Tag: mood management

Categories
General Hypomania Uncategorized

Interpreting Bipolar and Depressive Thought Processes

Thanks to Ashley for the idea for this post!

Being the friend or loved one of a person with mental illness is extremely difficult. Normals are used to dealing with typical emotions and thought processes from a well-minded perspective. I find that they assume that the mentally ill person in their life should follow similar thought processes. Confusion and hurt feelings is the general result as the mentally ill person’s mind acts in unfamiliar ways. So let’s talk about a few things that will help normal minded people interpret these thought processes more efficiently.

– Don’t jump to conclusions until you know all of the facts.
Facts are the most important tool in dealing with mood disorders (and several mental illnesses). If you don’t have a factual reason to reach a conclusion; then don’t jump to it. Let’s say a mentally unwell friend ceases communication one day. They aren’t responding to texts or phone calls and you don’t know what to think. What conclusion do you draw from that? Is the person in crisis? Or did they just accidentally drop their phone in the toilet? Don’t spend days wondering and letting that stress eat you up. Stop by their house or get in touch with a mutual friend to see what’s going on. Get to the facts of the situation. Your stress will go down a lot.

– Not every contrary action indicates a potential unwell period.
Unwell periods happen. It is important to remember that the mentally ill person in your life is still a person. They do still have regular thoughts, feelings, passions, and annoyances. If they get angry about something; it doesn’t necessarily mean they are getting unstable. Ladies- it would be the same thing as your getting upset about something and a guy asking you if you’re PMSy. You don’t have to be chemically imbalanced to angry or sad about something. What you actually want to look for is irrational thinking. If a person’s words or emotions aren’t fitting a rational narrative then one should consider their potential unwellness. “Fuck, I hate my coworker!” (Rational) vs “Fuck, I hate my coworker! I’m going to go wait for him until he gets off work!” (Irrational)

– Not every suicidal or self-destructive thought is cause for emergency.
I understand the point of the medical profession that every suicidal thought or self-destructive action should be treated with the utmost seriousness. But alerting authorities every time? If someone had done that to me every time I had a dark shift I would still be hospitalized. The fact of the matter is; we nutcases deal with self-destructive, suicidal, and self-harm thoughts on a pretty regular basis. If a person is voicing threats and is clearly unstable- by all means get authorities involved. But a person who is just expressing some dark thoughts- well that’s the kind of thing I would be inclined just to listen to. You can prevent a lot by just being present. I understand the need to ensure nothing negative happens; but that help isn’t free. Sinking someone 4,000 in debt from a half day hospital stay where they do absolutely nothing for you isn’t going to help the person at all. And yes, that shit happens regularly.

– We do not expect you to have all of the answers.
A mentally ill person that confides in you may not be looking for answers at all. In many cases, we know that you don’t have any answers. We are just trying to get some of this shit out of minds and try to let someone else in. Your response can either open the way further or close it back up tight. In the event that the person actually is looking for an answer that you don’t know, just say “I don’t know off the top of my head, but we can look for it if you want.” There’s a lot of quality information on the internet but you sometimes have to really dig for it. Or hell, if you’re reading this you pretty much know where to find me. Leave a comment, send me an email. If I know I’ll be glad to share it with you. But you will find, more often than not, the person is just trying to express some of what is going on in their mind.

– Counter hopelessness with knowledge and understanding.
There will eventually come a time when you are faced with your loved one being hopeless about their life and situation. Being mentally ill is not a death sentence or condemnation to a shitty life. Yes, our challenges are complicated. Yes, it’s not fucking pleasant at all quite a lot of the time. Many of us can live productive lives with self-management, medication, and hard work. A person dealing with a massive downswing in their mentality is stuck in the right now. The way to move them past that is to get their focus shifted towards their future. Remind them- “You can be well. You may not have a typical life, but it can be good. We just have to keep working towards it together.”

button-facebook-join-me

Subscribe to have blog posts and news delivered straight to your Inbox!


Categories
Coping General

Always Be Willing To Question Discrepancies

No one wants to make their loved one more unwell or feel worse about their situation than they already do. Quite a few people that deal with mental illness know it does have an affect on them and the people around them. Granted, there are some people that have either not made that realization or they are just selfish assholes. Be that as it may; there is no reason for anyone to roll over and simply be walked all over. It is in everyone’s best interests to approach discrepancies with healthy skepticism.

The problem with mood disorders is that they so drastically warp the perceptions of the person experiencing it that they may legitimately not have any idea why they are doing what they are. For example, there was a period of time when I was a teenager when I thought God was talking directly to me on a daily basis. That’s how far into the extremes of Bipolar Disorder and disconnected from reality I was. When you’re that unwell, everything can seem like a good idea- especially if God is suggesting it to you.

