Hi, how’s it going? Hope you are doing well.

Have you ever known anyone who is scared of the dentist? I think we all know a person (or two) like this. Maybe you’ve even known someone like this: I met someone recently who had some very bad teeth, and they were only getting worse. Without going into detail, they were beginning to cause them serious problems. But when I asked them what the dentist had to say about all this, they had to admit that they hadn’t been.

What would prompt someone with bad teeth to not go to the dentist? Well, I suppose it could have been finances and a lack of insurance. But more likely it was fear of the dentist. Many people who are afraid of the dentist will wait until the last minute to go and take care of their teeth.

Well, that’s not healthy, but it’s not exactly my point, either. My point is that many people with bipolar disorder do the same thing. They wait until the “last minute” to get treatment. For some, this may look like the person who gets treatment in a hospital for a situation that they let become a crisis.

For others, this may look like waiting to see the psychiatrist until they are in a full-blown episode. Others still get their medications, but only take them when they feel like they need them.

And it doesn’t even have to be about medications. Waiting to go to therapy until you’re breaking down crying all the time isn’t the best game plan, either, especially when you knew you needed it before. Waiting to start trying to meditate until you’re so stressed out that you couldn’t manage it if your life depended on it isn’t going to work very well. But people do it. And then many wonder why it didn’t work so well.

But I can’t just tell you to stop waiting without addressing your reasons for doing so. So what are the reasons that people will wait until the last minute to get treatment? Well, for some it is out of fear.

This could be fear of the disorder itself, and manifests itself in denial. This could be fear of the treatment, maybe because it is the unknown, or maybe because they’ve heard stories of others’ bad experiences.

When it comes to medications, it could be fear of the side effects. When it comes to therapy, it could be the fear that they’ll have to spill all of their emotions in an hour’s period of time – and they’re not ready for that yet. It may be fear of revealing that they have the disorder to begin with, because of the fear of the stigma that goes with it.

There are other reasons besides fear to wait until the last minute. Some of them include forgetfulness, procrastination, and misunderstandings. But the important thing to remember is that the reasons for starting treatment now are more important than the reasons for waiting.

Do you have any reasons for waiting? Can you think of all the ways that are more important and meaningful for you to do it now instead of waiting?

Well, I have to go!

Your Friend,

Dave

Hi, how’s it going? Hope you are doing well.

Have you ever tried to balance your budget only to find out that you’re $300 short? Then to fix it you try to put in more hours at work but they end up cutting your hours instead? So you try to do something productive with your new spare time but every little thing comes along to ruin it…

Have you ever just had one of those days?

Josie had. Josie was the supporter of a person who had bipolar disorder. Every time Josie turned around something new had gone wrong. She was getting exhausted. And then, to top it all off, her loved one went into a major manic episode after being stable for five years! What a week!

She went crying to her loved one’s therapist of all people because she didn’t know who else to go to. The therapist asked her what she was doing to manage all the stress. Manage it? She was doing good not to have an emotional breakdown because of it!

So the therapist gave her some homework. He gave her a notebook and told her to write in it any way she came across that might work to make her less stressed. These could be ways that actually took what she was stressing about away or improved them, or they could be ways that just made her feel better about them. These could be ways that she actually used, or ones that she just thought of. In fact, he told her to put a checkmark by any that she actually used.

They made a new appointment for a month from that time, and she went home to do her homework. When she came back the month later, she was amazed to tell him of the progress she had made!

She had started noticing all of the ways she could reduce or eliminate stress, and then she started trying all of them. A few of them didn’t work so well, but a lot of them did. She still had just as many stressors in her life, and her loved one was still not doing their best, but she could manage it all now without having a breakdown.

Maybe this is an exercise you can try. Find a small notebook you can carry around with you anywhere. Sometimes you can find them as cheap as several for a dollar, if you know where to shop, so it doesn’t have to be expensive. And any pen or pencil will do.

