he hated having diabetes as a boy. He just wanted to be “normal” so once when he went to a scout camp for a week he didn’t monitor his blood sugar and didn’t use insulin. As a result he ended up in the hospital in critical condition.

Fair or not, someone with diabetes has a choice. She can choose to monitor her blood sugar proactively, actively working to keep it balanced so she can live a healthy life. She can also choose to deal reactively with her diabetes, neglecting to monitor and manage her blood sugar and end up being forced to face the consequences of getting sick and ending up in the hospital. She has a choice to make every day.

How to Monitor Your Mood Balance

This comparison helped me understand my disorder better because they are so similar. With bipolar disorder my brain is unable to regulate my moods and emotions in a healthy way and I need to give it help with medication/supplementation, counseling, self-care and managing stressors. 

One challenge I had, however, was how to “monitor” my mood, or check my “chemical balance.” I remember telling my uncle one day back when I was in college that I wish there was a way to analyze my brain chemicals to identify what was out of balance. Unfortunately that technology doesn’t exist yet. 

Over the years I have discovered a way to monitor your mood simply and effectively using a mood tracking app. 

I use the Bearable app. This is not a sponsored post, and I don’t receive any benefit–financial or otherwise–for recommending the app. I recommend it because it is the best mood tracking app I have used. 

Using a mood tracking app helps you to begin to identify your mood cycles, symptoms and triggers so you can “monitor” your mood balance and learn how to treat it effectively. Similar to diabetes, you should track your mood balance multiple times a day, regardless of how you are feeling, so that you are able to create a more accurate picture for yourself, your doctor and your therapist.

With Bearable you are able to track:

  • Mood
  • Symptoms
  • Factors that can impact your mood (i.e., places, social interactions, activity level, menstrual cycle, personal care, productivity, appointments, social media, weather, etc.)
  • Sleep 
  • Energy level
  • Medication and/or supplements
  • Nutrition 
  • Health
  • and more…

You can customize almost anything within each category. That list may look like a lot and seem overwhelming, but it is very easy and quick to input the information by simply tapping the relevant items. It only takes me a few minutes each time I “check my mood.” You can also set up reminders for yourself throughout the day. 

There are a number of benefits to using a mood tracking app consistently to monitor your mood cycles. 

  • Bipolar disorder and other mental illnesses are diagnosed based on symptoms and the more information you can provide to your doctor the more accurately he or she can be in your diagnosis and treatment. 
  • You are able to learn to identify what the symptoms are that indicate you are either entering or in a manic or depressive state. 
  • You can identify triggers that may cause mood cycles. 
  • You can see more clearly how effective your medications are and track any side-effects you might be having–both the frequency and severity. 
  • You can also identify how things like sleep, nutrition and menstrual cycle affect your mood cycles.

Using a mood tracking app you are able to understand your bipolar disorder better–learning to recognize what your manic and depressive episodes are saying. You are also able to provide a gold mine of information to your doctor and therapist so you can proactively seek more effective treatment.

What Do You Choose?

With bipolar disorder you have a choice. You can choose to be reactive and allow yourself to be “lived” by your disorder and face the consequences of becoming more unbalanced, or you can choose to be proactive and use tools like a mood tracking app to “monitor” your mood balance, helping you live a healthier, more balanced, more productive life with your bipolar.

It is possible to live well with bipolar disorder. There is hope and there is help!

If you are a mom with bipolar disorder and you want to learn to live well with it, join our free Facebook group Bipolar Moms Learning to Live Well.

Check out my Better with Bearable Mood Tracking Challenge starting April 12th! Click HERE to register.

Bipolar Disorder: Mental Health vs. Mental Illness

Over the past few years there has been an increase in the public discussion of mental health due to the increasing stressors in the world. This is such a positive shift towards awareness of mental health needs and challenges. One important aspect of this conversation is the distinction between mental health and mental illness. These terms are not interchangeable, and understanding the definitions of both and their relationship is important for anyone seeking treatment.

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) definition of mental health: “Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make healthy choices.”

The CDC definition of mental illness: ‘“conditions that affect a person’s thinking, feeling, mood, or behavior.” These can include but aren’t limited to depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia.’

Another way to put it is:

Mental illness is to mental health 

what physical illness is to physical health.

