Hi,
I hope you’re doing well today.
I’ve had a tough couple of days working on a bunch of issues with software and also advertising partners.
Anyway, we are working hard to get everything all straightened out.
Today I wanted to talk to you about something that nobody probably ever told you before:
The WORST thing you can do about bipolar disorder.
And that is NOTHING.
That’s right, the worst thing you can do about bipolar disorder is nothing.
Even if you do accept that you or your loved one has bipolar disorder (which is hard enough to do in itself), if you do nothing about it, there’s no chance for stability.
There are just certain things you MUST do to attain stability with bipolar disorder. You cannot simply do NOTHING!
It’s the same with life.
If you graduate with a high school diploma, yet learn nothing else, you’ll never go anywhere in life. I’m not saying you then have to get a college degree, but you still have to learn – you at least have to get trained in a trade, or else you’ll have to work in fast food for the rest of your life.
When you get married and want to have children, but learn nothing about being a parent, you
will have more problems than you can handle. You at least need to learn something about
being a parent to be a good one. You must learn something about children in order to raise them.
If you want to be in a healthy relationship, then you have to learn how to be a good partner. If you’ve had bad relationships in the past, then you have to learn from them. If you do nothing, you’ll just keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again, and you’ll never have a good relationship.
It’s the same with life lessons. If you’ve made bad choices and poor decisions in the past and didn’t learn the lessons you needed to in order to learn from them, then nothing changes. If you do nothing about them, you’ll just keep making the same mistakes over and over again. You need to grow and learn from your mistakes, but if you do nothing, you won’t.
There is a saying that goes, “If nothing changes, nothing changes.”
So, it’s the same with bipolar disorder.
If you do nothing, you’ll stay unstable.
If you’re a supporter and you do nothing, your loved one will stay unstable, because there’s a lot you do to help them manage their disorder.
You may not like the way things are, but if you do nothing to change them, then they’ll just stay the way they are. You can’t expect them to change by themselves.
Here’s an excerpt from a reading a friend showed me, and I think it relates to what I’m talking about:
“…unless I accept life completely on life’s
terms, I cannot be happy. I need to
concentrate not so much on what needs to
be changed in the world as on what needs
to be changed in me and in my attitudes.”
We can learn a lot from that.
For instance, you can’t change the world.
You may not even be able to change your circumstances, but you might be able to if you try. But if you do nothing, how will you ever know?
You can’t change the fact that you or your loved one has bipolar disorder. But you can change the fact that there is no cure for it just by learning how to manage it. If you do nothing, then the disorder is in control over you. If you do something, then you are in control over it.
You can’t do anything about what’s already happened. You can’t change the past. But you can do something about today. But if you do nothing to change today, it will be just like the past that you can’t do anything about. You can make today better, but not if you do nothing.
If you find that your attitude is negative, and you do nothing about it, it will affect everything
you do – your thoughts, your feelings, your actions, your reactions, your behavior towards
yourself and others. You can change your attitude if you want to, but not if you do nothing.
If you or your loved one with bipolar disorder are depressed and you do nothing about it, you are going to stay depressed. But you can change that by changing your attitude to a more positive one as well.
In my courses/systems, I talk about what you can do to change your attitude from negative to
positive, and how important that is to good management of bipolar disorder:
NEW
LEARN THE SECRETS OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL WITH
BIPOLAR DISORDER?
http://www.bipolarsupporter.com/bipolarmastersystem/
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
You may not be able to change your loved one, but you can change yourself. But if you do nothing, you will still stay the same. And all of us need to be constantly growing, constantly changing, to better ourselves.
And this especially relates to bipolar disorder.
If you are a supporter, you definitely want your loved one to get better.
You want them to be stable.
But if they do nothing, they’ll never be stable.
If they don’t do the things they need to do to be stable, like if they don’t watch their triggers,
they’ll stay unstable.
And if you don’t help them to watch for signs and symptoms of an oncoming bipolar episode, then they won’t ever reach stability.
And here is the worst of the worst:
If you or your loved one see signs or symptoms of an episode and do nothing – if you don’t eport
them to the doctor or psychiatrist, say, then your loved one WILL go into that episode.
Do NOTHING, and you might lose EVERYTHING.
Agree or disagree?
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.
Post responses below
Great email today, Dave. Everyone should have access to this, not only people with bipolar and their supporters. It was a great beginning to a wonderful day. Keep up the good work!
