UPDATE:
Sorry for the mess of a blog post. I was on my night meds and was a little loopy. I cleaned it up for you guys and elaborated on some parts that I just threw out there.
It seems that when I got my new debit card and I forgot to update my billing info with my hosting site. oopsie! As soon as I get a hold of someone to update my credit card information and pay my bill we will be back up and running.
Meanwhile…
I have met someone. nuff said.
I have been lax on my podcasting. I was hoping to go from a biweekly to a weekly podcast, and was making that happen, when I met a very attractive Israeli-American woman whose just a few months younger than me. Grew up in one place for most of her life. Quite the opposite of how I grew up. She has Bipolar as well.
The number one concern some of my friends had was, what would happen if we cycle together? If both of us fall into a deep depression we would risk feeding of each other’s mood, further worsening our symptoms. That is a legitimate concern that I had taken into consideration long before I met this person.
What do I do if I date someone else with mental illness?
I plan to elaborate dating someone with a mental illness when you yourself have one is going to be on topic on my next podcast. There I will address the practical aspects of a relationship such as moods, medications, helping one another when rapid cycling happens or its been a shitty day. As people with bipolar we have to take all these things into account and plan accordingly for when they could happen, not when there already is a problem.
You cannot wait for there to be a problem before you address it when you have bipolar. You must know yourself and look at yourself honestly as a man or a woman. If you don’t have the courage to do that you will never gain control over your illness. You are not expected to be a psychic. No one can possibly know everything that could happen. But you can know how you would react when it does happen and plan for a way to defuse your moods before they are triggered.
You must know your triggers.
Part of gaining control over bipolar or other mental illnesses is that you need to know your triggers. Triggers are the things that set you off. Whether its a person’s attitude towards you, being cut off in traffic, drugs and/or alcohol, you need to learn what they are so that you can better nip rapid cycling of your moods in the bud before you act out in some way.
Having bipolar means living with having mood cycles that you often can neither predict nor control. Most of the time all we can do is ride them out. How we cope with it greatly influences how we act out. Sometime we cope in the wrong ways, i.e. drugs and alcohol, or cutting, over eating or other eating disorder.
If knowing your triggers are key then coping skills are the lock. Constructive coping skills are things like: breathing techniques, meditation, exercise, hobbies, discussing your feelings and issues with someone. There are just as many good ways to cope as there are bad.
Research what works for you. For me, I found a creative outlet in Dungeons & Dragons. Through the game I have made new friends that I can count on, I have met others that I found that I can mentor. The kids game that I run on Saturdays has been a blast. I look forward each week to seeing what the kids come up next. Every session the dungeon is different. I will give more details in my upcoming podcast.
The Bipolar DM 