Physical Illness

There are different ways that our bodies can become physically ill, some examples are:

  • You can contract a virus or disease that is temporary and can be healed over time, sometimes requiring outside intervention–like contracting the flu or a sinus infection.
  • You can develop a disease that may have some genetic predisposition but was brought on by neglected health–like heart disease or type 2 diabetes.
  • You can experience physical trauma that causes damage–like a broken leg.
  • You can be born with or develop a disorder that causes the body to need external assistance–like type one diabetes.
Photo by Polina Tankilevitch

While some illnesses may be the result of negligence or poor personal care, most people acknowledge the value and importance of professional intervention in the care and treatment of these physical ailments. In general physical illness and disorder is not stigmatized and people will seek treatment for their illnesses or injuries.

Mental Illness

Unfortunately the same is not always true for mental illnesses. Our society has made great progress towards acknowledgement and acceptance of mental illness, but there are still stigmas that cause people to resist diagnosis and treatment. The result is unnecessary suffering.

Mental illnesses, according to the CDC website, are among the most common health conditions in the United States.

  • More than 50% will be diagnosed with a mental illness or disorder at some point in their lifetime.
  • 1 in 5 Americans will experience a mental illness in a given year.
  • 1 in 5 children, either currently or at some point during their life, have had a seriously debilitating mental illness.
  • 1 in 25 Americans lives with a serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or major depression.

Mental illness has a broad range of causes and diagnoses, just like physical illness. 

  • Some people can have a temporary illness brought on by environmental factors or as a companion with physical illness. 
  • Some may neglect their mental health and suffer a breakdown or the onset of chronic issues like anxiety or depression.
  • Others may experience severe trauma that causes emotional or mental damage resulting in mental illness.
  • Some people are born with a genetic predisposition to developing a mental illness.

Years ago I was struggling with accepting my diagnosis and need for treatment. My psychiatrist at the time asked me if I would feel the same if I had been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. I said no, of course not. Diabetes is a real, very serious disorder that if not treated could result in serious illness and even death. The doctor then told me that a diagnosis of bipolar disorder was no different. 

He said that bipolar disorder is a chemical imbalance in my brain that, if not treated, will continue to get worse and cause me to get more ill, and possibly even die. He told me that with proper treatment, however, I can live a healthy, balanced life, just like someone with diabetes who treats their disorder regularly.

This comparison shifted my thinking about being diagnosed with bipolar disorder and helped me to focus on treatment and learning the tools necessary to live well with bipolar. To learn more about accepting your diagnosis see Bipolar Disorder: The Stages of Grief.

Over the years I have discovered that there are many tools that are necessary to properly treat my bipolar disorder. As I have learned each new piece it has helped me to live a healthier, more balanced and more productive life.

Medication and Supplementation

This one is the most obvious, but also one of the most difficult. One of the biggest reasons for this is that there is not an exact science to identify which medication or combination of medications will be right for each person. I used to say that my doctor was playing “guess and check” with my meds to try and find the right ones. 

For me, finding medications that worked never happened. I really wanted to get well, and I tried everything my doctors prescribed. But I  struggled with terrible side-effects and was often not able to tolerate a therapeutic dose of the medication. 

Thankfully after over a decade of struggling and searching my doctor and I found a nonprofit that had developed a supplement specifically for people with bipolar disorder. After my doctor reviewed the studies that had been done on the supplements he worked with me to transition me to them and they worked! 

A few months after I transitioned to the supplements I woke up one morning and felt like I was truly awake for the first time in over a decade. To learn more about my experience with medication and supplements see my post Bipolar Disorder: When Medication Doesn’t Work.

The struggle to find the right combination of medication and/or supplements can feel discouraging at times, but most people with bipolar disorder need something to balance out the chemicals in their brains. Thankfully there are any number of options to help doctors in the process of discovering what each patient needs to get balanced. Additionally there are a growing number of practitioners that are discovering the benefits of micronutrients in the treatment of bipolar disorder.

Counseling and Therapy

This is another tool that may seem obvious but many people, like myself, resist going to counseling. For me, it was the result of stigmas and a misunderstanding of what counseling was. Growing up I had heard a relative frequently say, “my therapist said this” or “my therapist said that” and I remember thinking “I will never let someone else tell me what to think.” Unfortunately the result was that when I was first diagnosed with bipolar disorder I said I was willing to take medication, but I refused to go to counseling. 

Over the years, however, I discovered that counseling is an essential tool to help someone with bipolar disorder learn how to live well. When you have bipolar disorder you frequently see the world through a distorted lens and can develop unhealthy thought and behavior patterns, unhealthy boundaries and may have unhealed trauma. All of these can continue to cause mood cycles, even after the medication or supplements are correct. To learn more about counseling see my post Bipolar Disorder: Counseling is Essential.