Hi Dave,
I think you hit the nail right on the head here. It is true that if we do nothing nothing will happen. No matter if it is in life’s trials or bipolar. Again very well put. Keep up the good work. I look forward to your message every day and have learned much from your lessons.
I couldn’t agree with you more! My son’s girlfriend is living with him and she is bipolar. She stopped taking her medicine in 2007. I can tell when she is manic and so can she. She told my son that when she is like that he shouldn’t take what she says to heart because she is just going through a period of time that will pass. I asked him what he would do if this “period of time” didn’t pass? He said he didn’t know. I told him he better look into the situation as I have done because he is only kidding himself. I picked up a couple of books to learn about this problem and suggested that he read them. He asked me when he would have time to read them. Now to me that is a dumb question. If he doesn’t want her to see him reading them, then he should read them while on his lunch hour but he should read them no matter what. That is as far as I got with him on the situation. The books are still here in my possession. This is something I can’t control and the illness is something that he is letting control him and his girlfriend. I just don’t get it when there is something that can be done to help the situation.
Thanks for listening.
Thank you. I’m going to the doctor today, even though I am so nervous I feel like throwing up. Nothing any worse than what has already been happening could come from going to the doctor I hope. I really feel sick and it makes me feel like not going just because of being nervous. I hope things go well for me today. Wish me luck.
Yes David. You hite the nail right on the head. I am a big proponent in getting on a new page when needed and working with my family and doctors to help stabilize situations right away. This summer I had to use the police as well to get a situation /episode under control. Therapy, limits on behavior , medication tweaking. But having a winning attitude is what works best for our family. Thank you so much for always reminding us that there is help, information and solutions.
I agree with everything you have written. I am stable right now in my life, living with bipolar disorder. There is however a problem, my sister has a friend who goes out with several of us, I am the DD, and this person has been getting under my skin, she is playing the dumb blonde game, no pun intended to any or all blondes, as I am a blonde also, she also has a southern accent, well she is driving me crazy! I don’t know if she should be considered a trigger or not? I will be seeing my therapist next week and will let her know what has been going on with me. This individual throws herself at all and any type of men, it makes me sick. I don’t want to be around her. My sister feels sorry for her, I do not! Anyways, I feel better , look better, act better, smile, laugh, people have been telling me how good I look, and that makes me feel good to hear this from other individual’s. The one thing that is most important is I see for the first time what others see in me. I don’t ever want to go back to a bipolar episode again. But having feelings, opinions is a normal thing, sometimes this can be scary to differentiate. Have a great day Dave!
To ANDREA: I agree it can sometimes be SCARY going to your doctor when you don’t feel well, but he is your main contact for getting better! Just be honest with him/her, and do the best you can to explain your “nerves” and what triggered them. I will pray that everything goes well with you.
I guess because I have accepted my diagnosis as bipolar, I am constantly “in motion.” I’ve never done “nothing.” Even being “sent” into a manic episode while still following a treatment plan, I’ve felt good about myself. It is the “siren’s” temptation of mania that someone calls to me (and I’m sure to other bipolar survivors), but I stop short of “going all the way” into a manic episode. Hypomania in itself CAN be enlightening, but it is ALWAYS a curse to me, and when I find myself “going over the edge,” I contact either my shrink or my therapist, and we work through it. Being stable is the most important goal of my life, and I get closer every day!
BIG HUGS to all bipolar survivors and those who love us. May God bless you real good. I pray for my country.
I don’t know some of our doctor’s over-react to a hypomanic state and overmedicate. If depression is your predominate symptum Too much medicine for break out mania or hypomania can keep you too depressed. Sorry for all the misspleled words but my mind is not working so great right now. My first doctor to treat my manic-depressive symptoms told me to not panic when my moods shifted a little give it a few days. Just go along for the ride and things would probably work themselves out. (as long as I am on medicine this is true) Sometimes I can’t sleep for 3 or 4 days. I usually use this time to get things done that I did not do for the months that I have been depressed. Get fresh air and use up this energy, eat well, etc. By the 4th day I am usually sleeping again without adding something extra. When I have reported not sleeping to my doctor and they over-react by adding more medicine, I have gotten into trouble.
My mom is bipolar. She is hateful and will not discuss her disease or let us get her to a doctor or therapist. She just got released Sunday, and all of her children have put her through HELL. It is all our fault, everything that is wrong is our fault. She will not allow anyone to say anything contrary to what she BELIEVES. None of us want to be around her. We don’t know how to reach her without selling out. None of us are ready to do that anymore. As in other diseases, such as alcoholism, are there some who are incapable of help? What kinds of options do we have left?
