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

Have you ever had a broken bone? Or maybe a sprain or other injury? An acquaintance of mine has a broken ankle at the moment. Living with a broken ankle is hard. But it only gets harder for her:

Her job is cashiering. At her job they don’t have a chair that is high enough that she could sit down to work. So she has to be on disability during an extended leave from work. Disability isn’t paying her as much as her job was, and she is getting behind on some bills.

And here’s the icing on the cake: She lives upstairs in a historic apartment building that has no elevator. She has been having to stay at a motel without many of the things that she needs from her house, and will continue to stay there and pay rent in two places until her leg is such that she can climb stairs. She has almost drained her savings account, and has no idea what she will do when it is gone.

A mutual friend was talking to the two of us the other day. He has bipolar disorder, and is currently dealing with a lot of natural consequences of his symptoms. He was explaining to her that it felt like the whole world was out to get him, and that nothing could possibly go right.

She didn’t understand. Her reasoning was that it was just a mental disorder; how would that affect a person’s life? So he explained to her in a way she could understand. I was actually very impressed by this explanation. He told her it was like living upstairs with a broken ankle. It took her a few moments, but she began to understand.

Have you ever felt like that? Are you living upstairs? There are days where we all are. But for some people, it’s more than just days. For some people it’s all the time. This can be frustrating, but the only way to get through it is to focus on the positive.

If nothing else is positive, there’s always this saying: When you’re at your lowest point, the only place you can go is up. And that’s true! Sometimes we have to hit rock bottom in order to learn the lessons and coping skills we need to learn to deal with the rest of life. It’s not easy, and it’s not fair. But it is the way life works.

If we can take these times and learn lessons from them, then we can say that we conquered them. So what kinds of lessons can a person who has bipolar disorder learn from these hard times? Perseverance, humility, dedication, willpower, a sense of justice, and a desire to help those who are walking in the same shoes you have walked in.

Have you ever heard the phrase: What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger? Well, for the most part it’s true. But only if you bother to learn from the circumstances that life puts you in.

Are you living upstairs?

Maybe it’s time to learn to climb.

Well, I have to go!

Your Friend,

Dave