Healing at Home

I can’t believe how different I feel since quitting my job- I think it’s possibly the best thing I could have done.

I’m home everyday. I know that probably sounds extremely boring to many, but it’s been an absolute blessing where bipolar symptoms are concerned.

When I was working at the railway station I was in a chronic state of anxiety. Anxiety about getting into the city, being in the city with all the noise and traffic, dealing with stressed-out, negative people- it was inevitable I would become one of them. After work I was thoroughly shattered and would usually crash out on the bed for a few hours to recover.

I was constantly mood-swinging. Although the swings were probably smaller than they would have been without lamotrigine, they were still very disruptive. I virtually had no energy left to do the things I love. It was no way to live. I did not want to wake up in a years time in exactly the same position.

Quitting has freed me.

I love being at home and relaxing in bed with a good book. I love sitting on my laptop writing to anyone who’ll read my blog. I am so grateful that people do read my blog- so thank you so so much. I love playing the piano again and singing at the top of my lungs to Emilie Sande and Alanis Morrisette. I love walking my dog in the beautiful countryside and woodland everyday- nature is so healing. I love being around positive, high energy people who I am blessed to have in my life.

Aside from my usual anxiety issues, my mood hasn’t been this stable since I started the job two years ago.

And do you know what? I don’t feel GUILTY! (Well maybe a little tiny bit). Usually I would be beating myself up with:

“You should be working in a regular job like everyone else, you’re so lazy, what will people think of you?”

I DON’T CARE what people think!! This is so unlike me! I never thought I’d achieve that.

Only I know the pain bipolar and anxiety have caused me- I am not going to abuse myself by staying in a job that was making me ill. We are only here for our short lifetimes and I don’t want to spend my whole life being miserable.

Being in all the peace and quiet at home has brought up some issues from the past, relationship-based issues. I have been feeling the pain and hurt for some of these experiences- I guess these are the emotions that I suppressed at the time.

I sat in bed and cried the other day about a primary relationship that has been based on falsehood. I cried tears of loss and grief for the love that I never had. I accepted part of it and felt that I had let go of a little bit of pain from my past. I also wrote a letter to a “friend” expressing my anger with her (I didn’t post it) and I now feel another small part of me has healed.

I’ve been “feeling” my emotions a lot more; acknowledging them, accepting them and not burying them deep inside me. Whilst working I had no emotional strength to trawl through any pain brought up during the day. Everyday, working relationships would trigger past hurts to boil up inside me, but I had no energy to deal with them. I was stumbling along in life in a chaotic ball of churned up, unresolved hurt and pain. I’m still a ball of hurt and pain, but the ball is slowly shrinking.

I thoroughly believe in a higher power and I know in my heart that it is this higher power that is helping me to heal whilst I am in this relaxed state.

Photo Credit: Glasses Michelle Meiklejohn; Countryside Nick Coombs; Celestial FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Bipolar, Border Collies & Balance

On my dog-walk this morning we bumped into Sue, another regular dog-walker, who has the most beautiful Border Collie (sheepdog) called Tara. Tara is usually fairly excitable and eager to be fussed, but today she was more subdued. Immediately Sue shared that Tara has been having bad fits regularly over the last few weeks. The vet’s treating her for epilepsy.

Apparently epilepsy is a common condition in Border Collies. Sue mentioned that the vet advised her to keep Tara as relaxed as possible and give her lots of piece and quiet as stress can be one of the triggers to fitting. (From what Sue told me, her house is dominated by her boisterous older kids, so can be a little chaotic!).

Border Collies and Balance

Border Collies are highly sensitive dogs that are very high maintenance. They were bred to be working all day in the fields, rounding up sheep. Even dogs kept as pets need a lot of mental and physical stimulation to prevent boredom. A bored Border Collie can easily become snappy and aggressive, destructive and obsessive- they will stare at shadows for ages and fixate on them, or become obsessed with bringing their ball to you to be thrown. (I’ve experienced this one first hand- these animals have insatiable appetites for play and interaction).

However, they also need a fairly stress-free environment to live in. They are especially sensitive to noise and can easily become chronically stressed if living amidst chaos, which in Tara’s case, could possibly have triggered her epilepsy.

But a happy, healthy border collie is capable of amazing achievement, evident in agility competitions, performing routines to music and of course their fantastic work with sheep farmers.

How does this relate to Bipolar Disorder?

This got me to thinking how closely the Border Collie resembles us Bipolar people! We are often high maintenance too and need to find a happy balance in life, just like the dogs!

