Hi,

I’ve been thinking about something I want to talk to you about. Because you know how I get so many calls and emails about certain subjects, right? And a lot of times that’s where I get my

topics for my daily emails. So that’s where I got the topic for today’s email.

So many people have talked to me about messing something up with their treatment plan. Then they don’t know what to do, so many of them just keep messing up, like staying off their medications, which, I’ll tell you right now is NOT the right thing to do!

Or they stop seeing their therapist, and again, that is NOT the right thing to do, or they start skipping appointments with their other medical professionals, and again – NOT the right thing to do.

There are so many parts that make up a treatment plan, and I’m not going to go into ALL the different parts, but I do want to talk about what happens when you do start to mess up some of the parts of your treatment plan, and what you should do.

It’s easy, like I just did above, to talk about what you shouldn’t do! So that part is easy. And in most cases, just do the opposite of that. So for instance, what should you do if you’ve messed up with your medication? You need to start taking it again, but here’s the problem. You can’t just start where you were, because depending on how long you were off it, you may need to build back up to that. So in that case, you need to go back to your psychiatrist and have him help you get back to where you were.

If you’ve messed up with your therapist, just make a new appointment, and start going back

regularly. If he/she accepts you back as a patient, then all is forgiven. If he/she rejects you, you will just have to start over with another therapist. And that’s ok, you can do that. Don’t let that

get you down. Just don’t let any more time lapse before finding another therapist, because you really do need to be in therapy.

But now let’s say you’ve begun isolating again. Here’s where it gets tricky. People with bipolar disorder are very good at isolating. It’s one of the top indicators for having bipolar disorder and one of the top triggers for a bipolar episode. Supporters who have loved ones with bipolar disorder watch for this trigger in their loved one. But if the person with bipolar disorder has let this slip, has started isolating again, then they are in a dangerous place – they have obviously let part of their treatment plan get out of control.

Now they have two choices when confronted with this by their supporter: they can close down, shut out the world, get all depressed, climb into bed, pull the covers over their head, feel sorry for themselves, cry, and go into a depressive episode…

OR…they can accept that even though they let a PART of their treatment plan get out of control, that the WHOLE treatment plan is still working, and they can still fix it!

If they are lucky enough to have a supporter who is still sticking by them through this, then they can both work on the problem together.

First you identify what went wrong. Then you can fix it. It doesn’t have to be something all dramatic and such. It can be something as small as just not sleeping right. But once it’s identified, you can work on it. And it doesn’t have to be so overwhelming that it drives your loved one to their bed – it only has to be faced One Day at a Time.

Just today. Only today.

Work on your treatment plan the best that you can only one day at a time. Just do the best that you can. That’s all anybody is expecting you to do. Nobody is expecting you to be perfect. And they are certainly not expecting you to be perfect overnight!

Well, I have to go!

Your Friend,

Dave