Then write down every time you do or think of a coping technique. The ones you think of that you’ve never tried before might be a good idea to try, but if you’re not certain then take them to someone else and discuss it first.

Even supporters have bad days. In fact, there are bad weeks, bad months, and sometimes even bad years… Sometimes your loved one will make this worse, either because of their symptoms, or just because that’s the way things work out. Try not to get angry at them for this; they’re most likely not intending to.

Instead, focus on what you can learn to do to manage your stress in ways that you were unfamiliar with before. After all, when it rains, it pours. You’re going to need an umbrella.

Well, I have to go!

Your Friend,

Dave

Hi, how’s it going? Hope you are doing well.

Have you ever known a lady like this? I met a lady on several occasions. We’ll call her Patty. Patty was almost skin-and-bones when I first met her. I had absolutely NO IDEA she was pregnant. But then the second time I met her, only a month later, she was popped out so big I thought she’d deliver any day. It ends up the first time I met her she was almost 7 months into the pregnancy already! That seems strange to me. But I guess that’s how it works out sometimes.

Maybe you’ve met people who are the same way about bipolar disorder. I sure have. You know, the ones who seem fine. You’d never even think that there was anything wrong with them. Until one day, they have a major episode. It’s like it all silently builds up, until it just explodes. You would think that you would see it coming, but you don’t.

Maybe your loved one is like this. This can even make the diagnosis confusing, because for long periods of time it seems like nothing is wrong. Then, all of a sudden, they are either majorly depressed or majorly manic. Talk about a mood swing!

There’s another thing that this can make difficult, too: medications. It seems for so long like they are fine, so it is tempting to go off medications in between moods. But that kind of thinking can be dangerous, and the results can be disastrous.

After all, it’s a chemical imbalance that’s causing those mood swings to begin with. That chemical imbalance can cause all kinds of problems. But it can be worked on by taking medications as prescribed and following the proper treatment plan.

Maybe some or all of those extreme mood swings can even be avoided altogether! Wouldn’t that be nice? At the very least the medications will be a useful tool to help manage them. But it’s much harder when they haven’t already been in the person’s system. When a person has a mood swing and THEN begins medications, it takes time for the medications to fully work.

So this is why you should strongly encourage your loved one to take their medications regularly as prescribed even in-between mood swings. It doesn’t matter how normal they feel or act, what matters is keeping them that way.

What are your thoughts on this?

Well, I have to go!

Your Friend,

Dave

Hi,

What’s new? Hope you are doing well.

To read this week’s news visit:
http://www.bipolarcentral.com/bipolarnews501/

Here are the news headlines:

Back To School With Bipolar? How College Can Unleash Mania
DO> Great article about college and bipolar disorder

Film Peers Into The Mind of the Mentally Ill
DO> What do you think of this film concept?

Haven Behavioral Hospital Offers Treatment Programs for Adults
DO> Interesting program…

Feds Pay Doctors $161M to Design Drugs Just for You
DO> What in the world do you think of this?

For these stories and more, please visit:
http://www.bipolarcentral.com/bipolarnews501/

==>Help with ALL aspects of bipolar disorder<==

Check out all my resources, programs and information for all aspects of bipolar disorder by visiting:
http://www.bipolarcentralcatalog.com

Your Friend,

Dave

Hi, how’s it going? Hope you are doing well.

I knew someone recently who had a theory that I really didn’t approve of. See, they had been off their medications for reasons they couldn’t control, but had finally found a way to go back on them. But they were hesitant to do so.

I asked them why, and they said that they needed to prove to themselves that they could manage without them first, then they would go back on medications. Well, I honestly think that this was their mania talking. It certainly didn’t make sense to me.

So I talked them out of it, and they went back on their medications. Now they realize how foolish that idea had been. But there are many people that think this to one extent or another. They think that they need to prove to themselves that they can do it on their own.

There are several major problems with that. First off, many people can’t do it on their own, which is why they are prescribed the medications to begin with. There’s no point in running a race that you’re supposed to be on a bicycle for. That’s just setting yourself up to lose.

