While Happiness and Sadness add spice to life, for some peoplethese turn into prisons from which they cannot escape despite of brave attempts.Disorder is a psychological condition where person shuttles back and forth between two extrem poles of 'mania' and 'depression'. In the manic state,the person is extremely cheerful for no reason,confident,irritable and feels top of the world. They feel that they can accomplish anything big, are entitled to special treatment by everyone,talk a lot and are highly distractible.
The need of sleep decreases and investment in temporary pleasurable moments increases. Because of poor decisions by lack of thought , they end up with huge set backs , failures and lose their loved ones sometimes. In the depressed state,they quite often feel opposite and sit back sad most of the time. Even when there are ocassions that bring joy , the individual doesn't react. They think that they are no good and nothing good can ever happen. Everything including self,world and future is seen negatively.
"Writing a diary,charting their mood swings are ways of building insight into their world"
An individual suffering from bipolar disorder alternates between manic and depressive episodes and these are cyclic often. Under all circumstances,we must never forget the simple truth that any disorder whether physical,mental,cultural,psychological or biological does respond to human will and efforts.
They wish for the condition to vanish completely from their lives.This wish brings intense pain and hopelessness, because rather than concentrating on thier lives they end up concentrating on illness and giving it unnecessary importance.
An Experience:
Nickolas, amiddle aged man around 22 yrs. shared his thoughts to a psychologistthis way "Through out my life I felt that there was something toxic inside my head and I desperately wanted to throw it out. As I struggled to do it, I felt even more toxic. Now,I tell myself Iam not bipolar disorder, I have bipolar disorder. Iam also a sensitive person with creative abilities I choose the latter as my identity". The moment of developing genuine self-love is important milestone in recovery from bipolar disorder. It is crucial that they do not reduce their identity to just being a patient of bipolar disorder.They need to and should be motivated to connect to healthy and growth oriented parts of their self.
Communiticate positively:
Understanding role of communication skills in close relationships is an area all of us choose to ignore. Most of us treat close relationships as cathartic bins where we wish to dump all our feelings and impulses without understanding its impact on others. Negative feedback needs to be communicated skillfully without destroying already fragile self-image of bipolar person. Boosting to encourage and staments like "Although you are making huge efforts to go back to work, I often find that you get up very late. It can spoil your plan and I wish to help you in preventing it".
Conclusion:
In a nutshell,a sensitive ,caring and loving approach has the potential of working wonders in seemingly hopeless conditions. We always look out for advanced techniques and ignore basics. It is time that we get down to basics and gain overselves back.
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