Mental Health Emergency Response Plan

An especially valuable tool for proactively managing your bipolar disorder is a Mental Health Emergency Response Plan. This plan helps you take responsibility for managing your mood cycles more effectively, rather than reactively just suffering through them. 

In this plan you:

  • Identify your Emergency Response Team
  • Develop an Early Warning System
  • Determine your Auxiliary Power
  • Learn how to Reboot Your System

Developing this plan helps you proactively care for your mood cycles in a way that lessens their impact on you and your family and shortens the duration of the cycle. To get a free guide to creating your own Mental Health Emergency Response Plan click here.

Self-care Routine

Developing a self-care routine that you do daily to keep your brain and body healthy and balanced is also essential. Some important tools in your self-care tool box are:

  • Mindfulness Meditation
  • Yoga
  • Exercise

To learn more about self-care see my post Bipolar Disorder: Self-care.

You Have a Choice

Years ago I had a friend whose father developed type 2 diabetes. His doctors gave him strict instructions about how he needed to care for himself in order to keep himself healthy. He was told he could live a long, healthy life if he was willing to follow the care instructions given to him by his doctor. Unfortunately he didn’t listen. He liked the habits he had that were against the doctor’s orders and he lost his legs, his eyesight, and ultimately his life.

Bipolar disorder is a treatable mental illness. It isn’t necessary to suffer indefinitely, being at the mercy of your mood cycles and doing damage to your life and relationships. It is not easy, but it is absolutely possible to live a healthy, balanced, productive life if you are willing to do the work necessary to learn each of the tools. There is hope and there is help!

If you are a mom with bipolar disorder and you are looking for support in your journey to live well join our free Facebook group Bipolar Moms Learning to Live Well.

What Are Your Bipolar Emotions Saying?

One of my favorite animated children’s films is Inside Out by Disney. It makes you laugh, cry and is a genuinely wonderful movie. But more than that, it is extremely insightful and teaches some powerful lessons, even for adults.

One of the messages of the film is that emotions aren’t good, or bad, they just are. And not only that but they also have a purpose. Learning to understand the purpose of the emotions is a powerful thing. Instead of judging and shaming yourself negatively for experiencing certain feelings, you can learn to feel them without judgement. You can learn to understand what your emotions are trying to tell you, and then what action you should take based on what you are experiencing.

In the film Inside Out, the main character Joy, gives a breakdown of what each feeling’s purpose is: Fear is “good at keeping Riley safe,” Disgust “basically keeps Riley from being poisoned, physically and socially,” Anger “cares very deeply about things being fair,” Joy’s job is to keep Riley happy, and Joy doesn’t understand what Sadness is supposed to do, and keeps trying to prevent Sadness from having any influence on Riley.

As the film goes on it becomes apparent that Sadness has a very important role to play for Riley. When Joy finally understands Sadness’s purpose, she encourages Sadness to play her part. With the help of Sadness, Riley is able to get the help she needs to adjust to the changes and challenges she is facing in her life.

When the brain is functioning in a healthy balanced way, feelings are produced by experiences. For example, in the movie fear is caused by Riley encountering dangerous situations, disgust is caused by encountering unappealing food or social situations, and anger is brought on by perceived unfairness.

What If Your Emotions Are “Misfiring”?

What do you do when your emotions are misfiring because of mental illness or unhealed trauma? If emotions are not being triggered by normal outside stimuli, are they no longer valid or useful? Should you label your emotions as bad, or not listen to them when you are experiencing a mood cycle?

Photo by Alex Green from Pexels

Not necessarily.

One of the challenges I faced when I was first diagnosed was that I didn’t know how to trust my feelings anymore. For the years that I went undiagnosed I had listened to the feelings that I was having and tried to interpret them according to what I had been taught by others. 

When I felt the intense, euphoric exhilaration of mania I believed that all the irrational thoughts that were in my head were not only rational but inspired. I made sweeping changes because of those thoughts and feelings, and I told everyone. It all felt right and real.

When I crashed into depression, I believed all of the negative, self-destructive thoughts that were in my head because they matched the negative, self-destructive feelings I was having. I hid myself from the world and tried to numb my brain by binge-watching television and movies.

I develop irrational thought and behavior patterns based on this cycle and by the time I was diagnosed those patterns seemed normal to me. This continued for years after my diagnosis because even though I was trying to find the right combination of medications to balance my brain and working with a therapist nothing seemed to help and I just felt broken and hopeless.