Secondly, whether you can make it without medications or not is just…

…not the point!

See, if you can do something mediocre by yourself or you can use a tool and do it well, then where’s the victory in doing it mediocre by yourself? Especially if the tool was within reach? Let me give you an example.

Many of you have at least some experience with screws and screwdrivers. Let’s take a basic Phillips screw and driver, and a piece of wood that it has to go into. You can start the screw with your fingers, and usually should to get it going. But no matter how hard you try, you are not going to get that screw all the way in with just your fingers. That’s just not how it works.

And if you get it as far as you can and just leave it that way, saying you did the best you could, then whatever you were putting together is probably going to fall back apart. But if you reach out and grab the screwdriver that’s sitting right next to you, then you can do the job well.

This should make sense to the average person. So why is it so hard to realize that medications are just one more necessary tool to use in life? For those that need medications, they are on them for a reason, and shouldn’t have to force themselves to go off them just because stigma and other false beliefs say that they shouldn’t need them.

Should is such an ugly word. See, there SHOULD be no such thing as bipolar disorder to begin with. But there is. We SHOULD not need medications to get us by. But we do. There SHOULD be a cure for anything like this that messes up a person’s life. But there isn’t.

Instead of focusing on the shoulds, focus on working well with what you have available. And remember, one of those things you have available to you is medications. What are your thoughts on that?

Well, I have to go!

Your Friend,

Dave

Hi, how’s it going? Hope you are doing well.

On some days, with your loved one’s bipolar disorder, it’s hard to be sure where they’re going in life. At times they’re doing so well, and maybe even better than the average person. They certainly have so much potential! But there are other days when it’s so blatantly obvious that they don’t live up to it.

Those are the days when their symptoms take over and they lose control. Those are the days that have you worried that they won’t make it to where they want to be. With those days in mind, how do you help them plan for the career of their dreams without setting them up for failure?

Marie was a young teenager who was constantly being asked what she wanted to be when she grew up. She knew she wanted to have the good things in life. That is, she wanted to buy a house eventually, and to own a nice car.

She wanted to have a retirement account set up so she didn’t have to work for the rest of her life. She wanted to graduate from college long before thinking about a family. She had a good head on her shoulders.

But she couldn’t for the life of her think of what she wanted to do as her career. Well, she was only 14 years old. Did she honestly need to know yet?

So when her teacher insisted that she map out her life plan, here’s what she did: She mapped out her goals that she knew, and the finances she would need to make those goals. She even did the research on things like buying a house so she had her numbers right.

She then, very realistically, mapped out a plan for how much she needed to make each month, starting at a lower wage and working her way up over time, to meet her goals. Then, based on her interests and her financial needs, she came up with 12 possible career choices that might work for her, with an emphasis in the report that they were just possibilities and she was not limiting herself to them.

The teacher didn’t like the fact that she didn’t give a diffident answer, but had to respect the research and thought she put into it, so she got an A.

Sometimes you can’t plan for everything. Well, most of the time, actually. If your loved one is working on their recovery to the best of their ability but still has relapses, then yes, you need to plan for the symptoms of their relapse.

But you can’t expect to plan how they will affect the rest of your or their lives. It’s just not so easy to map that out. So instead, you have to do your best to plan for the uncertain and to live life anyway.

If they know what they want to do (when they aren’t manic, that is) and it doesn’t sound absolutely impossible, then help them plan for it. There will be factors to planning for it that they probably haven’t thought of.

It is possible, especially if they are persistent in working towards it and in improving. But everyone needs some help in making sure their ideas are sound to one extent or another. Someone who has trouble with mania may need a little extra help.

Remember to break down the goals into two groups: eventually and today. It’s what happens today that has potential to set them up for success. But don’t worry: what happens today isn’t guaranteed to set them up for failure.

Do you have any thoughts on this?

Well, I have to go!

