How to Manage Your Bipolar Disorder

Step-by-Step Guide

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   Step 1: Get your diagnosis firm and get settled on your meds.

   This list will take a long time to complete, so there's no hurry.
   
   Work through it at your own pace.
   
   If you have the disorder and are not on medication, you may wish to start taking medication.
   
   There are a lot of medications out there, and they all work a little differently.
   
   If you wish, research medications to find out about them, but rely on your treating doctor when it comes to choosing meds.
   
   If you get side effects, contact the doctor in a constructive way (not complaining) and work with him/her to manage the meds.
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   Step 2: Find out about bipolar: this includes not only the medical stuff but read about other people's stories.

   , If you are a type II (depression and hypomania), then your cycles may be longer, and episodes shorter and less severe.If you are a type I (depression and mania or just mania), your episodes may be more severe, longer and more often., If you keep a journal, look especially for the changes in your moods, activities and thinking/thought processes ((Kraepelin 1921)) It will help you manage the disorder if you realize patterns in your behavior/thinking associated with your ups and downs.
   
   Then things might start to make more sense. , Note them down and find those that are reliable.
   
   Also, record those changes that happen when you're getting really sick.
   
   These will become signs for a) starting to get sick; b) when you need a 'rescue'
   
   maintain a pretty strict daily routine for waking, sleeping and eating.
   
   This is because your body clock is fragile because of the disorder. from experience, figure out when your stimulus levels are getting too high and create some strategies for lowering the impact on you. , Don't get caught in the mental illness ghetto! Find a happy medium
   - not only with medication but also with life in general.
   
   Find friends who won't make you feel worse, and try making your space (room or apartment) calming and peaceful.
   
   It should make you feel safe, and if you need to "hide," then it should hide you. , If you ever question why they (the bipolar person) do or say or feel something because you can't understand, this actually might answer some of those questions! , However, almost everybody experiments and/or goes off meds
   - it's our way of testing this disorder and coming to terms with it.
   
   It is not fun, but to know, accept, and love yourself no matter what will make life a little lighter. , If they want to be alone, let them be.
   
   Treat them like the adult they are.
   
   Do not blame the disorder for everything they do.
   
   Try to make them comfortable, treat them like you would everyone else, and sometimes it's best to distract them from their minds.
   
   If the person with bipolar is behaving in an abusive or otherwise intimidating way, treat them as if the bipolar is not there.
   
   Ask them to leave, for example.
   
   You will do them a favour as they learn from the feedback from your response to them. ,
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   Step 3: Get to know your cycles and your episodes.

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   Step 4: Keep a journal or some type of "log" that can help you figure out just when you might be able to expect to shift.

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   Step 5: In your journal

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   Step 6: note down for these changes that occur when you are beginning to get ill.

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   Step 7: Make a plan to cover all the following: triggers mood

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   Step 8: activity & thinking changes: early and late in the illness strategies to stop the illness early or stay safe late in the illness plans to protect work

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   Step 9: education

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    Step 10: relationships and your children

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    Step 11: if any.

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    Step 12: Focus on your life in the mainstream whether you are working

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    Step 13: volunteering

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    Step 14: parenting or whatever.

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    Step 15: For anyone who has the disorder or knows someone with it - it is important that you read up on the medical information out there on it because it explains so much!

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    Step 16: Eventually it's better if you can accept that you have bipolar disorder and that this is something you have to deal with.

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    Step 17: To those of you close to a bipolar person

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    Step 18: the best thing you can do is try to ride their waves as best as you can while getting on with your own life!

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    Step 19: An online course on living well with bipolar will be available in January 2010 at BeatBipolar.

Detailed Guide

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