Hi,
Hey, today I want to tell you about a funny story that happened to me the other day. It will bring to your attention a really humorous way of looking at a bipolar disorder success strategy.
The other day, I was working on a whole lot of things. I mean working really hard. Nothing to
do with anything about mental health, just with my consulting business.
I have a friend of mine that I work within one of my businesses. Normally we talk every day first
thing in the morning. That morning I wasn’t around and talking to him because I had to leave early and my cell phone was down. As the day fast forwarded, it became like 4:00pm then
4:30. I was still working at like 5:00pm or so, so I headed to the good old gym. I was there for a while because I wound up working out for 45 minutes doing 30 minutes of cardio and then 1 hour of talking afterwards.
When I got home, here is what I saw: Text message after text message that said: NOTE each line is a DIFFERENT message.
“Are U there?”
“Are U there?”
“Are U there?”
“There?”
“There?”
“Why U ducking me today?”
Voice messages that said:
NOTE each line is a DIFFERENT voice message.
“Hey, call me back.”
“Hey, you there?”
“Call me back?”
“Why you ducking me?”
“Hey, why you ducking me?”
Emails that said:
NOTE each line is a DIFFERENT email.
“There?”
“There?”
“There?”
“Why you ducking me today?”
I know you think this is crazy. It really, really, is. But it’s funny.
As soon as I saw 25 different messages, guess what I did? I called him back immediately so I didn’t have any more messages.
It went like this, “Hey, what’s up? I got all your messages?”
He said, “Why you ducking me today?” Then he talked about what he had to. It was important. Not life or death but important.
I told another friend of mine about this, and she said that he is out of his mind. He actually isn’t
and is super smart. But he is determined. When he needs something he will call, email, IM, visit, and do whatever it takes. Period. He won’t leave one message, it will be TONS of them. He is not even phased if he fills up your voicemails!
What’s this have to do with bipolar disorder?
A TON. I call this the “Filler up” or “Are you There?” bipolar strategy. With bipolar disorder, many times you need to get stuff done fast. Or you need answers quick. You don’t need them in a couple of years. You don’t need it in 2028. You don’t need it at the other person’s leisure. You need it now.
What is it? Let me give you some examples:
-Medication or information on medication
-New medication or a refill of old medication
-Doctor to see yourself or your loved one
-Therapist to see yourself or your loved one
-Information from social security if you are on disability
-etc.
If you are support for a child or teen, the list of things you need is long and deep and nowhere are people slower than when you are dealing with a child or teen with bipolar disorder.
Why? Because you are dealing with school systems who 98% of the time are super slow, don’t really care and are more used to giving you a hard time than helping you.
There are so many examples it’s hard to list them all here.
There is this interesting phenomenon when it comes to mental health. Even though it’s life or death many times (your loved one could die or you could die when people are slow to get you information), people take their time. They are just not motivated.
If you are reading this and thinking, “Oh Dave, what’s the big deal, what could be so urgent? The biggest thing you can learn from me, especially from the “are you there strategy” is you have to push. You can’t wait around. One phone call will not do it all. People will not move fast in mental health especially when you are dealing with bipolar. You may think they will because they are supposed to or it’s the “right” thing to do. But let me warn you, it doesn’t work this way.
Be warned today.
Remember my friend and how he operates. He will call/text/email/visit and repeat over and over and over again. YES he is annoying but he gets results. He gets things done when 99% of others fail. In the last month, he was able to make a huge accomplishment in one of my businesses because he pushed, and pushed and pushed and pushed.
Many times in mental health, with bipolar disorder you wonder, “should I push harder?” In most cases, I always say yes. To help my mom, I had to push hard. Demand action. Demand better treatment. Demand responses. Demand that people focus on my mom. I had to call and fill up people’s voicemails.
NOTE- “Filler up” is when you leave so many voicemails that you are the focus when the person check’s the voicemail. Also, when you leave lots of voicemails, you can potentially eliminate
anyone else’s ability to leave voicemails. Some think this is wrong but many people have done this and endorse it. When you need action, you have to get extreme sometimes.
I was just thinking. People reading this might think I am out of my mind for even posting this message, but it’s the truth. Seriously, this is an important concept to grasp. If you understand
what I am saying and get it, great. If not reread this and be warned the “system” doesn’t respond fast and if you don’t use a strategy like this, you’re probably going to have a harder time than if you do use it.
Well, I have to go!
Your Friend,
Dave