Your Friend,

Dave

Hi, how’s it going? Hope you are doing well.

I knew a girl once who wouldn’t allow herself to be motivated. Now, I say it like that for a reason. She would have others help her try to get motivated, but every single time she would find one excuse or another as to why it wasn’t enough. Nothing was ever enough for this girl.

Until one day, she finally got fed up with herself! She came and talked to me about it, and she just couldn’t take not having motivation anymore. I talked to her about what I thought was the problem, and she agreed.

So she decided that she wasn’t going to wait around for motivation anymore, she was just going to do it! Now, that’s almost a silly thing to say, because that right there makes her the motivation she uses by itself. But it’s still a good perspective to have, because it eliminates the possibility for excuses.

Are you waiting around for motivation? Maybe you have bipolar disorder and, if you’re not careful, your whole life will be dictated by your moods. This can make motivation particularly hard, because what you are in the mood to do is not always what you need to be doing. Not to mention, what you aren’t in the mood to do is usually exactly what you need to be doing. I guess that’s just the way life works.

But how do you push past this? After all, you do have bipolar disorder. That makes it hard. Hard, yes. Impossible? No! This is a great way for you to look at life: Tell yourself you don’t need motivation anymore to do the things that need to be done! What you are really telling yourself is that you are not going to wait around for external motivations, but instead you are going to be your own motivation.

Maybe you are the supporter. Your motivational struggle will be entirely different than your loved one’s, but it might be there all the same. There are things that need to get done, and you need to be the one to do it.

But you don’t feel like it. Maybe you’ve had a long day with your loved one, dealing with the symptoms that they don’t even notice. Now it’s time to … pay bills?! Really?! Well… If it has to be done, then it has to be done.

Instead of thinking about all those things that you’d like to be doing instead (like napping), think about all the reasons you do have for needing to do this task. But don’t rely on those reasons for motivation!

If you are your own motivation, then you will always be motivated. If you rely on something else (no matter how good it is), then at some point it’s not going to be there, or isn’t going to be valid, or something.

Motivation is something that we all need … NOW. So why wait on it when you can create it? What are your thoughts on this?

Well, I have to go!

Your Friend,

Dave

Hi, how’s it going? Hope you are doing well.

Ever feel like you’re improving at a snail’s pace? That’s how Margie felt. She had been doing everything she knew how for a long time when she came to me, completely disappointed in herself. She had made some considerable improvements over the past several years, but they had all taken a while to make.

She didn’t accomplish anything without effort, and she felt like it should be easier than it was. Wouldn’t that be nice? But, unfortunately, it’s not the way it works.

I heard something once about weight loss. This bit of wisdom said that if you lose a whole bunch of weight all at once, you’ll most likely gain it right back. But, if you lose a little at a time, then you’re much more likely to keep it off.

I think the same concept can be said about recovery. Recovery that happens in leaps and bounds is rare, and is as likely to backfire as not. But recovery that happens at a slow, steady pace will have long-lasting effects.

Have you ever heard the story about the tortoise and the hare? Well, the tortoise was slow and the hare was fast, and they got in a race together. The hare won, right? Well… The hare was irresponsible and a little irrational, too. He figured that the tortoise was so far behind him that he had time to stop and take a nap. While he was sleeping, the tortoise won. If you’ve ever heard the expression “slow and steady wins the race,” it’s from this story.

Well, maybe that’s the way we need to be looking at the race against bipolar, too. Slow and steady. Let’s look at the alternative for a moment. That is to say, let’s see what happens when a person doesn’t go slow and steady with their recovery.

This person is probably manic. They want to recover … NOW. They work on every coping skill they can possibly think of, and research a few others. Overnight. Then they make an elaborate treatment plan, probably by themselves. It’s most likely filled with goals that are unattainable. After all, they are manic.

The next morning (since they didn’t sleep much) they show their supporters what they’ve done, expecting to get praise. Instead, their supporters are horror-struck, for obvious reasons. This only serves to anger them, having them believe that their supporters don’t believe in them.