When I rebalanced, I had no idea what the fuck I was thinking during that period of time. I wanted to put it behind me because I couldn’t make sense of it. I also made some very strange decisions during that period of time which is not unique to just me. Everyone with a mood disorder is going to make bad or strange decisions based on their interpretation of reality unless they know how to identify and manage their unwellness.

Mental illness is often very quiet and stews in the mind of the individual. To identify and root out unwell thinking, we have to be proactive in identifying the potential indicators. A very significant and powerful indicator is just that a particular claim does not add up. Does that mean the person is manipulative? Not necessarily. It could simply be a case of the person making a decision while their brain is unwell and their perspective is skewed out of proportion.

Thus, we want to get to the bedrock of the situation. The facts, the absolute truth where emotion plays no role. I feel this is essential in separating unwell thinking from normal thinking or just plain shitty behavior on the part of the unwell person. A mood disorder will take that small seed of truth and blow it up into a full grown tree. But if the seed is a pine cone and you’re looking at an oak; something is amiss. That something is quite likely the warped perception of an unwell thought process.

If things don’t add up- ask questions. If you find yourself saying “that’s bullshit”- look for the truth. You won’t be able to come to a concise conclusion every time but it’s still worth doing for the sake of everyone concerned. The person with the mood disorder may be in an unwell cycle and not realize it. They could potentially be doing damage to your lives thinking they are on the right path. The sooner you sniff out this erroneous thinking the faster you can minimize the damage.

On the other hand, there are plenty of people with a boyfriend/girlfriend they aren’t sure how to handle. It’s great to want to be there for someone you care about but the unfortunate truth is that there are still plenty of shitty people in the world; mentally ill or not. You want to be skeptical to ensure you are protecting yourself and your interests in the event that the person is not who they claim to be. They may also be the type of person who uses their mental illness and problems as an excuse to treat other people like crap. That is not something that anyone should put up with.

Skepticism is healthy for any relationship. Yes, trust is so important to the long-term health of the relationship. But it should never be blind. Facts and truth don’t care about how you feel about them or what you believe- they simply are. There is no more important tool in the management of a mood disorder.

button-facebook-join-me

Subscribe to have blog posts and news delivered straight to your Inbox!


Categories
General

Multiple Mental Illnesses With A Mood Disorder

I’d like to thank my Facebook followers for the suggestions for blog posts on content they would like to see. Doug provided a great idea to discuss multiple diagnoses in the form of Bipolar Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder. I did some research on the subject, including the article he provided, and I have decided it would be a disservice for me to attempt to speak about that experience. A very large part of what I do here, on Facebook, and on my website is based through experience. However, Doug’s suggestion did jog an idea in my mind that I haven’t put forward yet in regards to multiple diagnoses. It is at this point that I would like to remind you that this is only a theory, but one I’ve formulated through observation over the past 17 years or so.

Multiple mental illness in a person is not uncommon. Some mental illnesses have components of others in them; such as people with PTSD with a Depression component. That creates an even more unique situation when they get combined in a single person. Bipolar Disorder affects each person with it in ways that are personal to them and their mentality. Medical professionals attempt to treat based off of loose interpretations of the symptoms. A depressed person may not be suicidal while another is. They both meet the criteria for depression, just differently.

The combination of multiple mental illnesses in a person will create something that is almost entirely unique to them. Thus, it will be harder to find a treatment that will work properly for the person due to that interaction.

That brings me to my theory: I wonder if people with multiple diagnoses may benefit from focusing on getting any mood disorder under control first. Not because it is any more important than the others, but the way a mood disorder like Bipolar Disorder or depression affects your baseline thinking. It alters your perception of the world around you, in turn, your mind reacts to what it perceives as opposed to what actually is.

As an example; I did not find out about high-functioning autism until my son was diagnosed with it. Going back and reading about it to understand it was like reading a biography. I feel that I am a very high functional autistic because I lack many of the interpersonal functions that are typical for a normal mind. There is also the autistic focuses, the inability to convert emotion to words, logical to a fault, inability to read people naturally, and several other things. It takes a lot of energy for me to function in a social way because I have to think about all the things that other people do subconsciously. As I looked back on my life, I began to see certain patterns and interactions in the ways that Bipolar Disorder and the HFA meshed for me.

The one great fear I have in my life is completely losing touch with reality in a Bipolar unwell period. If my mind ventures too far out- there is only hate, rage, loathing, and despair. There is no love, there is no kindness, no understanding, no vestiges of positivity at all. At that point I become Mr. Hyde to my normal Dr. Jeckyll. Due to the HFA, I have a hard time connecting and empathizing with people in a natural way. I feel that if I really rocketed out of control, the combination of all that negativity with my inability to empathize with others would probably result in a newscast ending with “… and police killed the suspect in the ensuing shootout.”

