Tag Archives: manic

How Do You Know If You Need Help?

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tiger family

1. Suicidal Thoughts

If you’re having suicidal thoughts of any kind, get help. Suicide is permanent in the extreme, and if you’re feeling like it’s the only solution, you need to go and tell someone immediately. I recommend having a safe person, like your best friend, partner, shrink, anyone who is available to you no matter what and can be trusted to believe you when you tell them “Right now I am thinking about killing myself.” or “Lately, all I can think about is killing myself.”

2. Self Harm

If you’re thinking about harming yourself, or if you’ve already harmed yourself, get help. In a healthy state of mind, no person would harm themselves, so you must assume that you’re not in a healthy mind set if you’re in a self harming space. Contact your safe person, right away. See a doctor, and get a referral to a shrink. Keep on seeing shrinks until you find one who listens to you and respects you.

3. Hallucinations

If you’re experiencing hallucinations, whether auditory or visual or other, get help. Healthy people don’t generally have hallucinations. Never follow the instructions given to you by an hallucination, always seek help. Contact your safe person immediately if you can see or hear anything that’s just not there. Tell your doctor, so they can help you find a path to a healthy mind.

4. Extreme High, Fast, Elated Moods

If you’re having super-moods that make you feel as high as a kite, unstoppable and smarter than the average bear, get help. Go to a doctor, explain your moods and let the doctor be the one to decide if you’re having manic episodes. Mania is often described as feeling euphoric, but it can also make you feel really angry, really agreeable, really willing to spend money or sexually unbeatable. Contact your doctor, definitely. Listen to your doctor, and if it makes you more comfortable, take your partner or a good friend to the doctor with you. I know that sometimes it feels safer that way.

5. Deep, Dark, Depression

If you’re depressed, go to your doctor and get help. Never ignore depression, it’s a nasty little bitch and it can try to make you its slave. I just want to say it again; if you’re depressed, go to your doctor and get help. They have a huge range of treatments for depression now, from meds and therapy to meditation, happiness training and a load of other non-traditional methods. Go get help. Truly, go do it. xx

These are my top 5, but there are other things in your life that can be definite indicators that you need to get some help from a safe friend or a doctor. Feel free to add anything I’ve missed, in the comments, so I can include it in another post.

take care,

be you xx Rachel

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Losing Weight, Bipolar Style

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I’ve just realised something about my many attempts to lose weight in the past six years; every time I decide to lose weight, I’m in a manic state. This means I’m pumped, excited, ready to exercise and eat right and conquer the world. As soon as the depression or mixed state kick in, I immediately lose the momentum and completely give up. This is a huge aha moment for me.

DSCN1448

I’ve joined a gym a few times and in my normal or manic state I can really enjoy the gym. Of course as soon as my mood shifts to depression or mixed state, the Social Phobia accompanies it and I have no ability to leave the house, and I want to eat all day long.

It all seems so obvious now, but I had no way of understanding this before. So, and I’m just thinking out loud here, I have the usual amount of human inertia about eating healthily and exercising, with the added difficulty of unpredictable, uncontrolled mood shifts. Give me a break.

I’m wondering if I can create a plan that shifts with the moods? Sounds revolutionary, but that could be my current manic state speaking. One plan for each of my four states, and I act accordingly each day. The speed at which I cycle between moods could be an issue; at times I can experience four states in one day.

I’m going to work on this and get back to you. Maybe it’ll work. Maybe it’s a book in the making. Maybe I’m all hyped up on manic endorphins?

be you xx Rachel

I’m Dreaming of a Light Christmas

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Yep, I’m dreaming of a nice, light Christmas. If you know me, you’ll know I definitely don’t mean light on food; Christmas is the season for special yummy treats and home cooked delights.

merry christmas

My Christmas wish is for a depression-light, manic-light wonderland of family fun and laughs. If you have a mental illness, I wish you a nice light Christmas, too. Here are my tips for a light Christmas;

  • be as kind to yourself as you would be to someone else with the same issues you struggle with
  • it’s okay to tell friends and relatives that you’ll decide on the day of a festive event whether or not you are able to attend
  • yes, you ARE allowed to do that ^
  • take time out from all the plans and events and shopping; do something you know will calm you
  • eat plenty of fruit and veg
  • take your meds
  • if you need to say no to friends and family, I hereby give you permission to say no

If you know someone with a mental illness, I want to encourage you to gift them with the following kindnesses this season;

  • offer them unconditional love
  • don’t give them advice about how to handle their issues
  • support them in the healthy choices they are making, like not self-medicating with alcohol and illegal drugs
  • if they’re depressed, sit with them without expecting anything from them
  • if they’re manic, be kind
  • if they need alone time, give it to them
  • invite them to events and be nice about it if they need to decide on the day

I hope you’re having a lovely December!

be you xx Rachel

Hello Mania! Welcome Euphoria! Where’s my Credit Card?!

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Woohoo, everything’s fine. Manic today and ready to change the world, fix everything that’s wrong, start new projects, begin again and all that jazz!

new new

Awake at 4.30am, hardly slept at all, mind tick tick ticking; Sell the house, plant pumpkin seeds, jump on a train and just go wherever it takes me, apply for another credit card, plan a new career, write another book. Mania how I love thee right now.

Euphoria, thou art so much frikkin better than depression.

Come on, decide, choose, know what to do with this energy. Hurry up. Don’t waste precious up-time. Ignore the banal, forget what needs doing and go for what feels good. Shopping! I could go Christmas shopping.

My hubby wants to chat about paying the bills. Pfft. He has no idea how to have fun with money. VISA, electricity, rates, water. Pfft. Maybe we need a festive dinner set for Christmas day? A really pretty one. They have those in Myers!

…The beautiful/horrible thing about knowing you are Bipolar is that you can kill the euphoria with the understanding that this is a temporary up, high, rush, impulsive state. Sometimes that doesn’t occur to you, and you get completely carried away on the wave of the fantasy life where you can do anything your passions want. That’s when very big money gets spent on rediculous things, very big projects get half-done and discarded. Expensive projects, ones you fought for, yelled about, defended to the last breath while manic.

Today I know everything, I am everything. It’s so easy to think that now, in mania, the meds are working perfectly because surely no bad thing could feel this bloody good. Just one thing; please take my credit card off me now! Oh, wait, it’s already maxed out. Pfft.

be you xx Rachel

The Four States I’ve Lived In My Whole Life and None Of Them is Queensland

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I came in here to blog, half a dozen times yesterday, but I just couldn’t hit the Publish button. Mania + depression is such a nasty headspace. I made the image below, to show the four states  that I cycle between. I would love someone to invent a BD barometer, because I learn over and over and over that people, even those who know me very well, can’t see my mood on my face or in my body language. Apparently I’m excellent at using an I’m okay mask.

the four moods