Hi, how are you today? I hope you’re having a good day.
You know, my brother and I couldn’t be any more different. Not just physically, but I think psychologically, too. He looks at things negatively, while I choose to look at things positively.
That’s why I think he couldn’t handle my mom’s bipolar disorder like I (eventually) could. I also think that’s why he has so many more problems than I do.
It’s all in the way you look at things, I think. Like one person may look at something as impossible…While someone else might say, “The impossible just takes a little longer.” One person may look at something as a problem…While the other person looks at it as a challenge.
If you think about it, as the way I’m saying… You have the power of choice. You can choose the way you react to something. You can choose your attitude: You can choose to look at things
in a negative way or in a positive way. It’s your choice. And your choice affects how you look at things.
So let’s look at bipolar disorder. You can say, “My loved one suffers from bipolar disorder.” Or you can say, “My loved one is recovering from bipolar disorder.” Which do you think is the better way of looking at it? Do you see how even your choice of words reflects how you look at something?
If you look at a situation confronting you and call it a problem, that’s looking at it negatively (especially if you don’t have good problem-solving skills). On the other hand, if you look at it
as a challenge to overcome, you are looking at it in a more positive way. And chances are, you will conquer that challenge and even grow from it.
How does your loved one look at things? If they are negative about things, it can keep them sick. At its worst, a negative attitude can even cause them to go into a bipolar depressive episode. Whereas, if they think positively, they can recover from bipolar disorder faster.
They have to have an “I can do it” type of mentality to overcome the challenges of bipolar disorder, and so do you. You cannot defeat something that you don’t believe you can defeat.
But you CAN defeat something if you have it in your mind that you can.
Like the saying, “If you believe it, you can achieve it.”
Do you see the difference? Because the difference is what will determine the outcome.
Well, I have to go!
Your Friend,
Dave
Post responses below
You know, my brother and I couldn’t
be any more different.
MY BROTHER IS THE GOOD ONE AS MANY CAN ATTEST!!!!!
THANK YOU MR. OLIVER
Greetings to YOU!! Sir, Dave…
I wanted to most humbly thank you for what you shared in this very emailing, because I have totally and even most recently, personally experienced this very thing over the past few years that have passed. *fyi-(I’m enduring a most painfully, emotional and psychological type of extremely hateful, wife’s divorcing…from my future ex-wife, of almost 5 years at that time of April 2009). That was when she took our two youngest children, ages 2months and 3days old son and my (just turned 3yrs old), daughter who were both my entire life!!
…but she took them and left me with a most disgusting, barely even liveable, “hoarder’s paradise” type dream of environment, of pure filth and muck of a 1yr rented condo!! She text me 5.5hours after I had just been led to believe she was only going across town for a bible study with her girlfriend. Yet, even after only texting me and not even talking with me on the phone, she ended up totally alienated me from both of my children and them from me for a total of 14.5 consecutive months!! Still, in summary and total correlation to your own mailing here…*(I was actually just like yourself in so many ways all I could be prior to that very April 8th., day of 2009)*…I always struggled to maintain my personal viewpoint as life’s everyday struggles are “just a major test, to prepare us for the next, upcoming test, which is required of all of us; in order to continue bettering ourselves and our entire lives of those around us – all the while, helping ourselves and our family life’s plight”. Although, I have always looked at things as to being a “challenge and even totally possible all that time and was constantly referred to as being a man who doesn’t even share a “cloud 9” with most people who are living life to the fullest daily….but, instead; actually living on my very own cloud, “cloud 10”, if NOT possibly even “cloud 12” to say the very