Bipolar Energy

I know it has been a long time and it has been a long road since I left the hospital.   One of the things that has been coming up  is the term labels.   Now we all have labels like Mother or Father or what ever our occupation is.   One of the labels I have attached to is the label of bipolar and Schizophrenia.  Now when I look at labels I think of them of ways to help me.    I know many of you label yourselves are I am this or that.   That is where the problem is.   I am not bipolar.   I have the disorder and I have mental illness but it is not who I am or what I stand for.   I might have rapid thoughts or huge swings in mood but all of those can be controlled and can be managed.   I was reading a book this evening and the book was talking about how there are really two ways in helping us get better.   We are either helping it and making ourselves get better or we are making it worse and in the reference from my docto...

One of the reoccuring topics I have had with my therapist have been talking about happiness and how we are happy.   The basis of the conversations are what do I think or does that person really hate you or are they just unhappy with the circumstances and the events.   While I was in the hosiptal I had the chance to think about this topic and while I started to realized that happiness was more within than is something that is given to us.   So if we want to be happy we need to be happy with ourselves first.   How can we ever be happy if we are not happy in our skin.   I  know personally this has been the bigger cause of my own frustrations is the causes within.   As the meds i am on have been doing their job and allowing me to get to know the real me.   This has been key for me.  For over the past decade I have been taking the same meds and experience the moods swings and all the other enjoyable moments that ...

At a meeting I attended of DBSA there was a young man that was talking about his issues and the problems he faced.   As he was talking it made me reflect of my own situation and that ways that I cope and manage my own illness.   Well Shortly after that I had my first major episode since the hospital and it was different.   I commented on one of my previous blog posts about it.  The one thing that has helped me through those hard times has been something I have picked up and now reading a book on it.   The idea is not to be focused on where we want to be or what our big goal is.  The idea is to be focused on the small steps I am going to take.   If we want to do something large we have to break it up into smaller steps or else we are going to great over whelmed and we will never accomplish our goals.   When I was at the hospital I was focused on what is my next step.   I was focused on what I could do right n...

Well ever since I have changed my meds things have been different for me in almost every aspect of my life.   I have heard many people talk about how their change in meds made them not feel.   I can understand where they are coming from now.   I definitely have felt that way.   My therapist says that it is not the lack of feelings or emotions but a lack of wide array of feelings and emotions.   This past week has been interesting.   I think I am going or have past a depressive episodes.   I have been very negative,  high levels of paranoia,   Wanting extra sleep,   Want to withdraw more and just feeling absolutely terrible and I mean terrible.   Normally I had my ways of boosting my mood but this time around it just was not working.  Don't get me wrong many of them made me feel better physical but emotionally and inside of me I was just feeling crap.   I wanted to leave work because it is part of the problem.   I need...

Ever since I left the hospital physically I have not felt better.  We have been dialing in the new meds and they are doing their job with controlling my mood swings and helping with the episodes.  The truth is I find it really weird because I was so used to the swings and different moods.  Now not having any is a new experience for me.   Over the past week I have noticed one thing that has not changed and that is the internal pain.  I do not think this kind of pain can be resolved with meds or with a pain killer.  There is this internal pain that is always there.   Some times a dull pain and other times very intense but it is always there.  Many people ask how I am doing. Well when that question comes up and they ask me I think how am I feeling.  Well normally I am feeling pretty good.   The question that I ask myself afterwards is how is my pain?   I then rate it on a scale to let me know where I am.   Many people do not ask t...

One of the things I have struggled with ever since my diagnosis is the concept of hope.  I have wondered how people can look past the bad or the negative feelings and emotions so easily.  Over the past year I have been focused on this topic.  I have bought books and lectures on the topic. They all have helped but I still had the feelings of uselessness and hopelessness.  I wanted to feel like I am a useful human being and that I am worth something.  Then I was listening to a religious speaker and he was talking about God.   How God wants to help us and sometimes we just need to allow God the opportunity to make space in us so that the hope and feelings of well being to reside.  Many times we close up and do not allow the higher power or where ever we might look when we are having trouble to make that space in us so we can feel hope and that we are  worth something.   Over the past 6 months I have had a pretty hard time and during these hard t...

During the past week I had a major episode again.  The weird one about this episode it that it was different than the rest of the episodes I have had.   This one different because I am used to them coming on very quick and leaving quickly as well.   Well with the new meds I did not get the blow to the face telling me I am having trouble. What I noticed was that my energy was low.   I was still able to function but I was sleeping more and having a harder time getting up in the morning.   Then today I noticed it was very low but then after lunch it came back up like it always does.   These new meds are causing me to relearn how I deal with the disorder.   It is causing me to rethink some of my coping techniques and relearn how I am doing things.  I have always paid close attention to my energy but now I have to pay even closer a Attention to it.   The meds are doing great but it is just weird how different my body responds to them.  I norm...

