Hi,
Let me ask you a question: What do you do when the weather changes?
Don’t you: Change to winter wardrobe, wear a warmer coat, put the heat on, wear a scarf and gloves, drink hot chocolate or cocoa, warm up the car, etc. In other words, you adapt to your
changing environment.
What if you didn’t adapt to your changing environment? Say, when the weather started to change? Well, you’d be pretty cold, wouldn’t you?
The point is that there are signs for you. Signs that the environment around you is changing.
Warnings so that you can begin to change yourself and your habits and behavior to adapt to these changes as well. If you don’t… Well, you’ll get cold! In other words, you’ll have to pay the consequences.
For example… Let’s look at your loved one’s medications. Say one day they just decide that they
don’t want to take them any more, for whatever reason. After a few days, they’re going to
get a warning. Something isn’t going to “feel right.” They will start to feel different. They will notice a pattern – their moods will start to swing. Other signs and symptoms of an oncoming bipolar episode will start manifesting themselves.
These are the warnings that the “weather is changing.” If your loved one heeds these warnings, they’ll go back on their medication and everything will be ok. However, if they don’t heed these
warnings… they could very well end up in a full-blown bipolar episode. All because they didn’t heed the warnings.
Just like if you don’t heed the warnings that the weather is getting colder and turn on your
heater, you’re going to get cold!
Your loved one also needs to watch their triggers. First of all, they need to learn what triggers a bipolar episode for them (everybody is different). Then, if they are in dangerous territory, i.e., they observe a warning, like a trigger has been set off, they need to be aware that a bipolar episode may follow. Then it’s up to them to do what they have to do to avoid that episode.
Just like when the weather changes, you do what you have to do to prepare for that cold weather.
Well, I have to go!
Your Friend,
Dave
Dave,
its’ funny that you bring up adapting to the “changing environment.” I took a parenting course a few years ago in which we studied that some children suffer of “maladaptiveness”; They are so used to being in a “secure” environment that anything new becomes an obstacle for them. That works the same for Adults whether it’s a new family addition, new job, new beau to get used to – it takes time to become comfortable when what is not familiar to you is what is reigning supreme. lol!!!
You are a very good writer and those that write back are quite helpful so I use it as a “tool” to “adjust” to the newness that life often brings.
Life brings what we call “tests”! many of them “who could forget all those tests – remember when we were in school? Tests are necessary in order to achieve the diploma that we need to move forward – that being said.I love your point on looking for signs of the changing environment: see below
he point is that there are signs for you. Signs that the environment around you is changing.
Warnings so that you can begin to change yourself and your habits and behavior to adapt to these changes as well. If you don’t… Well, you’ll get cold! In other words, you’ll have to pay the consequences.
Change is always necessary