I'm still in the anger stage. I HATE, HATE, HATE BIPOLAR!!!!

I am a ping pong ball. Bouncing between anger and depression. I guess it is more like a Merry-Go-Round that I can't get off. I have been angry at myself or depressed about the situation for so long, I am not even sure I can feel any other emotion !!!!

Good to read so many positive approaches to dealing with this illness. Faith, exercise, eating and sleeping well, are all basic to me. I guess that gives me hope to go on, in spite of the fact that there is trouble in not only the world, but in me.

This is a formula I have used the last several years that helps me work through situations, triggers, stress etc. in my life.

Identify--My emotion
Evaluate--Where it is coming from
Challenge--Can I change it?
Choose--to take a positive approach (be proactive)
Act--Make it my reality

Doing this helps me accept that I have the emotion, learn what triggers the emotions, challenge it by questioning whether I have any control over it or can change the situation, choose to see the positive strength behind it that can benefit me, and act on it by making the positive strength my reality. It has become very natural for me now so I immediately put the process in action before the emotion escalates out of proportion.

I love your thread Tim....it is a way for us to see how we can work through situations in our life and not stagnate or give up. There are areas that we can have power if we need to.

thanks for sharing

Tim, I dont know if most anything can be "solved" with sex or money but it can make living with most anything much easier.

Tim, thanks for the insight, I am still figuring out many things, I accept being BP, and I'm tying to figure out how to manage my ups and downs.
I must yhank Shelly for the tip on how to anlyze my emotions and work from there. Today was not good day, but now is improving. Thanks to all of you

I really liked Shelly's steps and, since this thread has generated so much feedback anyway, would like to comment again:

Being left-brained, I find it easy to do the first three steps: Identify, Evaluate, and Challenge. (I will rationalize the hell out of something, and then act on my emotions! lol)

Now - For those who have more trouble in these areas, DBT skills go a long way to teaching How to recognize your true emotions, where they are coming from, etc.

It is an Important first step! Otherwise, we find ourselves going Round, and Round, and Round, and not seeing the connections.

The mood stabilizers that we take are designed to help with this, for they are made not just to "regulate our moods", but to clear our thinking - to Stop the "broken record" effect that keeps us in that "round and round" place in our lives.

After we learn to step back, to identify and evaluate our true emotions, then comes the challenge. CAN we change them? (Bob the Builder: Yes We Can!)

This step is simply a matter of Believing, and most of us can get There fairly easily.

Step Four in Shelly's list, Choosing, is often the hardest step we will ever take.

No doubt in my mind of this, at all. Because Choosing leads to Action (Step Five)and means Change, stepping out of our own Comfort Zone, away from what we Know. No matter how difficult things have been for us, it has been what we Know.

It's the hardest thing we may ever do. And the Only thing that will bring about Life-Change.

We say bipolar is a disease that robs us of Choice. And YES, at times in our depths of depression and heights of mania, we do Not act from choice. This is a true statement.

When we don't have the proper treatment, it interferes with our thinking, and our Choice.


And we don't have a choice to be bipolar or not.

But when we are not in those times? All the rest of life is about Choices.

Um, it is SO not about how much you get done, or how many great things you ever do in your life. It's about the Choice to Live. To Love Yourself. (To Wear the damn "Bipolar and Proud" t-shirt!)

ok, end of soap - box. Thanks for letting me ramble. *hugs* or something. :):)

I brought this up in Group yesterday and it was a big topic of conversation.

I love these 5 steps. They relate very strongly to a major issue in my life. I come from a family of profound dysfunction - lots of unaddressed mental illness and addiction (I have both but have been sober for a long time and in active recovery from mental illness for a long time too).

After 43 years (that's my age) of trying to fit myself to my family, of seeking "unrequited love" from them, of letting them walk all over me, December just gone aI made a permanent split with immediate and extended family. There had been a lof of rejection of me by them too - all relating to the fact that I suffer life-threateing mental illness - the standard bigotry, stigma and rejection. Some real cruelty and selfishness on their part following my near-successful suicide attempt two years ago.

I take the responsibility for my part in this. I have been in a delusional state for a long time about their relationships with me. And while I know the decision I made is the right one, of course I am grieving, but it's not the grieving of having lost them per se - it's grieving my delusions of all those years - they were never really the truth - I just wanted to think I was loved etc.

So those 5 steps very much relate to this process.

And while as an 11 years sober AA member we work the 12 Steps of AA, these 5 steps also fit into the process of gettting sober and staying sober.