Forums » Smalltalk » Battling Bipolar II

I don't know about any of you guys, but I use my characters as a way to escape my daily life. I recently got home from my second hospital stay this year (my fifth all together) and I've been having a difficult time readjusting back to normal life. Before this most recent stay, I had a diagnosis of Bipolar, Depression, and Anxiety; now it is just Bipolar II, which means that I have more low moments than high moments and when I do have a high moment, it's so minimum that you can't really tell in the long run.

It's really hard for me, personally, because I'm the only person in my family with Bipolar Disorder. No one really understands that I'm never happy with myself and no one understands what it's like to live with someone that has a mental illness to this degree. My parents try their best; my dad has even agreed to have quarterly meetings with my therapist to make sure we're all on the same page with my treatment. But there are just time that I wish I didn't have this illness. I know there are people out there with cancer AND Bipolar disorder, and I'm thankful that I am not one of them, but it is hard on me which makes it hard on my family.

Do you guys have anything similar? How do you deal with it? I'd love some new ideas... And new people to vent to or RP with so I can stay out of my head more often.

Thanks for reading.
Rebekah

I've actually been on both sides, and I know very well that it's frustrating for both sides. Even with all the time I've spent on the sufferer's side, it still gets difficult to deal with others because I'm not dealing with their specific issues when they are. It becomes difficult to understand.

I can probably say more and explain a bit better one I'm home.

I knit. My therapist flat out told me "I can't help you", but I picked up knitting which gave me something to focus on. Every moment I spent on knitting I didn't spend on all my issues. When life feels like a huge failure, I accomplish something with a project, either by finishing it or learning new techniques. I can connect with people who share my hobby and I feel like I belong in a group that faces the same knitting-related struggles. I can make other people happy with my knitting which is a huge motivator and overall it's just a really pleasant way to pass time and be creative.

Once I have the money to buy the yarn, I'm planning on making my first sweater. The idea of crafting my own clothes is a thrilling one for me.

My mental health has drastically improved since I picked up this hobby in ways that therapy never accomplished.

And home.

I guess that simply know about the frustrations is prolly no help, since you already know that it is frustrating.

Hobbies like Sanne's, where you can come up with something you're proud of, is indeed a big help. A friend of mine with social anxiety issues was actually recently quite happy with himself just for having cooked his own meal rather than ordering pizza like usual.

I've never been too good at keeping to any one thing, and I'm usually not satisfied with the things I come up with. When things have been at their worst, I don't even want to do anything. But I always reminded myself that it's called "Bipolar" for a reason - there is eventually an up. Simply keeping that in mind can be comforting.

Pushing yourself to do anything you can be proud of is good though, and you have to keep in mind that mistakes and failures are still a sign of progress. I was proud of myself for completing high school on time when I'd been floundering toward the end and expecting to be useless for life; I pushed myself to get through because I learned of a career that I really wanted, and I needed to get into college. After abandoning college for two years, I was proud of myself for going back; prouder for maintaining one of the higher GPAs; and prouder still for keeping at it until I graduated with honors and a bachelor's.

Just doing things does wonders. The less I'm doing, the less I want to do anything. The more I'm doing, the more I get involved with other things. The periods of time when I could procrastinate on anything that needed to get done? I did, and I hated myself for being so lazy, but I felt like I couldn't break out of it. But when I had full time school and at least somewhat regular work, I also kept up with laundry and dishes, I cooked most nights, and I was just generally happy.

I'ma gonna stop rambling now...

Therapy and medicine honestly only do so much for me. My main coping mechanism is poetry, or writing in general. RP is one of my escapes, I immerse myself into it and forget about everything for a while. Also, music, either listening or playing, is a good outlet. Any kind of art or task that requires focus and creativity is good for coping. Different things work for different people.
But the number one thing is having friends who love and support you, it makes a world of difference. Without a support system to fall back on, even just a few online friends you can talk to is good, it can be really hard to cope with depressive moods.

But like Novalyyn said, inactivity starts a deadly cycle of constant lack of motivation that leads to more doing nothing that ends in a bad mood. Keeping my mind busy with RPing, games, reading, writing, drawing and talking to friends is what keeps my depressive moods from being crippling.

I have a friend who's bipolar also, we used to have the best laughs even though he was upset before then. He told me that just having friends that support you and amuse you is the best way so, what I'm trying to say is...

HI I'M SUFYAN, WE IZ NAO FRIENDZ:3

*gasps and melts* I had no idea that any one would actually reply. I've been stuck in this mindset lately, where I think everyone will just think I'm doing or saying these things for attention, which I can promise I'm not.

I do have moments of creativity when I crochet, paint, or write stories, but it seems lately (since the birth of my daughter 2 years ago) they have been coming less and less frequently. I have won an award for a story I wrote in my eleventh grade Latin class and I have had a drawing of a skunk in an art show from my twelfth grade art. I had just done these things because they were what made me happy; and at the time I knew what that was. Now, it seems like nothing makes me happy and I sleep all the time or isolate myself to my room back my bad days are outnumbering my good days nearly 6:1 any given week if I'm lucky. I live with and rely on my parents for everything because my illness has taken over my life that I can't hold a job for more than 3 months. I'm supposed to go back to college in August for creative writing after dropping out of Universal Technical Institute where I was studying to be an auto and diesel mechanic (it's simply not my passion anymore. I think writing has always been my first love and I was just going to UTI to appease my father and grandparents by having a "real job".)

