Night Shift

Hi @Jacques, good to see you. Hope you are feeling less stressed tonight. Good on you for looking after your mum so well. I hope she is okay. Sending hugs. 🙂

Hey @Mazarita. I have kind of another strange question for you but happy for anyone to chime in. Do you know where your bipolar ends and you begin if you get what I mean. Is it easy to distinguish what is the bipolar part and what is just you?

Hi @Faith-and-Hope, hope your dad gets back on his feet soon 🙂 you are a good daughter caring for him, i hope it works.

Hi @Former-Member, nice to see you too, i am feeling a little low tonight, i am feeling guilty about something, just trying to work through it.

Hi @Mazarita yes, not too stressed, but feleing a little low, i hope mum gets better soon too, gosh what a week. anyway i hope all is well with you, you have been posting so much i am having a hard time keeping up 🙂 i am a little sleepy now, i will join in tomorrow night.

Hugs to all you lovely ladies, it is so nice to stop in for a bit.

Jacques

Goodnight, @Jacques, try not to beat yourself up over any feelings of guilt. Some of that comes from early training that wasn't all that helfpul to us. Sleep as well as possible friend.

I'm so pleased that you said hello @comet. I've missed you. I'm really sorry to hear things are not so good but you don't have to stay away. We can try to cheer you up a bit. And you are not bothering me. I hope you get a good nights sleep and wake up feeling better tomorrow. Sending hugs, lots of them, maybe balloons too, possibly cake and chocolate😊💜😊💜😊💜

Hi @comet, sounds like you could use all the hugs you can get so I'm sending them too. We are showering you with them. I get these ups and downs too, it's part of the bipolar terrain. Hope you feel better ASAP!

@Former-Member, your question about where does my bipolar end and me begin... that is a curly one to answer. I'll have to think about it on the page I think. I do think my diagnosis is correct, in fact I suspected it before it was said to me by psychiatrists. I accept it and have no problem with talking about it here and with select people I know (closer friends mostly). But I don't advertise it widely to the 'outside' world. At the same time I am not horrified if someone shares that about me to others. I just don't feel like I need to be a walking placard for the condition. I guess I see it as part of me rather than something separate to me. But I see myself as bigger than my diagnosis, much bigger. Regardless of our diagnosis, each of us is a unique human being and our conditions manifest very differently from person to person. One person with bipolar will be very different in many ways to the next, for example. I'm pretty sure this would apply to your diagnosis too. Having said all that, there's a part of me that doesn't really believe in labels like this at all, except for practical reasons such as medical and psychological treatment of distress and obvious dysfunction in relation to society. Sometimes I think the prevalence of mental illness is a negative indication of how the world operates these days. I think above all we are each full humans, regardless of diagnosis. Hope this answers something of what you are asking.

p.s. @Former-Member, I was thinking today about how you were saying there is no-one on the forum with your diagnosis. As @Kurra suggested, I was suspecting that you might be surprised about that. Have you tried using the search bar and searching for your diagnosis by both it's full name and acronym? There may already have been people posting about it in the past if not right now. Could be interesting to read if there is.

Thanks once again for your response @Mazarita. I think that partly what I was wondering was whether you are readily able to recognise and then act upon the bipolar parts when they happen and maybe separate it from yourself.