The last month has been a interesting one for me.  About a month ago I found out that the meds I was on stopped working.   I was taking them but they lost their effectiveness and no longer was providing any benefit to me. When I was at the hospital they put me on a new med which has been wonderful and gotten rid of many of the problems. That I thought was normal and part of having bipolar.  For once I finally feel like I am normal again.  I still have minor issues and problems. But if is no where near what if   Was like before and is absolutely amazing.  Now I have only been taking if for a month but the results I have been very impressed with and want to thank all of the doctors that have helped me.   I was dealing with so much and had so much pain and now if is gone.   I know it is not all the meds and a lot of therapy and mindfulness.  The best part is with using all of the tools I have received and ready to use each one has made it possib...

The past week has been very interesting for me.  I got released from the hospital and have been trying to get used to new meds and a new boss.  This week has been full of changes.  As I have been trying to adjust, I have asked myself how I can adjust to these changes and what I can do to make sure I am still healthy and taking care of myself.   I mentioned in a post on the Bipolar Energy Facebook page about how life is like a chess board.   Sometimes we try to control the pieces of the chess board and we feel stressed, overwhelmed, and feelings of unworthiness come upon us.   So as I was released from the hospital, one of the things that I learned while I was there and one of the things I am trying to remember to do is to only control what I can control.   I cannot control the pieces on the chess board and I cannot control what other people think or do.   I may be able to influence them and  hopefully for ...

This week I've been thinking about the role I play in support of my husband.  Now, this is my post, so I get to say what you'll never in a million years catch Jason saying.  I get to tell you about him.  More than 13 years ago I fell in love with a strong man.  Someone who was loyal.  Someone with concern for others and a desire to show tenderness in the midst of difficulty.  I fell in love with someone who seeks constantly to learn and improve and who is willing to work through hard things.  I fell in love with a patient teacher.  I fell in love with a man of honor.  I also fell in love with a flawed man.  This was good because I was a flawed woman.  I knew I would need his patience and forgiveness throughout the years as I learned and grew in my clumsy and indelicate way.  I chose before we even met to readily offer a husband the same patience and forgiveness I knew I would need.  I fell in love and we were married....

Over the past several days I have had the opportunity to think about my situation and have the great chance to track my mood and my energy levels.   As I have been doing this, its reinforced my observation that my energy levels are very close to how my mood is.  What I mean by this is that when my mood is up my energy levels are up.  When my mood is poor my energy levels are down.  A couple of days a ago, I woke up feeling great and that is was wonderful then about mid-day my energy all of sudden fell very quickly and my mood followed right after.   It stayed down for about an hour and then my energy shot up and right behind it came my mood.  It did not recover fully at first but by the end of the day it was back up where it was when I started the day.  This made me wonder what is link between energy and mood.  I have noticed this trend before and noticed it comes and goes.  I am not saying that if you have low energy that you will have dep...

Throughout my time with the disorder, several people have come up to me and asked me what triggers my episodes or what triggers I have so they can try to be a little bit more sensitive about them.  As I have pondered these questions and with my trials that I have had this week, I have come the realization that I do not have triggers like what most people are referring to.  Now I am not saying others do not have triggers because you may.  For me, though, I think the episodes are just going to come when they are going to come regardless of the outside environment.  That said, one pattern that I have found out over the past six months is there is one thing that leads into many of my trials and even into my episodes is something that I have heard referred to as Psychological Isolation.  This is where you feel alone or isolated or just separated away from whatever you are experiencing at the moment.  This is not when you are home alone and wishing ...

The past week I have been reading to some books about self-talk and how we can manage this better.  To me this is a very sensitive subject since I have had a very hard time trying to break up the internal voices from the external ones.  When I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I was also diagnosed with schizophrenia.  For some time I have heard voices and many times these voices are very hard on me.  They talk me down often.  During moments of crisis, they can become very loud and hard for me to handle.  These voices usually sound like people that I am very close to or people that I have to interact with on a daily basis.  It becomes very hard at times when I am at my desk or on the phone with these people and all of a sudden I hear their other voice.  You might ask me how can I do do this or how can I tell the difference between their real voice or the one that I am hearing.  I have forced myself to learn what is their real voice to what ...

A few years into fighting bipolar, I had been suffering to the point I felt like I was losing the battle.  It seemed like I could not gain any ground and actually felt myself slipping backward if any thing.  I felt the disorder getting worse  and knew I had to make some changes.  At that point in time circumstances were that I needed to find a new doctor and I decided to find a new therapist as well. This turned out to be one of the best decisions I have ever made.  As I was going to my therapy sessions and trying to win some minor battles, my therapist recommended a book by John Welwood that changed my whole view of the disorder its management.  This book introduced me to energy and power we have within ourselves.  Now I admit that energy healing is very weird concept to me, but just hold on and let me explain what this did for me. As I was reading about the energy within each of us my wife recommended a book to me that talked about identifying one...

