Bipolar - Blessed

Many people, around one in twenty-five in the United States, suffer from a mental illness in a given year. Being diagnosed with bipolar I, I will likely deal with mental illness every year for the rest of my life.

It's easy to get down and to feel depressed, angry, or helpless when I think about my illness affecting me from now until the foreseeable future. One thing that’s helped me is counting my blessings. I've been blessed with a family and friends support system that has made it immensely easier to go through the highs and lows of bipolar.

When I've been manic, my friends and family have been understanding of my increased communication, pressured speech, and doing and saying things I wouldn’t say or do when I’m not having a manic or hypomanic episode.

I also have a wife that’s patient and helpful to me when I’m feeling depressed. When I’m feeling down, everything seems like more of an effort—chores, hanging out with others, getting myself ready—at times when I’m depressed it takes willpower to do things that would normally be routine. When I’m feeling that way, Laura often takes on extra chores and is sympathetic and understanding.

Also, I have friends and family that read my blog and sometimes say an encouraging word or two. Though it may not seem like much, occasionally hearing that something I’ve written has affected someone’s life in a positive way really makes me feel good.

When I shifting this blog from writing more about mental health than about running, I really hoped to raise more awareness about mental illness and especially to give people tools to cope with mental illness and/or support those dealing with mental illness. Hearing from people who have found those posts helpful really makes it feel worthwhile writing this blog.

In my next few posts, I’ll be sharing some skills I’ve learned to help me cope with mental illness. Again, I’m hoping that sharing my experiences will be helpful not only to those with mental illness and their friends and family, but also for those who are looking to improve their mental health in general.

Thanks for reading.

Improving Mental Health: DBT and CBT

Since 2012, when I first missed a significant portion of work and eventually resigned my teaching position, partially due to symptoms of bipolar, I’ve regularly seen a therapist. The three types of therapy I’ve used have been CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), DBT (Dialectical Behavorial Therapy), and Narrative Therapy. CBT is one of the most practiced forms of therapy, and DBT is considered a branch of CBT. You can read about the differences and similarities in “What’s the difference between CBT and DBT?” on the PsychCentral website. Narrative Therapy has some similarities to both DBT and CBT, and it is helpful for many. DBT has been the most helpful for me, so I’ll spend a few posts writing about some of its elements.

In 2015, after I was hospitalized for a mixed state (depression and hypomania), I did an eight week DBT skills group. These skills have especially helped me manage depression and anxiety, but several are also helpful for managing manic episodes. During this group therapy, one of the other participants said, “Everyone should learn this,” and the other people in the group agreed. So, whether you have a mental illness or not, I think you’ll find some of the information on DBT helpful.

The four components of DBT are:

• Mindfulness
• Interpersonal Effectiveness
• Distress Tolerance
• Emotional Regulation

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy involves identifying and changing cognitive distortions including:

• All or Nothing Thinking
• Overgeneralization
• Mental Filters
• Discounting the positive
• Jumping to Conclusions
• Magnification
• Emotional Reasoning
• Should Statements

Since there is a ton of information about DBT and CBT on the internet, so I'll focus on things that have worked well for me and provide resources if you're interested in going more in-depth. Good places to start learning about DBT and CBT are, "An Overview of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy," from the PsychCentral website and "Cognitive Behavioral Therapy" from the SimplyPsychology website.

Some helpful resources for DBT and CBT include:

The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook by: Matthew McKay, Jeffrey C. Wood, and Jeffrey Brantley

The Feeling Good Handbook by David Burns

Thanks for reading!

Hospital Anniversary

About two years ago, I was hospitalized around this date. Early to mid fall is difficult most years, but this year seems to be the exception. I've got a lot of things going for me this year, and I know, knock on wood, that I'm not going to end up in the hospital.

I had another hospital stay two years ago as of this coming February, so it's not the two year anniversary of staying out of the hospital yet, but with the way things are going I'm feeling confident that I'll be able to avoid the hospital in February as well.

Other than being very tired in the mornings, my mood has been excellent. One of the biggest things that indicate that bipolar symptoms are going to be a problem is poor sleep. At first, I thought poor sleep precipitated hypomanic, manic, or depressive episodes, but after talking to my nurse practitioner, she said she thought it was the other way around. My sleep has been good (other than sleeping more than I'd like--more about that later--and I've been falling asleep and staying asleep easily.

I was actually relieving to hear that my manic or hypomanic episodes were causing poor sleep and not the other way around. Instead of stressing about sleep, which often made it harder to fall asleep, I've learned to roll with in and rather than telling myself I needed to get eight hours of sleep every night to recover, I just tell myself I'm going to sleep less and focus on managing the hypomanic symptoms instead of worrying about sleep.

Good sleep generally means I'm not in or going to have a manic, hypomanic, or depressive state, so I'm hoping that continues. Part of why I've been sleeping well has been a medication adjustment which has really worked well. The big downsides of the medication are a insatiable appetite and making it very hard to get out of bed in the morning.

I'm feeling grateful for all the support I've received to be free from bipolar symptoms. It's been very satisfying to make it through the early fall feeling good, and I'm optimistic that I'll make it beyond the two year mark of hospital stays.