Depression: As bipolar sufferers we are usually intelligent, creative and have a need to be stimulated in these ways in order to prevent boredom. Boredom in Bipolar often leads us to fixate on our thoughts and become obsessive, anxious, depressed or irritable.

Without a purpose we are liable to analysing every little thing we do or don’t do, often judging and criticising ourselves in the process. We can eat up our souls with our innate ability to analyse ourselves negatively. Our minds are hungry to work and without mastery, they run along of their own accord, often with negative consequences for us!

Hypomania/Mania: On the flip-side, if we spend too much time working, we are likely to end in a similar situation or possibly with hypomania or mania.

We are so intense in our focus, with many many ideas- so many that we often have to work faster and faster to keep up with our minds. The highs we can get from immersion in our occupation can then be exacerbated when, feeling so confident and drunk on life, we go to too many social events/nightclubs or spend too much time shopping. Mania here we come!

Peace and quiet are therefore essential in keeping us from becoming self-destructively high!

Balance: The Path to Reaching Our Potential

Like Border Collies we have a very strong need for balance. We are easily tipped either side of the scales. Learning to keep that balance seems to be one of the lifelong challenges for those of us with Bipolar. But once we have that balance through finding the right vocation, environment and (usually) medication, we are capable of fantastic achievements and can really thrive. Just take a look at any list of famous people with Bipolar Disorder and you will see that we can be just as successful as those without, and in some cases, even more so!!

Famous Bipolar Sufferers: Van Gogh, Carrie Fisher, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Russell Brand, Spike Milligan, Stephen Fry,Virginia Woolf, Amy Winehouse, Schumann……They’re all Border Collies!

Resources

List of famous Bipolar Sufferers taken from List taken from Wikipedia.

Photo Credits: Border Collie Jumping by gadgetgirl; Bored Collie by furry-photos; Puppy by andyvanyperen.

Bluebells and Mud

Every morning I walk my dog, Cassie around the farmland and woods adjoining our village. This morning was beautifully sunny and coloured with blue sky and fresh, spring-green leaves. The track we walked down in the woods was still muddy from all the rain we’ve had in the last few weeks. The soil around here is clay-based, so couple that with mud and you have a very slippery, thick, sludgy path. The only reason I persevered through the mud (in my rather unsuitable battered trainers) was because I knew that at the end of the path was a huge carpet of bluebells. Every year I still get a little excited when I see the first one. The muddy path was tantalizingly parallelled with sparse scatterings of bluebells amongst the grass- a taste of the woodland glory to come.

After trudging through the thick mud I came to the path leading to the clearing where the bluebells grow (only to find a big sign marked private. Grr! Needless to say I ignored the sign, nobody was gonna keep me from a beautiful carpet of bluebells!). The scene emerging was  straight out of a fairytale.With the sun beaming through the treetops, the stunning sea of mauve-blue flowers was so uplifting and sparkled with a kind of ancient earthly magic. It was so inspiring.

As we turned for home I started thinking how life can be a bit like that muddy path- it can be sticky and sludgy and not very pleasant. Sometimes you think you will never find an easier path to tread.  But the hope of something better, more magical, more fulfilling, keeps us going. There are a few bluebells scattered here and there along the way- good times, good people. But it is that sea of beautiful blue that we always yearn for.

For me that sea of bluebells is sparkling with career and life-purpose fulfillment; self-love, acceptance and forgiveness.

Photo Credit: Rob Wiltshire

Increase in Depression

Why Depression? – Part 1.

Great post on Struggling With Bipolar on the reasons behind the increase in the number of cases of diagnosed depression.

 

You’re So Sensitive

A link to a video just popped up on Twitter from Wayne Dyer (a genius spiritual health writer) entitled “You’re So Sensitive”. Immediately my brain pinged as this is what I’ve been thinking about a lot recently. Bipolar and Borderline Personality often include the characteristic of High Interpersonal Sensitivity. I would like to add Environmental Sensitivity to that also. Elaine Aron also has written a marvellous book entitled The Highly Sensitive Person which highlights the issues of those born with high sensitivity- apparently an ever increasing number.

Coincidentally I already own the book mentioned: The Art of Extreme Self-Care, and to hear Cheryl Richardson talking about sensitivity in such a positive light is so inspiring. The idea that sensitivity is something we need to protect, nurture and cherish is really liberating.

