Hi,
How’s your day going?
I have to go really fast today because I have a ton of work today even though it’s Sunday.
Thanks for all the information yesterday on babies and how and why you can know they are sick. (see yesterday’s post).
I have a super busy week coming up so I have to get going.
I hope you have a great day today. Have you ever heard the question, “If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one around to hear it fall, does it still make a sound?”
Or what about the question, “When you shut the door on your refrigerator, does the light still stay on?”
Do you believe there are people who really worry about the answers to these questions (and others like them)?
Maybe it’s because they’ve got nothing better to do with their time, or maybe because they’ve got too much time on their hands.
Maybe it’s because these types of people always have to know what’s going to happen ahead of time or they feel insecure, or they have to know know the answers to everything.
These are the types of people who can’t deal with unpredictability.
But as a supporter, you have to live with unpredictability all the time, since bipolar disorder is not a predictable illness.
Wait. Let me take that back for a second.
You CAN know the signs and symptoms of the disorder.
You CAN know your loved one’s warning signs and triggers.
But you CAN’T predict when a bipolar episode is going to happen. Not even a psychiatrist can predict that.
It’s like a fortune teller predicting the future!
You also have to live with unpredictability (usually a lot of it) when your loved one is in an episode.
There’s no way to predict the behavior of a person in a manic episode, and no way to predict the consequences of that behavior.
You just have to deal with the unpredictability of it.
They may go off on a spending spree.
They may exhibit sexually promiscuous behavior.
They may go gambling.
They may exhibit other impulsive risk-taking behaviors.
They may take the checkbook and/or credit cards and take you into debt.
They may do other behaviors that you can’t predict during their episode.
One thing that might help with the problem of unpredictability in your life is what I teach in my courses/systems below. To know your loved one’s triggers:
SUPPORTING AN ADULT WITH BIPOLAR DISORDER?
Visit:
http://www.bipolarsupporter.com/report11
SUPPORTING A CHILD/TEEN WITH BIPOLAR DISORDER?
Visit:
http://www.bipolarparenting.com
HAVE BIPOLAR DISORDER?
Visit:
http://www.survivebipolar.net
Knowing your loved one’s triggers can help you as a supporter to help them avoid a bipolar episode.
Then what you can both do, after the episode is over is to look at what happened during the episode so that it doesn’t happen again, or what you can do during the episode to minimize the consequences afterward.
By doing this, you can take some of the unpredictability out of your loved one’s bipolar disorder.
But you can’t know everything. When I was starting this organization there were so many things that I didn’t know. I just had to move forward. I was telling someone newly hired:
-you won’t know everything
-you will make mistakes
-you will do stupid things
-you just have to try not to make your best educated guess as to what to do AND learn from your mistakes and when things go wrong.
That’s it.
Hey, I have to run. Catch you later.
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David Oliver is the author of the shocking guide “Bipolar Disorder—The REAL Silent Killer.” Click Here to get FREE Information sent via email on how and why bipolar disorder kills.