The post How to Survive a Crash between Bipolar Disorder and Physical Illness appeared first on Life Conquering Blog.
]]>The combination of bipolar disorder and physical illnesse stir up a nasty concoction in me every time. For example, depression and coughing collide while mania and fever slam into each other. Or it could be insomnia butting heads with exhaustion. You know the truth. Bipolar or depression and everything in between are not going to take a vacation when you have laryngitis.
The aftermath from the meeting of the two medical giants will generate lots of money shelled out at the pharmacy and a crick in the neck from sleeping on the couch for too long.
Has this ever happened to you? Yes? Well, you are in good company. I am the Queen of bipolar disorder and physical illness clashes. Based on my experiences, I will give you some suggestions on how I survived the unwelcomed meet-up of the mental and the physical sides.
When I come down with something which rubs against my mental illness symptoms in the wrong way, I usually fight hard against sleeping. I lay awake staring at the ceiling. I flip through the pages of a magazine. I read a book I haven’t touched in months. And of course, I play on my phone.
During this entire time, the psychotropic meds sit defiantly untouched while I lay awake all night. Over the years, I discovered two methods that helped me survive the battle between bipolar disorder and physical illness.
When I feel under the weather, like with a cold, I get so tired that I practically collapse into bed from just laying around doing nothing all day. The truth is we all need sleep! However, not everybody gets the right amount of shut-eye. Below is the most up-to-date sleep data for the United States.
Getting the correct amount of sleep for a mentally and physically well human being, each night is crucial. If you throw in a mental illness as well as the flu into the mix, the stakes go up. A sleep-deprived person (with any type of illness) driving a car is as impaired to get behind the wheel and stomp on the gas as a person who is driving drunk. This is serious stuff!
The bottom line here is to create an environment that will promote healthy sleep. This is what we call good sleep hygiene. It’s important to establish this level of health in order to function properly throughout the day.
Appropriate sleep hygiene means the following:
I am still attempting to achieve good consistent sleep hygiene. In the end, sleeping all the hours and minutes my body needs will, at the very least, assist me with decisions.
These decisions could be determined by the following questions: “How many hours of sleep do I need to get?”, or “Should I take my prescribed medications while I am sick with a stomach virus?”
Some of us have a tendency to skip our meds whether healthy or sick. I do take my medicine when I am well most of the time. Although when I am physically sick, I often go down kicking and screaming because I do not want to take my regular psychiatric tablets.
Here is what happens: My mind believes that my body’s mental health will carry on if I press pause on taking the remedy for my mental illness symptoms. With each passing hour to each passing day, my mental acuity tends to suffer greatly.
Every day, I experience varying levels of the following: short bouts odepression, psychosis, mania and little to no ability to stay focused to name a few.
If you take the above symptoms and mix them up real good, give the potion an electric shock, then you will have my high alert bipolar symptoms while contending with a fever, mucus, muscle aches, congestion and pains. Then if I stop taking any of my psychotropic medicines please add a triple shot to that espresso.
But the thing is, when I take all of my meds, my depression is more easily handled by usual treatments. The psychosis is still there, but it is back to its old pattern where I can better manage the paranoia and hallucinations. The mania is deflated for now and tucked away in a drawer until another day. And I can focus better than I did when I was not medicated.
I fulfilled my promise to you, my reader. In this blog post, I told you that from my experiences, getting enough sleep and taking my daily meds are the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. These methods are used in order to ease up the time on the sidelines of life as well as the tough symptoms of bipolar and your sinus infection. When I become physically ill while living with a mental illness, it can be a madhouse.
Do you feel a triple dose of your symptoms happening to you whenever you experience mental illness episodes and physical sickness? Please share how you got through that flu, stomach bug, sinus infection or cold. You can either write a comment in the section below or send an email to me at [email protected].
References will be given upon individual requests.
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]]>The post World Bipolar Day 2018 appeared first on Life Conquering Blog.
]]>Life Conquering Blog for Mental Health is aligned with WBD’s mission. Life Conquering uses a blog and other social media sites to encourage people with a mental illness and to educate those without in order to tear down stigmas. If you have not stopped by Life Conquering Blog, here is the address: https://lifeconquering.org/.
I encourage all Life Conquering Blog followers as well as frequent visitors to participate in the celebration of World Bipolar Day 2018. You may or may not know someone with bipolar. Take this next week leading up to WBD to brainstorm ideas how you can make someone with bipolar be comfortable in their own skin and feel accepted in their environment. Then again, you might have bipolar. Think of some ways you could thank someone who has stood by your side and show them your appreciation.