One of the protective measures she suggests is to limit contact with negative, criticising people who drain your energy. It is important for us to be around positive people who we are free to be our authentic self with- we feel safe to do this with them: safe from judgement or disapproval. This is so inline with my post yesterday about the development of an inauthentic self as a result of insecure parenting: Free To Be Average. To free ourselves from inauthenticity we can limit contact with those who see only the inauthentic child they’ve moulded to their preferences. In this way we are creating boundaries. These boundaries create our own private “space”, where we are free to be ourselves.

Other suggestions Cheryl mentions to protect our sensitivity are as follows:

- Turn down the noise! On TVs, iPods, stereos, phone ringtones etc.

- Keep technology at a distance. I have a technology free room at home all to myself as my     boyfriend is a web developer and gadget freak! He is also very partial to his cinema surround-sound system which tends to blast the roof off most days.

- Turn off the violence- don’t watch the news, or violent films/TV. Don’t read newspapers. Mostly easy, but I don’t think I could live without Game of Thrones at the moment though!

So what’s the point in protecting our sensitivity?

Well, as well as being much more relaxed in body and mind and free to be ourselves, our empathic, creative natures will be thriving. People like us ARE needed in the world, just not valued as highly! We need to change that! Where would we be without beautiful art, music, great thinkers, philosophers, film directors, actors, actresses, singers, composers, teachers, counsellors, psychotherapists (indeed!), inspirational speakers and extremely caring friends? The world would be a very dull place indeed!

Resources

The Art of Extreme Self-Care – Cheryl Richardson

The Highly Sensitive Person- Elaine Aron

Wayne W Dyer- wonderful books for spiritual development and helping understand our purpose in life.

Similar posts on this blog: Free To Be Average; Highly Empathic: Here’re Some Tips; Hypersensitivity Sucks; Towards Healing: Self Forgiveness.

Posts by other writers: Five Gifts of Being Highly Sensitive, The Gift of Emotional Sensitivity.

Free To Be Average

I’m currently reading the psychology classic The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller- which takes a comprehensive look at the psyche of those afflicted by Grandiosity (present in Narcissism and Mania) and Depression. She is able to delve deeply into the psychological past of those who have developed these symptoms (Bipolar/Narcissistic Personality/Borderline Personality amongst other disorders) and- as a very basic summary of her theories- attributes it to the following:

1. Not being able to freely feel our authentic emotions, feelings, needs.

We have repressed our feelings, needs and emotions as children due to insecure parenting. Theses authentic emotions and needs in the negative, such as despair, anger, loneliness, jealousy, helplessness,etc were threatening to our mother’s sense of security, inconvenient and anxiety-provoking. (This is due to our mother’s insecure parenting during her childhood. Secure mothers are able to deal more effectively and skillfully with these needs in their children).

Children need the love of their parents to survive, so shut off these anxiety-provoking emotions.

 

2. Furthermore the child develops an assigned family role to boost the insecure family.

To boost the family’s social standing/insecurities, the child is “assigned” a role, using their talents, achievements, special abilities, beauty or behaviour (good, mature, pure, virtuous, helpful, perfect- strong link with Christian families I think!).

So not only are we forbidden from “bad” behaviour, some of us also become “achievers”. Self-respect is therefore now dependent on qualities, functions, achievements and performance, all variables that can ultimately fail us.

Because of theses expectations that have been ingrained in us, and the lack of being able to experience our authentic self (therefore love), we seek ADMIRATION as a substitute for LOVE. However, as admiration is aimed at the achievements, beauty or behaviour, this is NOT our TRUE SELF.  Our true self is whole and encompasses all those needs and emotions and inconveniences. It needs love not admiration.

 

My Own Issues.

Looking at my life so far from the viewpoint of Alice Miller it is so easy to see where I have developed my highly vigilant people-pleasing. I’m still living like this- terrified to feel rage and grief and jealousy for the fear of “God” (the old, childish view of God I used to have), my parents and even now, my boyfriend. I am terrified of being abandoned and deep down do not believe I am capable of taking care of myself.

Due to Bipolar I have “lost” my gifts of achievement and am now living as an underachiever. I guess I am now on the journey to loving and accepting myself as I am and allowing myself to be average.

Even though I’m trying to tell myself it’s safe and OK to be average, inside I’m screaming no it bloody well isn’t! I have to be the best at everything otherwise what’s the damn point!!! The only point in drawing something or performing or behaving “well” is to secure approval from other people. If what I do is crap, there’s no point in doing it!! I HAVE to be the BEST!!!!!! I can’t be average – Mum & Dad will just trample all over me. They see no point in the arts except for enjoyment, so maybe if I can be the best at them, they’ll let me have a career in them?! I’ll show them!