Let’s cut back to the mood disorder for just a moment. It affects how you interpret things:

– I drop a glass of water and break it.
*Manic: Fuck that goddamn glass! No dustpan? I’ll just clean it up with my hands.
*Depressed: I can’t believe I dropped a glass of water. Can’t even do that right.

The reality of the situation is – a glass of water was dropped. That’s it. A mood disorder skews the situation into extremes. It stains all of the information that comes into your mind before your mind has a chance to really interpret it. The tainted information is already being fed into a mentally ill mind that will skew it even further out of perspective. Sort of like putting a second bullhorn in front of a first bullhorn.

Assume that our example person is Bipolar and Schizophrenic. They are driving along and notice in their rear view mirror that the same car has been behind them for three different turns. The information is processed and skewed as potentially threatening by Bipolar Disorder then sent into the conscious mind where Schizophrenic thought processes could continue to stretch it and spin it out of control.

But what if that person had a good medication regiment for the Bipolar side of their struggle? A mood stabilizer would prevent the Bipolar side of their mind from pulling the situation too far out of proportion before it gets fed into the active mind where Schizophrenia will now contribute to playing with it.

I think this thought process may be applicable for a lot of people. If a person’s perception is at least somewhat healthy, then the circumstances going on around them won’t enter their active mind in an already spun state. The schizophrenia will still have an impact; but which would be better for it to spin? “There’s a car behind me that’s been there for a while. That’s odd. I don’t like that.” or “That son of a bitch is fucking following me. I know it.”

I’m inclined to think the second one is more likely to escalate out of control.

Thus, it seems to me that getting the gateway, perception altering Disorder under control will make all the other things in the person’s mind more manageable. That is not to suggest that everything else should be ignored. It just may be a more effective starting point for the person with two, four, or more mental illnesses with a mood disorder.

I’m curious to hear other peoples’ thoughts on this idea. Feel free to comment!

button-facebook-join-me

Subscribe to have blog posts and news delivered straight to your Inbox!


Categories
Self-Help

Managing Bipolar Disorder Through The Major Stresses Of Life

There are a few very common stressors in a majority of lives. Marriage, changing careers, and moving all rank near the top. These stresses can be enough to rocket a Bipolar mind into unwellness in fairly short order. I do not feel it is a reasonable goal to completely eliminate any and all chance of swinging unwell when dealing with a lot of stress. It’s just not possible. The Bipolar would have to be on top of their mood management 100% of the time plus interpret every indicator correctly. That’s just not going to happen.

What we can do is develop an understanding of how stresses correlate with Bipolar Disorder unwellness. I’ll use moving as an example. “Moving is stressful.” Okay, but why?

I’ve got all this stuff I have to get packed. I only have until this date to do it. I have to get my utilities switched over. I have to ensure I can do something with my perishables if direct transport isn’t an option. Is my former residence in good enough shape to get my deposit back? I might have lost my job or been foreclosed on thus driving the stress factor through the roof.

All those things piled up can push someone manic or it can be so much it crashes them into a nonfunctional depression. It’s easier to understand from a depressive standpoint that a person could look at all of those things and just start to shut down. A Bipolar’s manic side can actually start moving when they are put in a position that forces aggressive, high-stress thought processes. For example, there have been several times that the “Fight or Flight” response has pushed me into a hypomania. When that response kicks in, your body is kicked into a hyper alert state to ensure survival. There are a number of physiological changes that occur in Fight or Flight that also occurs in mania.

In all cases, I believe that the best way to approach staying well through these stresses is to break things down into manageable portions. Sit down with some index cards and write a task that needs to get done on individual cards. Draw a card, keep it with you, and set out to finish that task. Keeping the card with you is going to provide an easily accessible physical focus. While you work on that detail, you want to avoid letting your mind wander about all of the other things you need to do. If you find yourself drifting- stop, read the card again, and recenter your mind on that task. Push all the other thoughts trying to interfere away.

I realize this is probably advice you have heard before. For a Bipolar, it really is a great approach. Unwell periods get moving like a train. They are slow to start but once they build steam they are much harder to stop. Thus, we have a tangible reminder of what we need to get done in our pocket for when our mind starts drifting off. We limit how much time we spend dwelling on this massive task that just seems so insurmountable. Instead we chip away at its base, piece by manageable piece; until it is no longer perceived to be an insurmountable task.

If at all possible, leave yourself enough time to actually do everything without needing to cram it into a single weekend of moving. That may not be feasible for most but I have seen on a number of occasions where a person knew they were moving in a year and waited until a month before they were due to leave to start organizing their packing.

Exerting a greater control over the circumstances that can drive your unwell periods will help you keep them in check. By minimizing those, we can minimize the impact those stresses will have on our mind.

This type of mental management is very effective in minimizing unwell swings. It is difficult to do, but the more you practice the easier it will be.

button-facebook-join-me

Subscribe to have blog posts and news delivered straight to your Inbox!