So they work at it even harder. At first, they even amaze their supporters, because they do make considerable progress. Or so it seems. But they are still manic, and they are using up all of their manic energy.

Eventually, they crash, realize their goals are unattainable, and go into a deep depression. Any new coping skill they had just “learned” went down the drain. And their supporters realize they were right all along, but that’s not necessarily a good thing.

So see, wouldn’t you rather have slow, steady progress that actually lasts? There’s nothing wrong with a snail’s pace. They get where they need to go. You will, too. What are your thoughts on that?

Well, I have to go!

Your Friend,

Dave

Hi,

What’s new? Hope you are doing well.

To read this week’s news visit:
http://www.bipolarcentral.com/bipolarnews500/

Here are the news headlines:

Kristin Hersh’s New Memoir: Teen Pregnancy, Bipolar Disorder and Rock-And-Roll
DO> Hmm. Seems like it will be a good read, right?

Self-Help Agency Wins Federal Grant
DO> This is great, don’t you think?

Smart Phone As Patient Tool: A Mental Health Application
DO> VERY interesting device, take a look.

Feds Pay Doctors $161M to Design Drugs Just for You
DO> What do you think about this? Is it good or bad?

For these stories and more, please visit:
http://www.bipolarcentral.com/bipolarnews500/

==>Help with ALL aspects of bipolar disorder<==

Check out all my resources, programs and information for all aspects of bipolar disorder by visiting:
http://www.bipolarcentralcatalog.com

Your Friend,

Dave

Hi, how’s it going? Hope you are doing well.

There have been times lately that I have been really stressed out about a few things. It’s gotten me thinking. Do we handle stress the way we should? I started to realize after thinking about it for a while that there are two ways to handle stress: natural ways and good ways. The natural ways aren’t always horrible (although sometimes they are.) But the good ways are always healthy.

I’ve seen some people reach for caffeine when they’re stressed. Natural, and not horrible, but probably not the best thing either (especially if your nerves are already on end.) I’ve seen some people reach for sugar and carbs when they’re stressed. Unless they happen to be one of those lucky few with a really high metabolism, this can be devastating to their weight and their health – especially if they do it often.

But, it does get worse than that. Some people, when stressed, will reach for alcohol or drugs. Some people when they’re stressed will engage in risky behavior. I’ve heard of people with bipolar who are stressed decide that their medications must not be working, and just cut them off! I’ve heard of supporters who are stressed get so frustrated that they either blow up on their loved ones, or just leave! (Or both!)

Stress can serve to exasperate the symptoms of bipolar disorder. It doesn’t do a whole lot for the supporters, either. And when both the loved one and the supporter are stressed, they (naturally) tend to bump heads a lot.

All this sounds like bad news, huh? Well, there’s good news, too. We don’t have to stick to the natural when it comes to stress. There are ways we can relieve stress that are good for us. Taking breaks, for example. There are times when taking a break from a situation can make all the difference in the world. Sometimes you have to schedule those breaks in ahead of time, and then force yourself to follow the schedule.

It’s not always easy to get a break. This is especially true if you are a parent. At that point, you may have to plan an activity or event which your children can do with little or no supervision. Make sure it’s one that will keep them entertained, or your break will be short-lived!

Another good thing we can do when stressed is to make a point to eat correctly. Catch yourself reaching for the caffeine or the carbs, and instead reach for a piece of fruit or some whole-grain carbs. This will make you feel physically better, which will help your stress levels. It will also give you something to be proud of yourself for.

Then, find a positive activity to help you relieve some stress. This can be anywhere from a relaxing and meditative activity (such as yoga) all the way to a strenuous activity (such as running or weight lifting.) It needs to be something that you enjoy doing, and that you will feel more relaxed and/or energized after doing it.

There are many, many other positive ways to reduce and deal with stress. Can you name two or three of them?

Well, I have to go!

Your Friend,

Dave