Hi,
Here is a simple truth for you: LIFE IS NOT A EMERGENCY!
I’ve had hundreds of people who have written or called me and they are so upset and there is so much drama surrounding them that you would think that to them, life is an emergency!
But as they go on with their story, I see/hear that it is only an emergency to them.
These people come to me for advice, but they are so upset and so caught up in their stories and what is going on in their lives…and their or their loved one’s bipolar disorder…that they don’t even let me get a word in edgewise. Now, I’m just a third party, so of course, whatever they’re telling me is not an emergency for me. But even though they wrote or called me for advice, they can’t get it, because they won’t even stop long enough to listen to me!
These people remind me of the Type A personalities we hear of in business who work 80 hours a week, who are so driven, who have such high expectations, that if they don’t meet that 80 hour work week, that they have failed in some way.
They are always walking around like a chicken with it’s head cut off, afraid that everything won’t get done, because to them, everything is an emergency!
I had a supporter who called me who was like that. She was so upset over her inability to be
perfect that her doctor had prescribed her anti-anxiety medicine. She was acting (and feeling) like there was a gun pointed at her head and the sniper was demanding that everything she did as a supporter had to be perfect – or else! Again, the silent assumption was that, this is an emergency!
The truth was, no one other than her had created the pressure she was experiencing. The truth is that: LIFE IS NOT AN EMERGENCY!
I’m not saying that some of us have never done it, sometimes we’ve jumped to conclusions before getting all the facts, and maybe overreacted, making an emergency out of something that wasn’t, but not all the time!
Sometimes we take our own goals so seriously that we forget to have fun along the way, and we forget to cut ourselves some slack. We take simple things and turn them into conditions for our own happiness. Or, we beat ourselves up if we can’t meet our self-created deadlines.
The first step in becoming a less stressed person is to have the humility to admit that, in most
cases, you’re creating your own emergencies. Life will usually go on if things don’t go according
to plan.
John Lennon said, “Life is what happens when you’re making other plans.” I’m sure he would have agreed that life is NOT an emergency.
You need to cut yourself some slack. Remember that your goal is to stay relaxed, to not get too
worked up or concerned about how you are doing. As long as you’re trying your best to be a good supporter, then that’s all that matters. No one is a perfect supporter all the time.
Practice what you’ve learned, keep your strategies in mind, and don’t worry about being perfect.
There will be many times when you lose it, when you revert to being uptight, frustrated, stressed, and reactive – get used to it. When you do, it’s ok. Life is a process – just one thing after another. When you lose it, just start again. It doesn’t mean that it has to be an emergency, though!
You just don’t have to make little setbacks into large emergencies – cut yourself some slack. Look at your mistakes as learning experiences, not emergencies.
All that’s important is that you do your best and that you are moving in the right direction. Keep your perspective, be the best supporter you can be, and eventually your loved one will respond to your support and will be able to manage their bipolar disorder.
This way, you can learn to live with your own imperfection, give yourself a break, stop trying to be perfect, and remember that:
LIFE IS NOT AN EMERGENCY!
Well, I have to go!
Your Friend,
Dave
Post responses below
This is one of the best emails you’ve ever written! Keep up the great work David! Surely you help many people, and that is what we are all here for… to love and help one-another! God Bless!
Hi “my friend” Dave!
Just want to say how much I appreciate your emails on Bipolar Disorder.
My son has it, and, together, we are learning to manage it.
He is an adult and lives in a town nearby; divorced a couple of years now, with three children. Great father, too!
As his mother and loving supporter, I appreciate your valuable information and experience.
Just want to let you know, and say thank you!!
Linda 🙂
David,
After 22 years, of having (at my last count), 26 different diagnosis, illness’s. syndromes, & symptoms, I have been put on mood-stablizers. I have received the diagnosis of PTSD/Bi-Polar. As I read your words, I am in awe of how I lived years and even now…as a “Type A personality”, wanting everything to be perfect…including myself.
Now, after almost 2 years on Seroquel and Lamictal, I have gone up two dress sizes. This alone is becoming a big problem, health wise…even on set of high glucose (symptom of Seroquel). I made an appt. with a new Psych. Dr, and already have been seeing one of his thearpist for the end of Sept.’11.
I am reading your words with having ‘light-bulb moments” almost every sentance. You have made a huge awareness to many and I thank you for what you have done for me. Praying for you and others to be helped by your website.
