Hi,

How’s it going?

Well, it’s Springtime, and actually, a lot of people do much better in Springtime and Summer than they do in Winter, because of being in the natural sunlight.

Really! There have even been scientific studies to prove this. They say that people with bipolar disorder have less episodes in Spring and Summer than in Winter – you can check it out.

Speaking of bipolar episodes, that brings up today’s topic, which is what I call PEA – which stands for Post Episode Analysis.

PEA is one of the ways I used to start to figure out what went wrong with my mom during various bipolar episodes.

Here’s how it works:

You take an episode and then you look back and analyze every single thing that you can see and think of as to why it occurred.

You ask questions like:

Who was the doctor? (and were they good or bad)
Was medication taken? (and did it work or not)
Did your loved one see the doctor regularly?
Did your loved one go to therapy?
Were there any external triggers?
Were there changes in diet, exercise or routine?
Were they sleeping too little (or too much)?

You look for everything big and small.  After you have the list, you start to look at what you think the problem was and then moving forward you work to correct it with your loved one.

Let me give you an example. About a year ago, my mom started to go into an episode but she and I caught it. I did do my PEA and discovered the following:

-She cut way back on her therapy
-She stopped exercising
-She missed church several times
-She started eating sugary foods
-She was going to bed really late
-She was getting up around the same time
each day (which meant she was losing sleep)
.
But after I did this PEA and a lot of thinking, it was clear why my mom went into the episode.

I have found, that in virtually every case, there is a cause to an episode and it’s not like a lottery like some people would like to believe.

I mean there is a cause and an effect to every episode, which you can find through “hindsight” by using the PEA.

You can find that your loved one does things that lead to an episode. It may be several simple things or one big thing. But there are things done that trigger most (all) episodes I have seen and/or heard about.

NOTE: I am NOT a doctor, therapist or “professional” in any way and this information is not to diagnose, treat or cure any disease.

When I ask questions like I am telling you to ask yourselves in the PEA, the cause of the episode becomes clear.

BUT I should warn you, many times you have to dig for the cause or causes. Your loved one may not even be aware of what was done.

In the case with my mom that I spoke about, she didn’t even realize that she was doing several things that would potentially trigger an episode.

When you look at small things like “eating sugary food” you may think, “that’s such a simple thing, how does that create an episode?”

Well it’s not just that one simple thing, it’s that combined with other simple things that creates a bigger effect. Like 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 should equal 4 but it really turns out to equal 10 because the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.

I hope that makes sense?

What do I mean? Well let’s say my mom discovers she can’t eat sugary foods, has to go to bed before 10 pm, take her medication, has to see her doctors, and has to go to church each week to stay stable.

Now to some, that might not make sense. You probably can’t find medical studies that say these concepts are important. BUT, for my mom, she has done her own experiments and found it is important so she has to stick to it even though it doesn’t make 100% sense as to why that’s true (for her).

Meaning we might not be able to know exactly why a combination of certain things leads to stability (or why different combinations work for different people) but we do know it does so we just have to go along with it.

Also, NOTE- with whatever my mom is doing, medication is 100% the foundation of her stability.

In every PEA I ran, my mom was always taking her medication. BUT, she can run into problems even if she is taking her medication but not doing the other things.

That’s why I say in my courses/systems that medication is SO crucial to stability with bipolar disorder.

SUPPORTING AN ADULT WITH BIPOLAR DISORDER?
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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

It’s kind of strange to me that when I asked my dad in like 2005 if he ever had thought about why all my mom’s episodes occurred, he had said, “Not really…they just do.”

I guess the economist in me strives to figure out patterns and formulas for why something occurs.

That’s what got me started on developing the Post Episode Analysis, or PEA, to use after a bipolar episode.

It’s best if you can sit down with your loved one after their episode is over, and look back over to see what happened, what went wrong. This way, you can try to avoid the same things happening again.

You may be surprised that many times doctors are quick to dismiss many of the “little things” you may find that cause episodes, because they are only focused on medication (which is VERY important, and you know I believe that, but so are these other things).

Try using the PEA approach BEFORE your loved one has another episode.

Base it on their last episode, and maybe you can use it to avoid another episode!

What do you think about this idea?