Woah! I didn’t know I felt like that! Rationally I know the point is enjoyment, fun, creativity and fulfilling my artistic needs, or in the case of emotions- expressing my anger etc to keep me emotionally healthy. I can logically see the point, it just hasn’t internalised yet, I guess it takes time.  How weird that things your parents have said to you as kids still linger so deep in the memory.

 

Resources

For some great perfectionism therapy try listening to Perfect by Alanis Morisette

Related posts on this site: Bipolar Disorder: Repressed Anger; Bipolar and Perfectionism: Part One; Bipolar and Perfectionism: Part Two

Related posts from others: A Different Take on Perfectionism; The Poison of Perfectionism; The Ten Commandments of Perfectionism; The Perfect Sinner.

(Photo Credits: Perfect Student- Stuart Miles, Stressed Girl- kenfoto)

Highly Sensitive/Highly Empathic? Here’s some tips.

Highly Empathic? Here’s some tips..

Great post for any Highly Sensitive People out there. Definitely struck a chord with me.

Down & Up again in a Day.

Today’s been odd- I woke up pretty damn depressed. I was feeling awful about the whole day & didn’t want to get out of bed. I was despairing inside doing the whole depressed thinking thing- it would be better for my boyfriend if I wasn’t here- kind-of thing. Thoughts of suicide were prominent- not in a planning way, just thinking what it would be like. I wouldn’t do it, I couldn’t do that to my boyfriend, or the dog! Anyway I was pretty bad.

This afternoon an unexpected cheque for £36 arrived in the post- how great is that!! Needless to say my whole mood perked up after this and I feel much more like myself this evening.

How can I go from suicidal thinking back to normality in the space of 10 hours???

I got really riled up by a post I read yesterday on a website. The post was called “The Real Reason Your Wife Doesn’t Want To Work” . I think the title alone got me annoyed. So maybe I went to bed wound up and woke up still tense about it?

But that’s beside the point! I just think it’s crazy how anyone’s mood can switch from serious thoughts of wanting to die back to fairly normal again within a few hours. I honestly feel fine again now, no suicidal thoughts or anything. Maybe I really am insane?! I just don’t get it!

Does anyone else find this? Is it a Rapid-Cycling Bipolar thing or is it more likely to be Borderline Personality Disorder?

Just wanted to add I found a great book in the library today: Family Experiences of Bipolar Disorder by Cara Aiken. Lots of real-life experiences from different perspectives.

Bipolar & Proud

Been messing about with some graphics- being unemployed is fun! Hope you like.

Letting Go- I’m Free!

Two weeks ago I quit my job- I was being bullied and hadn’t even realised. I’d put up with being belittled and harassed and it wasn’t until I spoke up to a few trusted colleagues, who helped me to see what was really going on, that it dawned on me- “why the hell am I putting up with this?”

I’d been miserable and suicidal over the whole period of time it had gone on, I just wanted to hang onto my job because it was a safety net and my way of showing the world I could function as a “normal”member of society. I wasn’t being myself. I was counting the minutes until I could leave. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life like this. I still don’t.

I wasn’t coping or functioning!

So I quit.

A weight lifted. I’m bloody terrified now, but over the last two weeks, little by little, I’m feeling remnants of the old me coming back. Hopefully within a few months I’ll be devoting myself to my passions again, the mask will completely lift and I’ll be able to be myself again. Thank you God!

I’m still terrified though! I have no money! I have enough to pay bills, buy food etc, which I am very grateful for, but nothing “spare”.

This is really making me stay at home which is actually a good thing. Usually I flit about in the city- spending money on silly things- basically wasting my cash. Buying “things” filled the void of emptiness. It was a coping mechanism to deal with depression. I could deny my feelings all I wanted if I raced around keeping busy.

Now I can’t shop or buy extra food to binge on.

Arrrrghhhh!! So scared! I’m having to feel things again. I know it’s gonna be a really good thing and help me to heal from past traumas. I know it’ll make me work on my passions again. But with all this comes emotional pain. I think I’ve thrown myself in at the deep end, but I think that’s the only way I’m ever going to change and get over my food and shopping addictions.

I’m ready.

Scared, but ready. Bring it on! ….er.. slowly….and in manageable chunks. Thanks.

Photo Credits: Free Girl by Andy Newson, Free Man by Graur Nazvan Ionut