Photo Attribution   One of the most powerful tools I have to use when I am in crisis and also when I just need to relax is music.  I have spent a considerable amount of time trying to find out what works for me and what does not.  Many of you have probably also found out that music has a very important role in your bipolar management as well as other parts of your life.  I know that music has pulled me out of some very dark depressions and some extreme manias.  At times music has lifted my world and brought me joy.  Other times it has slowed down enough to get my thoughts back in line so I can understand what is going on and what I need to do to make sure I am okay.  Other than my first suicide attempt, I have pulled myself out of most of the other near attempts through music.  I have to thank my favorite artist, Paul Cardall.  If you have not heard any of his music, I have some of it posted on the website for you to listen to.  I ...

Photo Attribution One of the things that has helped me the most in my management of Bipolar is the understanding my cycles. We all deal with them and we learn to hate them and love them at the same time. Over the course of several years i have been trying to understand what my triggers are and what causes me to go into depressive moods and what puts me in manic moods as well. If you know these, you are a lot further along than I am in the management of the disorder. The thing I have done is understand how long I am in each mood or cycle. I like to understand things in a linear fashion. I like to know how long exactly it takes to bake cookies or how long my commute will be.  Several years ago I started to track my cycles. I wanted to understand them so I could see if I could control them in some fashion. As I did this I started to see trends and the way the cycles were presenting themselves. I noticed a weekly cycle. On the weekend I would enter into severe depressive...

One of the hardest things for me with bipolar is getting through those really tough episodes that seem like they are going to take us down. You all know what I am talking about. We all have had them and probably will continue to have them. At one point I talked with my therapist about this and he told me that it is like walking in the ocean. The waves hit us and knock us down and we just need to get back up and be careful not to get pulled under. Last night I was listening to a book by Barbara Brown Taylor called Learning to Walk in the Dark . She was talking about the important lessons we can learn from the dark. As I was thinking about this, I was wondering what I could take away from this book. I applied it to an episode. To me episodes are dark and I feel like no one cares: That no one wants me and I might as well just fall off the face of the earth. The author was saying that it is during these moments we just need to learn to walk in the dark. Some episodes bring famili...

I would like to start to talk about energy and why I feel it is so essential in bipolar management. Awhile back I was attending a DBSA (Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance)meeting and one of the people at the meeting said that bipolar is more about managing our energy than it is about managing our moods. I went home and was thinking about this. At the time I was having a hard time managing my moods and energy. I did some research and found several reports saying our moods in Bipolar are directly related to energy levels. I started to think about this and realized how linked they really were. I noticed during my depressive episodes my energy levels were extremely low while in manic they were extremely elevated. I then started to use caffeine to help boost my mood when depressed. WARNING!: I began this very carefully because caffeine can interact dangerously with our other medications. I treat caffeine as another medication to be used carefully as specific times. It can cause some ...

One of the things that has helped through out my illness has been my support. I refer to each member of my support as pillars. Knowing they're there helps keep my internal roof from crashing down. I view them as someone that I can go to in the moment of crisis: Someone I can call anytime for help. I have key words with them telling them how bad it is and how fast it is progressing. For example, one of my pillars is my wife. I will call or text her and say I am slipping fast. This means the voices are very loud and I am cycling very quickly from up to down to up to down again. I think if we really want to get better we have to have these pillars. The more the better. Actively strengthen relationships when you can so that understanding will be there when you need it. Identify them in calm times and let them know they are a pillar as well. They know they are the ones I rely on when it gets intense. I tend to text first when I just have a casual question or want to chat, ...

Many of you are probably wondering what Bipolar Energy is all about and to best explain I would like to tell my story. When I started college, I started to attend classes and get used to college life and how it felt to be away from home. I had a very heavy workload in my classes and as I was attending classes, I noticed my moods to go from severe depressions to manic states. At the time I had no idea what was going on. I thought it was just hormones or the stress from college. I did not think much about it and until my dad recommended that I talk to a doctor. He prescribed me an anti-depressant, which seemed to help some but not all the way. I still was cycling rapidly between the top of the world and bitter depths and could not figure out what was wrong me. I soon got married to my wonderful wife and I continued my school work. I took on a job and had a hard time keeping it. I had never had a hard time keeping a job before. I began to really wonder what was wrong. I en...

I would like to welcome everybody to Bipolar Energy. Many of you are probably wondering what Bipolar Energy is and how can it help you. Well I will explain that through here. Many of the tabs of on the website talk about it briefly but the blog is where you will see how I put it into practice in my life. Here, I will talk about what it is and how it can help everyone from the people diagnosed with Bipolar disorder to those supporting them. You may be wondering what credentials I have to talk about the disorder and I would invite you to read my story . It will explain everything and you will understand where I am coming from. There I will tell about the journey I have been on and am still on including how I found out about the energy of Bipolar. It has changed my life and entire perspective in the way I manage Bipolar and I mean that. Bipolar Energy is place where we are going to talk about the disorder and how it is affecting us. It is community for anybody affected...