Once you brainstorm some ideas, email me at lifeconquering@gmail.com and share with me your thoughts. But don’t just think of something and not do it. Step out of your comfort zone and MAKE A CHANGE FOR GOOD!
Below are some websites and blogs that you can share with your friends, family and co-workers.
http://www.worldbipolarday.org/
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]]>Step out when you are ready to encourage others with your story. Reach out to safe places such as the local chapter of the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance in your hometown or state. There you can share your journey with mental illness.
Oh, how I wish I could control my moods that way! I will never be depressed in the morning or the afternoon or evening. Or when it is raining. Or when my husband goes to work. My racing thoughts would shut up when I go to bed, get a massage or get a shower or bubble bath. I will have just the right amount of mania to help me tackle the cleaning. Or to have it when I am at the grocery store so I can get out of there fast.
You get what you get. Manic, hypomanic or depressed.
Bipolar is a brain disorder, too. I am incapable of stopping or starting the bipolar roller coaster that is going on inside my head. The chemicals in my brain fire or do not fire due to bipolar. I take medicine to help push or pull my brain in the right direction so I can function.
2. This is a pretty good illustration of my bipolar moods every day. It is rare that I would go a day without my moods shifting in any direction. As you see in the cell phone GIF, this represents just how quickly my moods can change.
Just recently, I spoke with a woman who has bipolar, too. She was explaining how long she goes between episodes. “Wow! Good for her!” I thought. For me,I have ultradian cycling most of the day or mixed episodes. This basically means my moods change a bunch.
3. This is what it looks like in my mind during a manic episode. I am constantly thinking and talking to myself. The ideas are coming in like a meteor shower. I feel alive. Excited. I can climb Mt. Everest by myself. I am signing up for all kinds of opportunities without any time to dedicate to them. Buying all kinds of shoes and purses. And talking to people who I have been avoiding for months.
4. Sometimes, I act out at the grocery store when I am manic-y with rage. It does’t take much. I may be standing in a mile-long line, the person in front of me is not going fast enough, the item I want to purchase is not available or the aisle I want to enter has a shopping cart jam. Sometimes words actually come out. In the state of mood I am in, I do not care it I am heard. And sometimes they are all trapped in my mind, unable to scream out due to prayer. Yes! Prayer. Needless to say, I do a lot of praying while at the grocery. .
5. This is me when my thoughts flow easily and are also coherent and organized when I am writing. They basically make sense, I am creative with boundless energy. I can stay up all night writing. I feel young again. I am a writing scholar. Dreams and delusions flood my mind about the present and the future.
6. This describes the sum of the various parts of my mind and body when I am in an ultradian cycle. I tend to flip-flop between each pole. The frequency of which the moods change could happen in months, years, weeks, days or hours. I have managed to switch from depression to mania in mere seconds multiple times. Tears falling from my eyes,staining my cheeks. At the same time, I am laughing like I’m mad. It scared the shit out of my husband. Now that says a lot, because he is a real tough guy.
7. This is when I cannot write PERIOD. I cannot form sentences, paragraphs – not to mention thoughts or ideas! This is happening a great deal lately. I started drafts of about six or more blog posts from the beginning of February up until now. NONE of the drafts have been completed and published. Today, I was depressed most of the day and it has taken me all day long to work on a post. It still will not be finished in time to publish. The depression always stunts the growth of the creativity.
8. When I have a bipolar road rage moment, I sound my horn, loudly and proudly. That is really as far as it goes in the real world. Now I might drive more aggressively to my destination, let the incident stew in my head and even tell my husband with grandeur what happened once he gets home from work. I’m so glad brains are private and horns are loud.
9. This is me when I am in a mixed episode. During a mixed episode, you experience both mania and depression at the same time. Whenever I am mixed, I cannot make up my mind what I want to do because both poles are tugging at me What I usually do in a mixed state is just sit there and stare into nothing.
10. This is my psychotic brain everyday. Hallucinations in all five senses.
Delusions that never go away. Paranoid in my own house and outside my house. I do not like going to bed for fear of what will be done to me. And I had a psychotic break.
11. GIF’s of people who have bipolar. They look just like all the other people around them. They are moms, dads, brothers, sisters, painters, teachers, doctors, chefs, actresses, pastors, secretaries, judges, counselors, you name it.
https://giphy.com/explore/bipolar-happiness
https://giphy.com/search/bipolar-road-rage
https://giphy.com/search/bipolar-laptop-rage
https://giphy.com/search/bipolar-psychotic
https://giphy.com/explore/carrie-fisher
https://giphy.com/search/bipolar
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]]>The post Adderall Review appeared first on Life Conquering Blog.