How do you live a healthy life if you don’t know if you can trust your own mind and feelings? It can make you feel insecure and unsure of yourself. Or you may feel belligerent and angry and decide that you should be able to just live on the rollercoaster because that is the way you were made and everyone else will have to just deal with it (see my post Bipolar Disorder: The Rollercoaster).

One important tool to develop when you are trying to learn to live well with bipolar disorder is to learn how to recognize when feelings are produced a mood imbalance. You need to learn to identify the signs that you are manic or depressed and then understand that state of mind is trying to tell you. 

The feelings produced by a mood imbalance can serve a purpose. It is like they are speaking a different language and if you learn to interpret them correctly you can then understand how to respond in a way that is healthy, even if your brain isn’t healthy at the time.

How Do You Identify Signs of a Mood Cycle? 

In the beginning it may be difficult to distinguish between healthy emotional responses and unhealthy ones, because it all feels normal to you. For this reason it is critical to begin tracking your moods and symptoms. Tracking your mood and symptoms will begin to help you create a more accurate picture of what is happening in your mind and identify when you are experiencing a mood cycle, what the associated symptoms of your mood cycles are and even what may have triggered it.

There are a number of ways to accomplish this. You could use a journal, a spreadsheet, or an app. My favorite tool is the Bearable app. (I DO NOT receive any benefit or compensation from recommending Bearable, I recommend it because I love it!) 

Photo by Ivan Samkov from Pexels

I struggled with using a mood journal because it required me to think and often I couldn’t think clearly enough to put what I was feeling into words. I also struggled with remembering to write things down frequently enough to create an accurate picture. Another issue I struggled with is how to convey what I had written to my doctor and therapist. Weeks and pages of journal entries can be difficult to condense and quantify, and that can make it challenging to see patterns and connections.

The Bearable App is fantastic because it is very user friendly. It allows you to keep track of your mood, different factors that could trigger cycles, medications, sleep, and other helpful information. The app is very easy to use, and you can set reminders for yourself to input your information each day. It is very customizable, and it gives you a way to view insights to see trends and connections.

When you discover the symptoms of your mood cycle you can learn to understand what your depression or mania is trying to tell you and you can then respond to it in a healthy way.

Learning How to Respond to a Mood Cycle

Some of the ways you might respond are:

  1. Discussing a medication or micronutrient change with your doctor or customer support. If the mood cycle is being caused by medication or micronutrients not doing their job, you may need to adjust or change them. Always work with your doctor if you are on medication or customer support if you are taking micronutrients. DO NOT make these changes on your own as it can be dangerous.
  2. Working with a therapist. A good therapist can help you learn to identify if your emotional responses to things are healthy or unhealthy and how to handle the unhealthy responses in a healthy, balanced way. Your therapist can also help you identify if your mood cycle is triggered by unhealed trauma, unhealthy thought or behavior habits, or unhealthy boundaries. 
  3. Learning to practice mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness is a very effective tool to help you learn to separate yourself from your thoughts and feelings in a way to look at them more objectively and determine if those thoughts or feelings are healthy or unhealthy. Mindfulness is an important tool to learn if you want to learn how to live well with bipolar disorder.
  4. Developing a Mood Cycle Survival Guide. Your guide will help you learn how to successfully manage your bipolar mood swings, lessening the impact on you and your family and shortening the duration of the cycle.

Just like Joy learned that Sadness served an important purpose in Riley’s mind, you can learn to understand what your mania and depression are telling you and learn to respond in a healthy way, even if your mind is unhealthy at the time. Taking responsibility for your mood cycles, instead of giving into them or fighting them will help you progress on your journey to live well with bipolar disorder.

If you are a mother with bipolar and you are looking for support in your effort to live well with it, please join our free Facebook group Bipolar Moms Learning to Live Well.

Bipolar Disorder: Counseling is Essential

When I was first diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder I immediately knew that I did not want to go to counseling. I had developed an aversion to counseling in my youth because the only thing I knew about it, other than portrayals in the media, was that I remember my grandmother frequently saying, “my therapist said this” or “my therapist said that.” I remember thinking that I didn’t ever want to be dependent on someone else to know what to think or how to act. My independent and immature mind decided that counseling was not for me.

For the first few years I would see my psychiatrist regularly for medication evaluation and changes, and then I would buy self-help books, sure that it was just a matter of learning how to exercise more self-control and self-discipline. But no matter how hard I tried, I wasn’t making any progress. I had a fundamental misunderstanding about what counseling was and why it was an important, even essential piece to becoming mentally well.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

It Really Is All In Your Head

When you struggle with Bipolar Disorder it distorts the way you see and experience the world. Emotions and thoughts are meant to help us know how to interact with the world. But, when the chemicals that cause emotion are out of balance and “misfiring” you can end up with a very distorted view of your life and your experiences. 

