Why Does Doing What I Love Make My Bipolar Worse?







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We can still partake in activities we love if we understand how to modify our focus on pastimes that promote stability.

By Julie A. Fast

This illness is unfair. We have to be so careful about everything. Get the right amount of sleep! Make sure you take your meds! Watch out for bad relationships! Find work that respects bipolar! I’m the one who is often giving this advice in my blogs and books.

I do all of this and yes, it helps. But I’m really in a dilemma sometimes when it comes to the other advice I read and hear from friends about having a good life. Here is one I am sure you have heard before. If you want to have a good life…

Do what you love!

Well. Here’s my honest experience with doing what I love. If I do what I love, it often leads to bipolar disorder symptoms. I love being with people, but being in large crowds can make me paranoid and anxious.

I love, love, love karaoke, but this is often a late night endeavor with friends who like to drink and have a good time starting around 10 PM. If I do this with my friends, I will not be able to sleep at all and the mania will creep in and make me miserable.

I love to travel. It is what I love. But the time changes and the stress of airports, being in a new city and especially the stress of the time zone changes can make me very depressed and suicidal within a few days.

Bipolar disorder doesn’t care about what I love. It’s an illness that reacts to stress and stress means change.

A bipolar trigger is something that creates a bipolar disorder symptoms. Triggers simply mean change.

I remember when I was making my trigger list for my book Take Charge of Bipolar Disorder. It was easy to list the negative stuff—don’t use cocaine, Julie! Keep away from bad boys who want to take your money and date 10 women at once! Don’t work the night shift. All of this makes sense.

But my trigger list also includes what I love. How do we deal with this dilemma?

How do I find a way to still do what I love and keep myself from getting sick?

My answer is moderation and acceptance that I am going to lose out a lot on life in order to stay alive. I have taught myself to feel the pain of saying no and watching my friends do what I can’t. I have taught myself to carefully plan all travel weeks and often months in advance, so that I can have a stable experience. I know what makes me sick and have learned not to take my symptoms out on others.

I live with grief over what I could be doing if I could just stop bipolar from showing up. I like the analogy of bipolar and insulin-dependent diabetes. When you have bipolar, there is loss and there is grief and there is sacrifice. The reward is stability.

When you have insulin-dependent diabetes, there is loss, grief and sacrifice, but you get to stay alive and have a good life if you follow some simple rules.

No one can tell you that life with bipolar is easy, but I can tell you that we can still do what we love if we understand how to modify and focus on what we love and do it in a way that keeps us stable.

My “do what I love” list:

I love international football. Soccer. The matches are in the morning. I am lucky to have a love that means I can still go to bed at a reasonable time. I teach my friends that I will always be the one to leave first no matter what we do, but it’s nothing personal. This means I still go to karaoke, but I’m usually home by 11 while they stay out and party. My love of travel is the same as ever. Now, I know how to navigate what comes before, during and after travel. I have a plan before I ever take a trip and I treat bipolar first the entire time.

Doing what we love is essential. Modifying this list to keep ourselves stable is HARD, but possible. Doing what we love without limitations can make our bipolar worse simply because fun things are often triggers. We can find a way around this dilemma.

What do you love and how do you modify this love so that you can still have fun and not get sick?

Julie

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