Dear David, I just want to say “Thank you”. Thank you for all that you are doing. I wish I had the capability to articulate just how grateful I am to you, but I´m not good with words. Please don´t stop what you are doing. I know that sometimes you get some really nasty emails ,which might make you feel like chucking the whole thing, but i want you to know that there are thousands like me out there waking everyday to read your emails, which keeps them going, but unable to articulate their apprciation.
Tasenla.
When my daughter showed the first outward signs of BP: I did nothing , although I was uneasy about the little strange things that were happening.
As she got steadily worse I still did nothing
Even when she became profoundly unwell and said and believed the most outrageous bizarre thoughts- I still did nothing
When she denounced all medication all doctors and mental health professionals as freaks and useless self seeking glory hunters I agreed with her.
The day I did something was after a week of really bizarre and frightenening events that could have either got her locked up or worse by the cops or even killed by her own hand
Then one day like the train wreck scenario Rachel began to behave in a very dangerous and bizarre way in public and then I did some thing I had previously sworn and declared I would not do – I called the police I hopped in my car I searched and found my daughter and I committed her, Rachel didn’t go voluntarily (so that she would be compelled to stay in hospital until the mental health team could figure out how to help her) because I was terrified she was going to kill herself.I got passed my own prejudices and fear( I reckon the biggest hurdle was getting over was feeling ashamed that my daughter was making a public spectacle of herself and what would the family think of such a profound weak link and that they were afraid of her)and figuratively speaking -I jumped straight in and hung on to her I told her I would never leave her no matter what she said -I didnt care less I was here for her for good. Rachel emailed me David Olivers Emails and from that day forth I began to find a way to climb out of my own private hell such action gave me the strength and determination to hang on to the absolute conviction that my daughter would recover Rachel has been over 23 days in a positive mindset after 2 years of hell
to D:
Nuture an absolute and unshakeable belief your mother will recover as David has said many times BP sufferers do recover. Get it out of your mind the idea that your mother is incurable
Check out everything you can about the disease to help you past your own mind blocks of fear and prejudice.
David wrote about a way of approaching BP as the enemy – your mum is not the enemy. if your mum didn’t have BP she wouldn’t be like she is.
I have no idea what it must be like to walk in my daughters shoes – if it has been hell on me sometimes I cannot begin to imagine what it must be like for her, suffice to say that I know Rachel would never have wished her BP on her worst enemy, there is no way any person would wish to have Bipolar. My daughter has a great well of courage and fortitude as do all those who suffer from BP and are desperate to find a solution.
Regards
Shona
Hi David:
My Nephew’s wife has beenn bipolar for many years, your
information has been very helpful to him, as I print them off, right now she is back in the Mental Hospital,
seems to end up there about twice a year. She’s 57 years old and seems to get worst each year.
I thankyou you for all your great information.
Sincerely ,
Virginia Beith
Hello David,
My son Alexander, who lives in France, may have BP disorders but his psychiatrist has not confirmed a diagnostic yet. Alexander is having a pretty impressive list of medications to take and he has serious adverse reacations to those medications. I suspect that he does not tell everything to his psychiatrist but when I called the doctor he did not want to talk to me because my son is an adult and therefore he has an obligation to maintain confidentiality. I indeed agree with all what you say but I do not know what to do but keep looking for guidance.
Marie-Christine
To Marie-Christine,
I know how differcult it can be to get into the Medical system as the support person. I found the only time I could was when my husband came down from the Manic phase, through the aggressive phase and finally reached depression which is when sometimes they acknowledge they need help. In my husband’s case the ONLY TIME he’ll acknowledge it. So I went with him to the Doctor and had with me a letter I had typed up waivering his privacy and giving permission for the Doctor or any Medical Professional to discuss his situation with me.
We have all experienced when a BP sufferer can be to say the least a ‘stranger to the truth’. The professionals therefore need our help to make a correct diagnosis. While in Depression, the patient often omits what’s happened in mania or worse is too guilt ridden or embarressed to admit any abuse, violence etc.
I kept a diary, and documented my husbands cycles for 14 years and handed condensed copies to the team of specialists at the Psych Hospital once he had been committed. If it gets to that stage, they will often ask for you input anyway. I hope this is of some help, it certainly worked for me as we finally got the correct diagnosis instead of Doctors purely treating him for Depression which is all they had previously seen in him.
Best of Luck – Devon