You won’t even realize it because that is just how your brain works and it feels normal to you. But over time the instability and unpredictability of the mood cycles, and the external damage you do, especially to relationships, begins to provide mounting evidence that something is actually wrong. It really is all in your head, and you need someone professionally trained to help you to sort out the behavior and thought patterns that are contributing to your mental disorder.

The first, most important step on the path to taking charge of your brain is getting the chemicals in balance. I wrote about my experience with this in the post Bipolar Disorder: When Medication Doesn’t Work. Once you have found a way to get your brain chemistry balanced, though, you still have work to do. 

Someone to Help You Learn to See

I described it to someone once like this: Imagine a person who has been colorblind her entire life finds a treatment that miraculously allows her to see color. Just because she can see blue, pink, orange, etc., doesn’t mean that she automatically knows what those colors are. She needs someone to help teach her brain how to understand the world she is now able to see. 

Photo by Designecologist from Pexels

The second essential step on your journey to mental wellness is to work with a mental health therapist or counselor. This person has been trained to help you work through your thought processes and habits to identify unhealthy thought and behavior patterns that need to be changed, healed, or eliminated in order to help you interact with life in a healthy way.

For Example…

One example from my personal experience illustrates the benefits of counseling in identifying unhealthy thought patterns. When I was growing up I would frequently get depressed, and each time I did I would beat myself up for every little thing I did that I thought I’d done wrong because I believed that those actions were causing my depression. It created a habit in my mind that over the years contributed to increasing the severity of my depression. 

Even after I got my brain chemistry balanced, if I found myself getting down, my brain would go into autopilot, identifying all the things I had done wrong recently, which would increase my depression in a downward spiral. Working with a counselor I was able to identify this unhealthy thought pattern and learn how to stop it so that I didn’t experience these self-induced depressive episodes.

Healing Trauma

Your counselor can also help you to identify and work through trauma that you may have experienced that is impacting your mental wellness. Trauma is defined as “a deeply disturbing or distressing experience.” Trauma impacts your mind, body and soul, and depending on the severity often requires profession intervention to heal from it. 

Just as a severely broken bone requires medical intervention, trauma usually requires someone professionally trained to help you identify and heal the damage. Trauma can be severe, but there are also times when seemingly innocuous experiences can be traumatic because of the way we experience them, which is especially applicable to a person who has lived with Bipolar Disorder. 

Working on Boundaries

Another area I have learned is challenging for those of us who have experienced life through the lens of mental illness is setting and respecting boundaries. This is an important area to work through with a counselor because he or she can help you first to learn what healthy boundaries are and why they are essential to living a healthy, happy life. You will also work to discover why you may struggle with implementing and respecting boundaries. Finally, your counselor will provide support and feedback to you while you make the necessary changes to integrate healthy boundaries into your life. 

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Be Patient with the Process

These are just a few of the many ways counselors are essential guides on the journey to mental wellness. One of the things that I have learned is that this is a process that takes as long as it takes, don’t be impatient with it. Sorting out the way your brain works can be challenging, but you will identify therapy goals with your counselor so that you can measure progress and have a focus for your therapy. 

One of the biggest problems for me once I started going to therapy was that for many years I would only seek counselling when I was in crisis, and never in an effort to work through the brain and behavior patterns and habits I had developed while struggling with a brain that was misbehaving. This was such a mistake and caused tremendous discouragement and frustration for me. When I finally realized how critical it was for me to seek counseling not just for the crises in my life, but to prevent them, I finally saw real, lasting, meaningful change in my mind and my life.

Mental Health Checkups

I will likely never stop going to counseling all together. Just like a diabetic has checkups with their doctor to make sure everything is going well, it is important to have “mental health checkups” regularly with your therapist to make sure you are still moving forward on your journey to optimal mental wellness. 

It takes a lot of emotional energy to establish yourself with a therapist you feel comfortable with and the more they get to know you the better they can help you. So once you find a counselor or therapist who is effective and you trust–even when you have reached your therapy goals–it is important to check in once every 3, 6 or 12 months (you decide with your therapist) for your “mental health checkup.”

I am so thankful for the counselors over the years who have helped me learn how to live well with Bipolar Disorder. Counseling is not a crutch, it is a necessary tool that will help you on your journey to learn how to live a healthy, balanced, and productive life with Bipolar Disorder.