It�s been a long time since I wrote anything here. I�m mostly working from home, and the days all run together. I feel very safe, and I am mindful of the contact I make with others when I�m out...
It�s been a long time since I wrote anything here. I�m mostly working from home, and the days all run together. I feel very safe, and I am mindful of the contact I make with others when I�m out in town.
I�ve been thinking about something that has been on my mind a lot the past several months. I do not feel like bipolar disorder rules my life in the same way it did when I started writing this blog ten years ago. I take my medicine every day, and it seems to be working very well.
I also meditate every single morning. It�s not long. I�m not a monk. This morning was only fifteen minutes as was yesterday�s. Some mornings are about twenty, and some mornings I will go for a full half hour. I want to get up to a half hour regularly. I would estimate that right now my average is twenty minutes.
I talk to my therapist every other week, and those sessions are important to me. I tell him everything that�s going on in my life. I talk to him about my dreams, which can sometimes be very entertaining. I tell him stuff that I can�t talk about in conversations with friends and acquaintances. I give him intimate details about my life.
I continue to eat a very healthy diet. I don�t eat junk food and limit my intake of refined sugar greatly.
My sleep has been less than ideal for about a week. I stopped taking one of the medications I use for anti-anxiety. I simply don�t feel anxious. I don�t want to take pill that�s unnecessary. Anyway, that pill had a side-effect of helping me sleep. Without it, I�m restless. I wake after about five hours, and then it�s a while before I can fall back to sleep. I�m sure this will pass.
I�m not getting any exercise these days, and I�m not going to beat myself up about it. I�m doing really well all things considered.
Those are the foundations of my recovery from bipolar disorder: medication, meditation, therapy, diet, and sleep. I should also add there is an underlying assumption of sobriety. I�ve been sober for 21 years, and I�m not going to change that.
So, I�m doing all these regular things to stay stable, and they�re working very well. I think it�s time to state what I believe will sound quite stunning in the field of mental health.
My bipolar disorder is in remission. I am stable.
I think my life documents this revelation. I think it�s important to say this out loud. The idea that a mental illness like bipolar disorder can go into remission is viewed as ridiculous by some people.
Why should it be? It is a completely manageable chronic illness. I�m managing it now. Why shouldn�t I assign the correct term to describe it?
It�s important to speak correctly. I am going to speak this way about my illness as long as it�s the truth.
