I've been diagnosed 10 months ago. It gave me hope that my life had a bit of meaning to it. I am BP2 so depression is where I spend most of the time. I've had reactions to Lithium and am now on Lamotrigine and Epical (Valproic). My doc has me talking about a return to work and says that my therapy is where the help lies. That I"m fighting mental things not the disorder. Ok... I can buy that, sortof. Then why does it still feel so shitty. I just went through a week of really wanting to end it. I had a collection of pills and a lot of feeling sorry for myself, mentally and physically. I don't think I am stable... cause if this is me.. I don't know how much I'll last.
Then I read today the answer posed on the link of how to treat someone with bipolar. The answer given by one of the experts, comments on not allowing them to be victims or make excuses. Is that what I'm doing? Is this me? I'm confused. how do I not be a victim? Doesn't that mean I need to be living...
I feel like the doc isn't and won't listen. I may not be as sick as other people.. I don't have hallucinations, I'm not on anything higher than 500mg. Im just confused. This isn't the way I'd like to be, have been, or want to be.
A walk a day would help so much in the physical and mental areas.. so... where the hell is the motivation. Its thoughts of nothing is ever going to be ok again. BP or victim?
I've done 4 replies and deleted each one. This is my 4 cents worth and you can take it with a grain of salt if you wish. It's a reply none the less.
Meds are for the physical symptoms.
Therapy is for the mental disorder.
You can allow yourself to feel a victim of your circumstance or decide to fight it and figure a way to live your life with it in it. There is a big difference there.
If you truly have Bipolar, it is life long. It isn't going away. Yes, the meds will help with the physical symptoms Bipolar brings and the Therapy will help you cope with the turbalance it creates from time to time and your behavioral responses to those, if you stick with it and learn the skills from it. Yet, it isn't going away and by no means is it going to be easy.
Someone with Bipolar (on another board) once said (and I'm paraphrasing) that those with Bipolar know life survival skills that "normal" folks would absolutely kill to learn. Because, those with Bipolar have had to know those skills to survive each day - for which "normal" folks would fall to the floor begging.
You can let it consume you and consume your every thought and every emotion or you can work with your pdoc and tdoc and over time - ya'll figure a way in which you can live your life to it's best potential with the disorder in it. The more stability you achieve through meds and therapy and the longer each stabilizing period lasts... the better the quality of life will improve. At least my pdocs and tdocs over the last several years have sworn that to me. I myself am still plodding along and they keep telling me that.
Yet, if you allow yourself to succumb to the disorder and become a victim, thereby making excuse after excuse as to why you can't function and why you can't be held responsible for things in your life that only you should be responsible for... well then...
This, I think in my opinion, is what those experts were saying:
For the "other" person to not give in to the person with Bipolar who is playing the victim role and giving excuses as to why they can't... or you giving them excuses as to why they are doing inappropriate irresponsible things. This then results in you thereby, doing it for them and enabling them and taking the "them" out of the equation. This way, they can blame you when things don't go well for them.