How to keep going when you think you can’t go on. Strategies for living day by day when you have #bipolar disorder or #schizoaffective disorder.
1. I find that reminding myself of the episodic nature of our illness helps. It is very rare for us to stay in one state forever. We will cycle out of a mood swing. If we keep working hard on management, we will cycling out of the mood swing more quickly. So a rough day today, can be a better day tomorrow or the next day. If you are sick today, remind yourself that change is possible.
2. Being drugged from medications is a serious issue that has to be addressed daily and continually until it is FIXED. Being too tired to function is not a trade off for stability. Find a way to manage your symptoms using the ideas in my books or any system that works for you and reduce the mediations you need. If you can take your meds with little to no side effect, fantastic! If you are like me and you get drugged easily, find other ways to stay stable.
3. Nasty old daylight savings time is coming soon. Start planning now for the time change. Change your routine a few minutes each night and be ready for the hour change when it actually happens. YES, one hour can make an enormous difference for many of us with bipolar. People used to laugh when I wrote about this many years ago. Julie, you have no idea what you are talking about! But I did! It was happening in my own life. Now we know that bipolar is connected to circadian rhythms, so of course a time change affects us.
These are three changes that we can do!
I am not depressed today- yay!, but I am over drugged from needing so many sleep meds to get rid of my mania.