]]>When I first started, the side effects were few if any. Many of the items on the list were symptoms I have with my other medications and from the illness itself. For instance these are a few of the side effects you might experience while on Adderall: anxiety, headache; weakness, dizziness, a terrible taste in your mouth, diarrhea, constipation, nausea and hair falling out. This list is just the tip of the ice burg.
This stimulant has revolutionized my life. Between the narcolepsy, AD/HD and the bipolar, I was going out of my mind mad! Once I got the Adderall in my system, the sleeping and the attention issues faded away. My energy can be amazing, too! However, I did learn that I could not rely solely on the pill I swallowed everyday four times a day.
I had moments when I was like a zombie. I started again to fall asleep at inappropriate or dangerous times. I knew I needed the Adderall and understood that the medicine and my behavior should work together for optimal satisfaction. This culminated to shine a light on my poor sleep hygiene habits. The medicine’s poor performance pointed to the facts that I was not getting enough sleep at night. And I might need to rethink when I should take my medicine during the day.
Likewise, I would get a few minor glitches with the AD/HD. As an example, not being able to have an attention span greater than a gnat. I want to scream “this is taking me increasingly more time to write anything!” I cannot stay focused and the results are cutting about half of the first draft because I have so much crap in the article/post that it makes no sense.
For me to be a successful writer, I need to be awake, focused and have my whits about me. When I write, I do so with as much time that I can to squeeze every second out of the day.
For me, the outside distractions are minimal. It is my internal distractions that wreak havoc on my writing. I may have a sick dog and another dog to tend to. Laundry. Phone calls. Then the bipolar and the other mental health issues that come along for a ride are ready to muck up the waters.
Then it starts. I have brain freeze, next a starring contest with my monitor, I can’t figure out a title or the subject, don’t forget wasting time on writing something that does not fit in the first place, I lose interest once I get frustrated and I am not being productive, forgetting that one word that would be perfect, and…inability to spell. YES! SPELL! Then I look at the clock and I react:
“Now it is quarter-to-one?!”
“All I want to do is take a nap.”
adderall
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adderall
http://www.alaskasleep.com/blog/narcolepsy-definition-symptoms-causes-treatment
https://www.healthline.com/health/what-is-a-pulmonologist
https://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/diagnosing-narcolepsy
http://www.alaskasleep.com/blog/what-is-a-polysomnogram-test
http://www.efpa.be/psychologist-psychiatrist.htm
https://www.rxlist.com/adderall-side-effects-drug-center.htm
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]]>The post Unmotivated bipolar appeared first on Life Conquering Blog.
]]>It never fails, I get excited about a little project I want to accomplish, then somebody or something throws the brake release and I come to a dead stop. You need to realize that people with this symptom feel horrible. I mean dirt off a tin can in the sewer horrible. The body is encased in concrete from head to toe. It hurts to move. Actually they can’t move in most situations. All I ever want to do is stare at a wall or out the window for hours unending. I want to cry. I want to cut myself. I want to cuss somebody out. I want to hit a punching bag.
At this juncture, I can either pick myself off the floor and fight tooth and nail against unmotivated bipolar. Or I can just sit back like the beagle seen here. Chillin’ out and waiting for the sun to rise on the horizon. This too shall pass. I have made both decisions. I had my reasons. But I have chosen to get on the couch and stare more times then I care to admit.
Yes, you can help. I challenge you to be a proactive friend. If your mentally ill co-worker is having motivation issues at work, then try out the following.
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]]>The post Is bipolar an excuse for bad behavior? appeared first on Life Conquering Blog.
]]>In my research, I was completely shocked at how far the door swung in one particular direction from so-called “fact based” organizations.
In my experience as a bipolar 1 as well as having friends with or without a known mental illness, each mental illness publication listed here is stigmatizing the mental illness community except HealthyPlace.
During my travels with bipolar, I have done a whole slew of things that caused pain, embarrassment, loss of integrity and much more. The one manic symptom that I go to is risky behavior. Right smack dab in the middle of the mania, I am on a high like none other. I can seriously sit here and say when I embarked on those risky behaviors, I was not in my right mind.
If you have ever felt depressed, you understand when I say “I was in a deep pit”. “I could not get out of the pit.” “No manner of encouragement of the sincerest interest could get me out.” If you suffer from depression, you have been there when you were unable to speak at work; unable to focus on the dinner party you planned; so full of anxiety that you cannot leave your desk at work even to go to the breakroom
I have had mean thoughts. The voices in my head have told me mean and hurtful things. Somethings I have acted on while others just slipped out my left ear. I have also had inappropriate thoughts and acted on them. The risky behaviors were alluring and I did not mind participating.