Here is a link to one of my paintings: http://imgur.com/a/a4OcC (I like sharing when I feel good about something lol) I have a few stories in the works, but I can always post them to my blog and share a link here when I get them up if you guys would care to read them. I'm always adding to them and constantly editing myself because I'm never really 100% happy with what I put out when I reread stuff. That's why I love roleplaying, I can't go back and change something because it will effect not only what I've written, but what my partner(s) have written as well.

Thanks again guys.

I had the same for a long time. I avoided everyone and everything, so I definitely understand it. Being on RPR was the only way I really socialized but it didn't make me feel better. Part of the reason was that I bottled everything up; I had no outlet, I didn't feel satisfied talking to close friends and family because I felt I never could be open about things.

So I started an anonymous blog on www.wordpress.com - nobody knew who I was, nobody cared who I was. I wrote whenever I felt shitty. I got as angry and upset as I could be to get it out of my system. I yelled, I cried, I told strangers my secrets, and after a while it helped me crawl out of my hole. Instead of spending countless hours grinding over my life and sleeping it away because I kept exhausting myself with it, I propelled all that bad energy into the wide open world for everyone to read. And it helped. I didn't have to grind over my issues anymore because I shared them with others. I often didn't get feedback, but I did get likes. I knew people read it.

It helped SO much. Then I picked up knitting, and sharing my progress kept motivating me to talk about everything. I've recovered tremendously in the meantime with the combination of the blog, finding knitting and finding my current boyfriend (who's been more than amazing and understanding and helpful).

Maybe it can help you too. A blog on WordPress is free and inhabited by a lot of mature people overall. It's as quickly shut down as it's opened.

I am on mobile, so there are likely going to be errors!

I don't suffer from bipolar disorder, so I don't think I know what it's like (I should really see a therapist at some point to figure out if anything has changed though) but I do have a long list of mental problems. Anxiety (general and social), devastating phobias, ptsd (I hate admitting this one because so many people get upset with non-vets using it), depersonalization/derealization disorders, depression. There are other things I should touch on with a therapist I think, just to avoid making self diagnosis, but I don't have money so lol.

Role play is a great way for me to skip away from these problems. Same with art and music.

I usually handle anxiety by listening to a song (M83 - Wait) until the attack is over. Unfortunately panic, I can't fix. People just need to know not to touch me or it makes it worse. I've had people hold me still and that's just awful lol.

I also can't really... Help the ptsd any either other than to surround myself with hectic distractions. Like playing with my Nanny kids! Or eating something crunchy while listening to music in one earbud and listen to tv with the other ear. Just drown it out. Things can get bad if I don't try, unfortunately.

I usually just talk to my beloved when I'm depressed. I feel he understands me more than anyone and makes me feel better, even if just a little. I also draw to relieve this a bit. It gives me something to focus on! C:

Now... depersonalization/derealization is another thing altogether. There is absolutely no way for me to fix this, even temporarily. My head becomes so convinced that even sensations become dull.

Not to be weird or gross but I had a bad time with it the other day here with my boyfriend. He'd try to tickle me and poke me. Eventually he bit my arm lol. He bit it so hard I was sure he'd draw blood! He didn't. (I consented it's ok.) As soon as he pulled away the pain faded and my head pushed the memory of the feeling out completely, which is terrifying. My only way of trying to help myself is to force myself to feel things. Which is really hard lol.

I guess there are plenty of things I can do, and some I can't. To yanno fix things our make me feel better. The bottom line is that I try to become consumed in something if I'm feeling too badgered by my mental things. Rp, art, listening to and creating music, finding creative ways to drown this out...

I don't take medicine. I feel like art and rp/writing are good enough for me. I have really bad days with each of these problems. But there are also days where they're barely there and I feel normal!

Instruments also work wonders. I remember seeing some show or documentary about how the vibrations in an instrument are actually therapeutic! I can't play guitar super well, but messing around on it or playing a simple song makes ne feel very nice. Our even just goofing off! I try to make myself laugh with art or music too. Draw funny faces or scenes. Our wrote lyrics to a hilariously dorky song. (Used to change popular song lyrics to fit dnd campaigns I was in.)

I just keep remembering more and more stuff haha.

A big thing I try to do is surround myself with happy people, whether online or irl. I'm very empathetic so it helps to be around really happy people.

Also ANIMALS! Animals ate therapeutic. C:

Idk. Lol.

I have to agree with you about the animals bit. When we had cats, my depression wasn't as bad; though that could also be because I was younger and didn't know about the world yet. I've never had a dog, so I can't comment whether canines are better than felines, haha. But there was just something about taking care of another living creature that helped me focus -having a 2 year old is a totally different thing though, and much harder. Thankfully my parents have taken custody of my minion because I can't take care of myself let alone her right now.

A little, personal update: I got into an intensive outpatient club house in my area. It will thankfully get me out of the house and around people like me, and also get me ready for school on August 25.

Depends on the canine/feline. They each have their own personalities.