Keeping my Health and Well-being

Daily writing prompt

What strategies do you use to maintain your health and well-being?

As I have bipolar disorder, I have to work carefully to maintain my emotional balance. I don’t want to become either hypomanic (a state of elation, grandiosity, irritability, and overwork) or depressed. This means I employ a variety of strategies to not only keep in balance, but provide a sense of well-being.

One strategy I rely on is a regular, adequate sleep cycle. I go to bed at the same time every night and wake up at the same time every morning. I do not take afternoon naps, and if I find myself sleeping more than 9 hours a night, I check in with my doctor. Lately, I’ve had daytime sleepiness, and I’m going to have a sleep study done to make sure there are no problems there.

Another strategy is to manage my emotions by cognitive journaling. In cognitive journaling, one confronts cognitive distortions, which are illogical ways we use to explain our emotions. For example, when we’re nervous about a test, saying “I know I’m going to fail the test” (a cognitive distortion known as fortune-telling). Or when we attribute a bad date to “nobody’s ever going to love me” (black-and-white thinking). Cognitive journaling helps us recognize that the response is illogical and helps replace that thought with a more logical one.

I want my balance to be a happy one, so I have a couple strategies that have been scientifically tested to work in increasing one’s well-being. I meditate (although lately, I have been falling asleep during meditation; see my sleep issues above). Meditation is an active brain state that has been shown to increase well-being.

I participate in flow activities (more on flow here). My favorite flow activity is writing. I can lose hours in writing, which is a sign of flow.

I practice gratitude, which in my case means spontaneous thanks to the universe for the things that have helped me in life. A great place to begin with that is with a journaling practice called “Three Good Things”. Here, you write three good things that happened during the day and explain why they happened in your life. This gives you not only gratitude, but a sense of efficacy — “I did something that helped put this into place.”

MSN today brought me an article on self-care activities (some of which are listed above) that will help provide a sense of balance. I could put a couple more of these in my routine; there’s always room for more tools in my toolbox.

I would highly recommend a routine of activities meant to balance one’s life. Work expectations often push us off-balance; family demands and news headlines pull us off our balance. Balance comes from within.

Self-care in the Christmas Season

Chronic stress is not a badge of honor. In fact, it’s a life-shortening problem. Stress is, however, inevitable, because there will always be conflict. Without stress, humans would not survive because they would not recognize danger. It’s just when stress gets chronic that it eats away at the mind and body. Therefore, we need to resolve stress and get past it.

I teach human services to students. They move on to case management careers, often transitioning to some sort of counseling after a while in the labor force. One question I ask them in case management class is what their self-care routines are. It’s important to take care of oneself when you work with other people in high-stress situations which sometimes hook into someone’s personal hurts. It’s important for everyone to decompress and let go of stresses.

As for my self-care, I’m off work until early January, the biggest perk of being a faculty member. I’d argue that I need the 3 weeks at Christmas to recuperate from dealing with students day in and day out. It’s a privilege, I know.

Because my fall semester is rough and my spring semester rougher, and because I manage bipolar II (when it doesn’t manage me), I try to cram in my self-care over the Christmas season.

On my self-care list:

Muscle soak baths
Plenty of water to drink
Christmas scent spritzed in the living room
All the Christmas lights on
Christmas music
Occasional naps
Hot Chocolate

So far, so good. I think I’m up to writing some on my novel today after a week of recovering (and maybe writing 500 words a day).

I hope you get at least a few moments for self-care this season.

Being bipolar means saying “Well, I got through that” a lot. An awful lot.

Remember that I am relatively stable right now and have been for a few years. No giddy, voluble mania; no draining depression. I almost wonder sometimes if I never really had bipolar at all, I’ve been comfortable for so long. Life gives us an amnesia when it comes to strong emotions; otherwise no woman would have a second child. So I know that my bipolar isn’t a figment of my imagination, even if I forget how traumatic it’s been.

My bipolar sits below the surface, waiting for its chance. It likes to boil up when I haven’t had enough sleep; I guard against that with a regular sleep schedule and supplemental medication for bad nights. It bursts out of quiescence when I face a lot of stress, and it roars into my life during crisis. Not always; that’s the tricky part. It’s not even predictable in crisis.

So I find myself saying “Well, I got through that” a lot lately. As in, “Well, I got through my dad’s death” and “Well, I got through all that grading” and “Well, I got through finals week” and even “Well, I got through carrying that heavy Nespresso machine down a flight of stairs without dying”. I feel relief that I haven’t gone on a three-day rant or begun tripping over my words in racing thoughts.

Sometimes I’m so relieved I feel like crying, and then I worry that a depression threatens to emerge. I shrug and promise myself that I will get on top of any threatening moods. I know the drill: Get enough sleep, talk to my psychiatrist, journal. Well, I got through that rocky patch.

