One Bipolar Drama After Another!
I used to have a lot of drama in my life. Much of it was due to my own choices, some of it was due to bipolar disorder causing me to make stupid choices, such as when I get manic.
I have changed completely in the past few years. I’m no longer willing to make decisions and then just hope they turn out ok.
I get too sick when I do this. I have goals in life that I want to reach- speaking to large groups on mental health, reducing the suicide rate in this country, financial stability, physical health- big stuff for sure!
The only way I can accomplish my goals is to examine every potential decision for disaster (drama!) from sending an email to saying yes to a request. I’ve learned to ask myself the following questions:
Will it make me sick?
Has it made me sick in the past?
Am I manic?
Is depression clouding my judgment?
How will my decision make me feel tomorrow, next week and into the future?
I also have a lot of people in my life who will ask the questions for me and really make me mad! But I need their judgment in case I’m making a decision when I’m sick.
This is a constant exercise- I’ve learned to slow down a bit. I’m at over 75% success right now in my decision making. Considering that I used to do everything blindly, this is pretty good!
I have almost no drama in my life these days.
Julie
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I love what you said about avoiding drama in your life. This helps me so much. I used to think that being the life and soul of the party, experiencing drama and relating it ad infinitum to others was proving somehow that I was more interesting and worth knowing. Now I realise that I was making myself ill.
A friend of mine is constantly in a state of drama. She never puts more than 1 gallon of fuel in her car, and carries on driving til she runs out so she can regale us with her stories of what happened and how dizzy she is.
She never deals with anything until late on the day of a deadline and then runs out of printer ink, or can’t get through on the phone.
As friends, we try to point out when she is being self destructive but it becomes exhausting as she refused to listen. I have to limit contact with her, and never, never, try to solve her problems – she doesn’t want them solved she wants drama.
I am learning how to recognise these people before I let them into my life and love that I can read how you cope, to validate what I am doing.