I know what you must be thinking. She is just delusional and dead wrong about bipolar behavior. The activities I mentioned are all just bad behavior therefor I must be a bad person.
But what you do not know about me is that those behaviors did not describe me some 25 years ago. If you were to speak to anybody in my past (meaning eight-teen and younger), the people that I saw in school who were just acquaintances I knew back then would be more than surprised. Shocked. Dumbfounded. Disbelieving. Astonished. Stunned. Stupefied. These behaviors did not describe the person I was in middle school and high school.
I believe the only person who knew me back then (at least what I dared to share) was my best friend from elementary school, Beth Patterson.
You see, before the bipolar picked up steam and started to show itself in public, I was quiet and shy. Kept to myself. Didn’t speak much. Almost awkward in my own skin. Felt inadequate. Then the bipolar exploded into my life in my twenties (the good with the bad).
I believe if the person is actively in a bipolar episode and they act out and it is not their regular behavior, then yes. If the person is outside a bipolar episode and is not being affected by previous episodes, then I don’t think so.
The bottom line is, there has to be grace for the bipolar person in order to answer the question “Is bipolar an excuse?” in the affirmative. None of us are perfect. We all have our faults. Bipolar is a mood disorder. However, that makes it sound like child’s play, doesn’t it? It’s not. It is a cobra ready to strike.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/panic-life/201412/mental-illness-is-not-excuse-be-asshole
https://namirhodeisland.org/stop-equating-mental-illness-bad-behavior/
https://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/breakingbipolar/2012/07/is-mental-illness-excuse-bad-behavior/
https://blogs.psychcentral.com/wellness/2011/05/mental-illness-or-personality-traits/
http://kingsriverlife.com/10/08/when-is-mental-illness-just-an-excuse-for-bad-behavior/
https://lifeconquering.org/bipolar-1-episode/
https://lifeconquering.org/ultra-rapid-cycling-bipolar/
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]]>The post Syncing life’s ups and downs with my own mental illness ups and downs appeared first on Life Conquering Blog.
]]>You never know when life or people or situations will throw you a curve ball. I had a big curve ball that initiated an up and down that left me wondering the uncertainties of my life. Someone or something like a car, house, job or marriage can be there one minute and another minute get swallowed up from the fallout from life’s ups and downs.
I turned the new diagnosis of diabetes of Jake, my Dachshund/Beagle mix up and down into a learning opportunity. I have always been scared of needles since they used to make me very woozy. When I was taught to give Jake his insulin shots, I shocked myself right out of my socks! I had no problem giving him his insulin. At the beginning of his diagnosis, I was of the mindset that James, my husband, needed to learn how to give the shots to Jake, too. Then, I could easily get out of the responsibility.
Subsequently, when Jake got so sick that we thought we were going to lose him twice, I worried I had failed at my attempts to carry out the doctor’s orders. My heart was aching for my little buddy. I was frightened when I saw him lose muscle control in his back legs, fall down and shake almost like having a seizure. I wanted to freak out! At the same time, I wanted to be strong for my Jake. Changing my focus from failure to strength, even in tears, helped me think more clearer in the situation. Jake is getting better with an increase in his insulin. Now we are learning to deal with all the tiny pieces of this canine diabetic puzzle.
Another puzzle I am still attempting to figure out, is my mental health. In the past, I have spoken about the roller coaster rides I have been on concerning my own mental illness. Sometimes, I was not very victorious because I tended to focus on the negative. Hence I rolled over and took a nap on my couch or called James up crying. At the moment, that seemed like the appropriate things to do. While under the pressures of the past two to three weeks, I decided to choose different tactics instead o sleeping and crying. I looked at the situations I was going through square in the face, pulled up my big girl panties, said a prayer and dove in.
One of my changes/promises for this year was to not to give up so easily. When I would give up, I would make all kinds of excuses for myself. I was pathetic. I hated the person I had become. You see, this promise to leave my excuses behind has been extremely difficult. No matter if it were an up or a down I made excuses for everything I did or did not do.
It is easy to make excuses with my bipolar 1 with psychotic features, rapid cycling and mixed episodes because it is challenging to live with. Now, I did fight through a few things and left the the excuses at home. With most things I didn’t even attempt to fight.
I have read in memoirs, on the internet as well as have seen for myself in support groups just how strong a bipolar person like me can be through the ups and downs of my mental health and life. It is a lot of work fighting, yet it is worth every second of it.
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]]>Hugs,
Amy
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]]>The post Mania, Depression has given me a break…for now appeared first on Life Conquering Blog.
