RESILIENCY: BOUNCING BACK FROM BIPOLAR DEPRESSION
Recovery isn’t about never getting sick again — it’s about bouncing back when you have a relapse in your symptom management. Teaching yourself how to be resilient is a valuable part of living with bipolar disorder.
How Developing Resiliency Helped My Depression
I often feel as if I’ve stepped back in time when I get really sick. I think, How could this happen again? I’ve worked so hard to get where I am! I once made this comment to my therapist after I had trouble at work and went into a depression. She replied, “Julie, you always tell me to remind you that it’s an illness. You have bipolar disorder, so getting depressed after a stressful event is what happens. You do get sick, but it’s not like it used to be. What’s different is your resilience — you’re able to bounce back a lot more quickly.”
She’s right. In the past, if I got depressed, it would last for a year. Progressively, I got it down to six months, a few months, and finally, just a few weeks. In fact, relationship problems that used to send me into a depressed, sometimes psychotic, tailspin may now only take a weekend to resolve.
Indeed, I can bounce back instead of breaking apart like I used to. I kept working on my bipolar management skills until I turned myself into a rubber band that stretches in and out of any situation. That is how I describe resilience: When we are resilient we can handle any of the problems that come with bipolar disorder. This is because we can “stretch” ourselves to meet any circumstance, even when we are really ill.
Removing Triggers to Manage Daily Life
I’ve tried to remove the triggers in my life that I know will make me ill, and have written about this effort before. But I can’t control everything. In the past, I wasn’t very smart about bipolar. I would get myself into situations that were clear triggers in the past, get sick in the same way, and then wonder why. In other words, I believed I could walk into fire and not get burned by bipolar.
I now realize that resilience doesn’t mean you make the same mistakes, hoping you can deal with them more effectively. Rather, resilience comes from stopping certain behaviors that make one sick, then using the resulting energy to manage daily life instead of being in constant crisis mode.
The Resilience Pendulum
Bipolar disorder mimics a pendulum that swings way out to each side before it returns to the middle. The swings on the edges are about suicidal thoughts, humiliation, dangerous manic choices, letting the wrong people into your life, and not accepting the limitations of bipolar. Luckily, as you change your behavior — even just a little bit — the pendulum stays closer to the middle.
Eventually, it will only swing out to the edges when something beyond your control occurs. This is true resilience, and it feels good! Here are just 3 tips to become more resilient:
1. Look at Yourself Before Accusing Others of Upsetting You
Sure, they may be totally to blame, but you and your bipolar disorder treatment come first. Ask yourself, “What about this situation might be triggering behavior characteristic of bipolar?” “What do I need to do right this minute to take care of myself?” Then you can talk to the other person and explain how their behavior or insensitive words may have triggered a mood swing. Such an approach will help you bounce back. This is because you haven’t added a confrontation, or an accusation, on top of your already stressed brain.
2. Watch Out for Behaviors and Situations That Affect Sleep
People who have bipolar disorder are notorious for sleep problems. For us, hormones such as serotonin and melatonin can be completely messed up by many things, including weather, worry, or the illness itself. Resiliency requires restful sleep — this fact can’t be stressed enough.
So even if you’re sick and worried and feel you can’t go on, you need to regulate your sleep. This means staying out of bed during the day and getting to bed at the same time each night. Sure, it’s hard and sometimes it’s impossible, but you must still try. This is one of my greatest difficulties — sometimes I can’t sleep at all when I’m hypomanic. Yet I realize that I must find a way to sleep if I am to deal with life’s pressures.
3. Teach the People in Your Life How to Help You When You Have a Setback
Tell them exactly what they can do. “Mom, when I have a terrible day at work and feel completely paranoid, please point it out. You can say, ‘Julie, you talk like this when work is stressful. You asked that I remind you that it’s the bipolar and not really you. You asked for my help and told me you don’t want to ruin things like you did at your last job.’” I kept working … until I turned myself into a rubber band that stretches in and out of any situation.
Adhering to this strategy can help one bounce back from a potentially dangerous situation. This way, too, you can go to work the next day and get on with your job. That is resilience!
How Resiliency Is Really About Flexibility
These are just a few examples of how making some healthy changes can help you remain strong and supple like a branch that bends without breaking. Sorry for all the metaphors, but they really are appropriate here. Think of yourself as a wave, or a child who falls down and gets back up. Resiliency really is all about flexibility.
If you think about it, bipolar disorder is black or white: It’s mania and depression — elation and desperation.
And it makes us view the situations themselves as black-and-white. This was terrible. I’m going to die. I won’t make it through this. It doesn’t have to be this way, however.
The More We Practice, the Stronger We Become
What would it be like if you were as flexible as the strong rubber band I’ve been describing? What would it feel like to know you will be okay? I find it comforting to know that I can — and will — handle things. I now can be strong when I’m showing symptoms. Even if someone I love dies, I know I have the tools to survive. I may have to be in the hospital to do this; I may be suicidal or go into a manic episode.
Yet each day I have gradually increased my ability to handle a crisis since my diagnosis decades ago.
It definitely takes the help of everyone I know, including my doctors and my therapist. I have also taught people how to help me be resilient. All of us, whether or not we have bipolar, must spend a lifetime improving our ability to bounce back from anything life throws at us. The more we do this, the more resilient we can become.
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Debunking Resiliency Myths
Resiliency is not doing the same thing that caused trouble in the past and hoping it will be better next time.
It took me many years to break this cycle.
Resiliency is not using drugs and alcohol, especially marijuana to make it easier to handle life.
I did both before I was diagnosed and it never worked.
Resiliency is not staying in bed all day to shut out a world that you see as scary and unfriendly.
I spent a good deal of time in bed for three years — it didn’t work. Life was still out there when I got out of bed!
UPDATED: Printed as “Fast Talk: Resilience Rules”, Winter 2010
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2024-03-28T16:24:28Z dg43tfdfdgfd