You can manage BP without ups and downs. If you work with your pdoc to get on the right med cocktail, and use talk therapy and do the work....it can be managed and you can be stable for long periods of time.

Kat

Situational stress gets me. On here, people generally know when I am hit with it because the face suddenly goes to red on the profile.

Uhm......I don't deal with stress well. When I can help it, I:

1. I try to sleep the stress off by going to bed early.
2.A full meal helps as well. When you are poor, a full meal is hard to come by, but it can indeed relieve stress.
3. a hot shower
4. not running away from but spending time away from, the stressor helps as well
5. problem solving and doing DBT homework
6. taking a small action towards mending or trying to solve the crisis
7. talking to a friend

taking a day off from work
going to a museum

cultivating habits of grown up pencil fill in coloring for grown up coloring pages like a print friendly Van Gogh or getting a "Mandala" coloring book

collages and scrap booking

going to the back yard and lying down on a blanket and looking at the stars

Lots of Loreena McKennitt and Enya or Annie Lennox music

regular Zumba if it can be done

fun with languages

learning caligraphy

doing something in your life that gives joy, in other words

For meds, check with the doc, but I like trileptal a good bit for moods.

Sometimes, I go get a seaweed salad that has tyrosine or I eat fish that has omega 3 in it, too.

I take lithium and lexapro and have been doing that combo for several months now. The lithium has been a huge help. I feel more stable but i feel depressed still. It has been off and on but stablized some but now it has been almost a week. I try to do things that I enjoy and am going to take an acting class. I am unemployed but live with my parents. I have been in therapy for 5 yrs and had intensive therapy for a month. I have put in alot of work on myself. This is frustrating for me.

know your triggers (still learning myself)
people, situations etc...
MEDS!!!

For me,my highs feel great! Things get done, im usually a bit hypersexual, im a chatterbox-flinging from subject to subject, music takes me over, social butterfly etc

When I'm down, its usually mixed with terrible anxiety...if i let it go without meds i get catatonic and irrational...

I'm still not too sure how to deal with stress...being mindful helps.

I hope you start feeling better ASAP!!!!

I am trying to figure my triggers out to. I take my meds everyday like I am suspense to. Thank you I hope things get better soon to.