Thank You,
Lindacarp55@yahoo.com
This perspective couldn’t have come at a better time.I have a bipolar daughter (I believe from research and raising her, and her “crash” her junior year in college when she ran away with a young schizophrenic man she had met when she came home for “Parents Weekend” and went to the Metaphysical section of the bookstore. They had only known each other three weeks when they ran away together).She moved to Hot Springs AR with this young man and neither could hold down a job, but his father kept enabling their situation, which kept them from having to face the reality of their illness, or seek any treatment. Additionally, the son had the only cellphone, and saw us as a threat to his hold on my daughter, so he didn’t want us to even have the phone number. I wasn’t able to communicate with my daughter for three years with the exception of her calling me on my birthday on one year. Eventually the dad, on our continual urging, got it through his head that they would never return as long as he was underwriting them financially, and it was draining him terribly as he was retired military, contracting to continue receiving medical benefits for his wife who is very ill physically and also schizophrenic. He is 75 and very worn out, but dedicated to his family, just misdirected. He finally stopped sending money, and they returned from AR to move back in with him, so my daughter is back in VA, about 30 mins. from me, untreated, unwilling to recognize she is ill,and now 25. On the surface, she seems fine, she is very bright (she had Johns Hopkins courting her during the summers in HS) but also very sensitive,and not sure what she wants to do. She needs to find something that will not stress her, and of course, like many, she is interested in “Alternative Medicine.” Meanwhile, her younger brother who just barely graduated from HS, and took to smoking pot during the last two years, we are trying to get into the right king of integrated counseling program that will address the substance abuse and the underlying reasons for its’ use. There is a lot of anger from the dysfunction that occurred initially after she left, with his older brother, who lacks any empathy, and with Brian, the younger one, who just graduated, who barely remembers his sister ever being well, and at 7 when she started showing depressive symptoms, and was incorrectly diagnosed, he was always being dragged to appointments to wait on her, to no avail. So now he is not doing so well at the moment, and I am praying that we aren’t about to have another “crash” like we did with his sister back in 2006. I with my husband took the NAMI Family-2-Family 12 week course for families undergoing crisis, to get a grip on what was going on. I have a degree in Special ED., but not in Emotionally Disturbed, that was a whole new area for me. A year later, I took the training and became certified to teach the course, and have done so twice, and am scheduled to teach again this spring in Fredericksburg,VA. It is very different working with others, and their individual situations, (and living through your own), but the more I learn, the better I am able to put my ego aside, gradually, and remember the communication skills that work vs. those that just exacerbate the situation. Thanks for your input.
Love the Life is not an Emergency piece. I could readily relate to the partial phrase “eventually your
loved one will respond to your support and will be able to mange their bipolar disorder.”
While Alzheimer’s and BiPolar are quite different, in some aspects they are the same. Maybe not in manifestation but in some ways how the “supporter” handles things affects the way the “supportee” handles things. I learned with my Mom who was only diagnosed with Dementia that “Your Real Time” and “Their Real Time” are not the same. You can easily cripple or destroy mentally or emotionally challenged people by forcing them to march to your drummer. And, the downside to that is since you are the drum major you add to your responsibility unnecessarily! Their coping skills are only honed and become better when you give them time to hear the music. After all, if they aren’t in the middle of a burning inferno, what is the real rush?
Hi David,
It is true that we who are the supporters wind up needing some support ourselves sometimes. It’s very easy to get tied up with not only every day obligations but so many unexpected things can arise as well. You have to remember you can’t always do all of the things that crop up unexpectantly. There are just so many hours in a day and you have to prioritize. If you sit back, take a moment and just stop to think, there will be some things that can be put off until tomorrow. Didn’t get to do the breakfast dishes this morning? Maybe you could just put them in the dishwasher or give a quick rinse til you get home and do them all after supper as well. Or maybe you forgot to take something out of the freezer for dinner. You can still defrost it in the microwave and then cook or reheat it, then try to get something ready for the next day at the same time. How’s a double recipe sound to save some time for the next day? Take care of real emergencies – don’t make them. With bi polar you always have to keep your eyes open for one. Being aware of signs are impotant to catch before one can arise.
that’s right Mr. Oliver! So we shouldn’t let traumatic experiences imagined or real kill us either…
Receive each day as April Fools day! It’s the best Holiday – after all the wisest person himself chose the foolishness of the world to confound even the wisest!!!!!!
Hello Dave…….
Love your e-mails you send to me Dave, they are such a wonderful help…I realized, I have been with your site now three years! yes! you have helped me with my bi-polar in so many ways with your e-mails, I connect so much with your e-mails…like this one you sent to me, really hit me good this one!!
My life does feel like an emergancy…well should not say so much as an emergancy I guess…one unhappy place put it that way!
I read so many of your supporters here who are lucky to have support by their side, or a support system by their side…I am envious…I do nto have any support in my life what so ever, I am all alone in dealing with my bi-polar….no support system or people more like it, I deal with things on my own internally, which some days feels like I am falling apart…most days I walk around like I am dead inside, numb, can’t feel anything but emptiness…..
Stress?! have tons of it surrounding me, my marriage is a mess and falling apart, my husband is no support what so ever, he has driven me into a depression for the last 3-4 months, he thinks Bi-polar is all in the mind, foolishness, and does not really exsist and tells me I am nothing more than just weak minded and tells me to snap out of it. I wish I could just snap out of it! I wish Bi-polar did not exsist in me! our marriage has been basically over for months, nt sure how or where it went wrong, but it is, we argue and fight all the time, his son, who lives with us, 20 years old treats me like crap! and gets away with it from his father,his Dad does all our issues infront of him, nothing is private! his Dad empowers him to treat me like crap…between the two of them feels like I am losing my mind best of days…..
So my life feels like an emergancy disaster…it is hard not to get caught up in all of this sadness around me, can’t get out of it, stuck in this mess, till someone leaves! and it is most likely going to be me…like my husband would care if I did any ways…..
so after reading your e-mail to me about life being an emergancy…well have to say mine feels like one. I am trying to make it not so stressful, trying not get caught up in the stress and chaos here, but how can I not when I am stuck right in the middle of it all?
christina.macdonald168@gmail.com