least…!! BUT, ALL that I have been forced to endure, from being totally ignored by my own wife and her parents and other family members from time to time who were also residing in that very same house…actually and most embarrassingly I confess NOW, changed my entire view upon and even about life, altogether!! I who used to LIVE EVERY DAY AND KNIGHT OF MY OWN LIFE IN THE TOTALLY OPTIMISTIC REALM OF VIEWS… PLUMMETED DIRECTLY TO THE EXACT OPPOSITE SIDE OF LIFE!! I was then, just like your very own brother you mentioned…to elaborate, “I even created the very mindset…my last name begins whith an “M”…and I felt, “Muphy’s Law” has NEVER HAD ANYTHING OVER ME…b/c My Last Name, “M’s LAW”,*(AS I QUOINED IT)* IS not “IF ANYTHING CAN GO WRONG”…IT’S “ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING WILL GO WRONG FOR ME AND EVEN EVERYONE I HAVE AROUND ME, IN AND THROUGHOUT MY OWN LIFE AND EVEN ON A DAILY AND NIGHTLY BASIS” too!! Yeah, I know…extremely pessimistic and even “black/white thinking”, AND it was a major mistake on my very own part, as I have NOW been able to make that discovery. ALL DUE to my having fallen into that mindset and it was most seriously, extremely very difficult even, for me to have ever overcome that thinking as well!! BUT, for my own children, family and myself, and ALL our very best interests in life, I did!! …of course, ONLY with the Almighty God’s Most Loving Help & HIS Provided Divine Directions, which HE was so very kind in having provided me an absolute roadway upon the very beaten path of extreme pain endured, both emotional and psychological…in order to achieve the utmost reward in life today and tomorrow, too!! TOTAL OPTIMISM AND FAITH HE WILL CORRECT THE WRONG FOR MY KIDS AND I…I just wish I could find some possible legal help, to help me continue to enduring all I have already having to deal with and my wife’s attorney, whose been extremely deceptive and even a bold faced liar all throughout this entire 2years of trial, which I have ONLY been able to struggle to “represent myself prose’ and continue to all out fight tooth and nail in order to even spend just a total of 7hours a month with my kids!! My wife has just outright, totally even lied about soooo many terrible things…as to how I ever treated her and even our very own now, 5yr old, most precious princess of my very own daughter!! Again, PATIENCE is what I’m struggling with the very most….well, besides that of LOVING UNDERSTANDING and TOTAL FORGIVENESS; of all her own lies and those of her own attorney all about me-solely based upon how she has portrayed me to him and what HE WANTS ME TO LOOK LIKE!! …just to WIN a Divorce Case….TOTALLY IGNORING ALL I CONSTANTLY ASK THE JUDGE…TO TRULY MAINTAIN THE VERY BEST INTERESTS OF OUR CHILDREN’S LIVES!!!! In conclusion though…I truly hope this will help others to see and learn, they too can actually even change their very own perspectives on, for, and even about their own life today too!! PLEASE, DO KEEP UP THE GR8 WORK YOU ARE DOING FOR ALL OF US SUFFERING DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY WITH THE BI-POLAR MOOD SPECTRUM DISORDERS DAVE!! ~ Most Sincerely, Your Friend Sir. Stacy. d{;0))b~*
Hi Dave you sign out as my friend, i wish it was true i could do with a friend im so lonely I have just stared reading your emails to me and paying attention and i convinced i have bipolar myself i get so depressed . i have a beautiful intelligent daughter,but she has her own life to lead with a very good job ect,im so proud of her but i also give her such a bad time with my depression as she does not know how to help me. i wish i knew how to help myself.
PAM
i agree with you 100 percent. we are all different. us that has a positive personality should be thankful. we could have been born negative like the other 75 percent of the world..
I have bipolar disorder and I often use the Serenity Prayer to remind me that I am not God (I am not? lol) and that I can only change me and my attitude (as opposed to changing everything/everybody). I choose to change it for the better or worse. When my bipolar is not doing well my choices are poor and that is an indication to those around me (my supporters) that I need to get my meds adjusted. I have been blessed with loving family/friends who are not afraid to give me their opinion and I listen. I have learnt through the school of hard knocks!!!