In Search of Small Happinesses

How do I kick myself out of these blahs?

These aren’t bipolar blahs, they’re just plain blahs. Lots of rejections, one dead cat (RIP Snowy), nothing exciting to look forward to. Except my birthday, and I have my psychiatrist’s appointment that day. So lots of reasons to stay blah.

If I want to stay blah, I can rehearse my hurts and aches and pains, hoping that I can win some sort of concession from God (“Look at all this crap that’s happened to me. I deserve some compensation!”). Note: It doesn’t work, and it keeps me from seeing good things that could be happening.

It’s my responsibility to do what I can to get into a better mood. I wouldn’t say happiness is a choice, because that’s unfair to people like myself who face depression. But I can help myself until I feel better or. in the case of depression, till the meds kick in or I can talk to someone else. When I’m depressed, it’s so much harder to think of these, much less do them. Work helps me connect with people, and that helps a little, as does forcing myself to write. These things don’t get rid of the depression, but they take the edge off it.

What can I do? I think I’ve talked about this before, but I need a refresher, so here I go again:

Gratitude journaling — three things I’m grateful for every night. I admit I fall behind on this, because at night I generally want to sleep.
Walking — I could walk to coffee this morning. That might be a good thing.
Pet therapy — with five cats, this isn’t hard to do.
Getting out — I’m contemplating the Board Game Cafe, as usual.
Accomplishing something using my character strengths — I have a story I’m writing which I’m not currently in love with; I can send Whose Hearts are Mountains off to dev edit; I could come up with a new story. Or submit more queries/submissions.
Connecting with people — Board Game Cafe works.

So I’m off to take care of my mood.

Still thinking about it …

I’ve been thinking some more about whether I should continue to write. What I’ve discovered turns out to be rather complex — but why expect my life to ever be simple?

Here’s my thoughts:

I love to write — I always have.

I’ve been writing since (as far as I remember) third grade. I’d like to think I’ve gotten better by then 🙂

But I’ve always liked to show people what I’ve written as well. Why?

My writing is personal. For example, this is very personal. I want people to know me.
As a child, I experienced a certain amount of abuse, with which came what is now known as gaslighting — being told my observations of being abused were invalid.
I still silently thank my junior high English teacher for actually reading and liking what I wrote — especially as my mother would always read my writing and say, “I think your sister writes better.” Apparently, she never expressed to my sister that she wrote well, so you can guess what was going on there.
My junior high English teacher was my lifeline during those years. Truly. I had spent my childhood bullied (for being “weird” — but not the type of “weird” that encourages teachers to introduce the class to sensitivity training) and this culminated in a horrifying sexual assault which I, of course, didn’t report. I will admit that I was at risk for suicide in eighth grade. I will always see writing as my lifeline, but it’s nice if someone’s holding the other end.

When I get really stressed, the importance of the second point outweighs the first part.

Believe it or not, I’m not an anxious person. In fact, usually my stress is because I’m wrestling with tendencies of mine, including:

need for external validation (probably for the reasons above)
need to not feel alone/isolated (probably for the reasons above)
wrestling with perfectionistic tendencies (probably for the reasons above.)

So, in other words, the question “to write or not to write?” gets influenced by the stuff above. Conclusions I’ve come to include:

Recognition from “out there” will never be enough. Why? Because nothing that happens to me as an adult can erase the fact that I had that childhood. “Inner child” stuff is extremely real. As an adult, I’m the only one who can reassure myself when I get in these moods. I just don’t know what to say to myself yet.
I will never know how good my writing is, so I might as well give up trying to do so via Google Analytics (where I got that stat that the average user spends 30 seconds on my site) or book sales.

Now all I have to do is figure out whether the time I spend on writing is worth it … I’ll get back to you.

Ups and Downs of Writing

The first thing I’ll do here is break a taboo — I have a mood disorder. Specifically Bipolar 2 — half the mania, twice the depression. No, I’m not crazy — I have wonky biology. Just like you do.

Is there a link between bipolar and creativity? Collingwood (2017) reports that there have been many creative people known to be bipolar, but that this may be due to a third variable. She also points out that people with bipolar disorder are more productive and creative when they are managing their condition.

This has been my experience. I could not have written a novel without my medications, which is why I’m a late bloomer (I wasn’t diagnosed till five years ago). Self-maintenance activities such as regular sleep, eating regularly, not overworking myself, and avoiding alcohol supports my creativity as well. In other words, all those things creatives are reported not to do.

My imagination still functions with all of this — better, even. Thanks for reading.

I hope you find
at the end of the day
that the yammering words
chained and rechained in the switchyard
fade into a night of indigo
with the texture of a cotton eiderdown.

Collingsworth, J. (2017). The link between bipolar and creativity. Available: https://psychcentral.com/lib/the-link-between-bipolar-disorder-and-creativity/ [April 27, 2017].