]]>The mania, depression has given me a break…for now. Yes, there are times when I feel “normal”. Feeling normal is not the norm for me. For most bipolars, he/she experiences one or two cycles a year. The maanic episodes usually occur in the spring or fall.
I have bipolar 1 which is difficult to treat. When I do feel normal, I know that it is a fleeting moment. For instance, when I got up this morning I felt great. I had energy to exercise. I did not take a shower because it would take too much energy. A couple hours later, I felt energized. The creativity was blossoming/ Later in the morning I was irritated. Now, I can take a long nap. Sometime during those up and down moods, I felt somewhat normal, more even keel.
I am going to discuss how mania and depression look to me. If you were to speak to another bipolar 1 they could give your something different. My bipolar 1 looked a lot different in my 20’s than it does right now. My bipolar would have me trolling Yahoo Personals for men and driving here and yonder in the attempt to hook up with a different man every night. Bipolar 1 is different for each person.
At this stage of my bipolar 1, I experience both the mania and depression. For me, it is not as if the depression hangs around for a couple of days or weeks. Nor do I ride the highs of mania just for a weekend shopping spree. My flavor of bipolar 1 intermingles the mania and depression. I have what are called mixed episodes and rapid cycling.
Mixed episodes are where I will have the dark moods of depression occurring at the same time as the exciting highs of mania. I will never forget the first time I felt this. I was still employed at a law firm. I was sitting at my desk when this warm sensation started from my toes and bubbled up to the top of my head. At the same time, I felt my body being gradually ripped apart. Imagine having the explosive feeling like you can do 100 things at the same time. Combine that with the paralyzing feeling of a dark depression where you cannot hardly move.
Then there is rapid cycling where I have gone from having a manic high as a kite to a six-foot-under-the-ground depression. Each mood can last for a few seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks or even months before cycling to the next. The most memorable experience I had with rapid cycling was when I was riding in the truck with my husband on a Saturday around lunch time. I was talking rapidly about something obscure when I began laughing hysterically, then crying uncontrollably to laughing to crying. This cycle lasted for about a minute. I was exhausted. He was amazed. Most of the rapid cycles I have now last longer than a few seconds. My cycles are more in the hour range.
So whether you have just depression or bipolar or mixed or cycling, depression and mania are not for the weak at heart. It takes courage to walk this life and put up with these mood disorders at the same time.
Have you had depression, mania, rapid cycling or mixed episodes? If yes, please describe.
Do you know anybody who has experienced these mood changes? What was it like for them and you?
Do you know what to do when you or someone like your son or daughter have these mood swings? Next blog I will have more information on this.
Please comment about the above questions in the space below. I would love to hear about your experiences.
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Bipolar 1 Episode causes a Mental Health Blogger to go Missing in Action
https://plus.google.com/103662408134261183066/posts/JdcG5MsTKD1
http://www.webmd.com/bipolar-disorder/features/bipolar-disorder-managing-mania#1
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/depression-what-you-need-to-know/index.shtml
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]]>The post Bipolar Roller Coaster: Nineteen Jobs since College appeared first on Life Conquering Blog.
]]>Today is day five after quitting my nineteenth job since college. When I was in my twenties, single and on the bipolar roller coaster, I quit a lot of jobs simply because I liked the risks involved and did not care about the consequences. My mental illness created a thrill for job hopping, lust for the challenge of conquering an interview and the excitement of starting all over again. However, as I look back at the jobs I had as a paralegal and a middle school teacher, my decisions to quit were not out of thrill seeking. I was leaving those careers so I could take care of my mental and physical health.
I have had mixed responses recently when I told people I have bipolar. I get that. Normal people do not think mentally ill people are “normal looking”.
To keep me somewhat stable, of course I am on a medicine cabinet full of pills. I also see my psychiatrist and psychologist on a regular basis. I am so blessed to have the Holy Spirit within me. One of His fruit is self-control. If I did not have the Holy Spirit, I would probably be divorced, homeless or in jail. THANK YOU GOD FOR YOUR GRACE!
I really want to be a freelance writer. I want to continue my mission with Life Conquering full time. Life Conquering exists to encourage people with a mental illness through my journey as well as teach others about mental illnesses and to tear down the walls of stigma.
Send me an email describing a time when the Holy Spirit helped you be loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, gentle or self-controlled. Email me at [email protected].
http://ibpf.org/blog/finding-work-works-when-you-have-bipolar-disorder
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians+5:22-23
http://www.allaboutgod.com/fruit-of-the-spirit.htm
Life Conquering Ministries Debuts at Southeast Christian Church Southwest Campus
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