Bipolar Disorder Support Group
Bipolar disorder is not just a single disorder, but a category of mood disorders marked by periods of abnormally high energy and euphoria, often accompanied by bouts of clinical depression. This is the place to talk about your experience with bipolar disorder, learn from others' experiences, and find support.
The assignment sounds a little weird, but I totally understand why my therapist wants me to do it. I have been keeping a journal/scrapbook of my adventures in BP. I have quotes and stories that have inspired me, mementos of mania and depression. Thought records and mood charts. Lists of medications I have tried and why they worked/failed. Pictures of friends and family members who love me, and friends and family that hate me. Basically a history of my fight for the last 2 1/2 years.
The goal is to add things to remind me of the bad and encourage me to strive for the good. Also if I totally loose my mind there is a good record for me to build from. For the last nine months it has really helped me out.
Thus far there is one subject that has remained taboo in the journal, with only an honorable mention. The thoughts of suicide are minimal and really dark. So my therapist and I have decided we need to add things to help me if or when those moments return.
My homework assignment for this month is to write a suicide note and follow it with an essay, at least 5000 words about why suicide is wrong. The goal of the exercise is to see both sides of the issue and hopefully if I need to I can look at them and realize the error of my thinking.
I did something similar with my intrusive thoughts a while ago so I have that to refer to when the intrusive thoughts rear their ugly head. And it really helps with the thoughts.
Anyway, the problem I am having is in writing the note. I am stable and just can't think that way right now. I see it as more of a blessing and less of a problem to not be able to finish this assignment, but I have to have it ready for Tuesday.
Thanks,
BPsweety
The goal is to add things to remind me of the bad and encourage me to strive for the good. Also if I totally loose my mind there is a good record for me to build from. For the last nine months it has really helped me out.
Thus far there is one subject that has remained taboo in the journal, with only an honorable mention. The thoughts of suicide are minimal and really dark. So my therapist and I have decided we need to add things to help me if or when those moments return.
My homework assignment for this month is to write a suicide note and follow it with an essay, at least 5000 words about why suicide is wrong. The goal of the exercise is to see both sides of the issue and hopefully if I need to I can look at them and realize the error of my thinking.
I did something similar with my intrusive thoughts a while ago so I have that to refer to when the intrusive thoughts rear their ugly head. And it really helps with the thoughts.
Anyway, the problem I am having is in writing the note. I am stable and just can't think that way right now. I see it as more of a blessing and less of a problem to not be able to finish this assignment, but I have to have it ready for Tuesday.
Thanks,
BPsweety
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Life has been really hard this past year. I'm really feeling down and alone. I can't talk to my family about my depression and anxiety their not very understanding about it. It's really hitting me since my mother passed a few months ago, plus stress from having to eventually move. Also having my niece coming around who suffers bipolar and refuses to take medication for it. Its been...
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When i was in the ER February 16th 2025, i was being admitted to ICU where i was for 3 weeks, then had to relearn to walk for 3 weeks in another hospital rehab floor, the nurse told me something that made me feel for over 18 months now that i was finally *safe*. She told me that the guy who raped and beat me 21 years ago now almost 20 years at that time, was in prison as of a month before that...
So I think to myself, no one will understand all this rambling stuff, and the dark thoughts tend to lessen.
I think I might be afraid to actually put pen to paper with a suicide note....makes it too real.
But I do understand the reason behind doing it.
The idea of a BP scrapbook is cool.....I think I may start one
If you find it too dark then I 'd do what dd has suggested and perhaps if and when you have dark/suicidal thoughts write them down...
I think when stable it would be a good time to read what we've been thinking when unstable..
Things can seem so reasonable in a depression when it's actually all a lie that our minds are telling us.. it would be a good tool to look at in order to 'see' in our own words the darkness of depression.. something to reflect on to show us that it is illness when we're that low..
If you're having trouble with it maybe hold back until you have your next appt...x