Julie, is it different than the path anyone would take when seeking happiness?

Yes, I do believe it is!

I’ve lived all over the world-  I moved a lot before I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I feel I can say with great conviction that I have known, loved, worked with and met far more people who are stable than those who have bipolar.  This is natural as about 6% of the world population has bipolar disorder. It makes sense I would meet a lot of stable people.  I have observed that the path to happiness for stable people is incredibly straight forward. Not easy by any means, but definitely a path that a person can see and track with confidence.  For example, the desire to be a lawyer, have a child, be on the stage or to.. travel can be very straightforward when you are stable.  It looks like this! You can step off the path and you have to look at what you are doing, but it’s one path.

Bipolar disorder complicates our lives to the point that we rarely if ever can take a straight path to reach a big goal, such as being happy.

A straight path that is planned for and even carefully mapped out simply can’t handle the hurricane that is a manic episode or the deep valley and rocky road that is severe depression.  Instead, our path has illness detours that take us in a completely different direction even if we want to stay on the straight and narrow path of stability.

I can’t think of one thing in my life that has been easy. Not one thing.

I’m not complaining and I’m not being a victim. I’m stating my reality.

I can’t speak for you, but bipolar disorder affects everything I do. No path is straight. No plan is accomplished with ease. Nothing is every straightforward in my life. Is it the same for you or for the person you care about with bipolar disorder? it probably is which is why you are on a bipolar disorder blog!

Our paths look like this.

Same goals and dreams- to reach the mountain top of a goal, but the path to that goal is a rough and winding road filled with mood swings. Happiness is often a luxury when you are dealing with bipolar disorder. I have often settled for just being semi stable enough to work and pay my bills. That is no way to live in my opinion, but it has been a reality for me due to my illness. I am not happy with this kind of life, as few are….. so I strive and strive for real happiness. For the most part, I can now say that I have found my path to happiness and often feel very content with life. Then a mood swing happens and I build myself back up to happiness. That is my path.

If I know my path looks like a child drew the plan, everything I do has to take bipolar disorder into account first in order to finally reach a goal. I use the ideas in my books. I have my Health Cards.  There is a starting point and there is a mountain top- getting married, having a child, getting a degree, learning to restore old cars, getting a book published, so many hopes and dreams and the path is simply going to be twisting and longer than the path for someone stable.

I wish our path looked like this…..

but it doesn’t. It looks like this….

I accept it. I can accept what I don’t like and I can move forward even though it’s going to be much harder for me than a stable person.  My path to happiness means treating bipolar disorder first so that all of the side roads still lead to my ultimate goal. I want the same for you!

Julie