New to bipolar

Hi @Silenus

stepping aside and realising they are only emotions. It sounds like a great insight to have. I started reading Eckhart Tolle - The Power of Now several times - I find it extremly difficult to comprehend. I sometimes think my brain is not wired that way. But I keep trying to understand what it means to be in the here and now and that there is more to me than the pain body and my ego. I thought about my ego yesterday - is that the power that wants to hide my illness and wants to hide that things are not going well? Is it my ego that prevents me from reaching out to family and friends and asking them to be gentle with me and help me?

Who am I if I am not my thoughts and feelings? For me as an analytical thinker that was raised by atheists this is a tricky question. I struggle with the concept of god or soul.

I started ACT therapy with my psych. I meditate and focus on acceptance. When I question myself what am I resisting right now, I sometimes get insight that I struggle to let go all day. There is so much pain hidden underneath the surface. Instead of accepting the feeling I start to analyse - is this part of why I feel the way I feel now, is this....? I still feel like I am trying to find that one trigger in my life that led me down the rabbit hole and then I will be able to "return to normal".

I am still struggling to accept, that this is essentially me, I am still (and I always have) find it difficult to love that person that is essentially me.

Dear Flower,

I hope to be able to help you. I have read a real lot about Bipolar but what is even more important is that both my wife and I suffer with Bipolar disorder and that I have many friends that suffer with it.

I don't think that you should feel bad about it. I think that Bipolar is a mixture of heaven and hell and my wife and I have had to learn how to accept this fact and accept ourselves.

Naturally, Bipolar is just a label and every case of Bipolar disorder has some universals (or similarities in terms of moods and symptoms) but is also different in that each person is unique so that even their Bipolar is in a way unique.

It was very helpful for me to find that the greatest minds have suffered, and suffer, with Bipolar DIsorder. For a start most actors do suffer with it from Jack Nicholson to Carry FIsher to Ben Stiller to Jim Carrey you will find hundreds and hundreds of actors that suffer with it. Then we have great people like Beethoven, Michelangelo, Leonardo, WInston Churchill and the list goes on and on. You will find that the greatest minds have often suffered with Bipolar DIsorder.

SOme scientists believe that Bipolar and Synaethesia (which is not a mental disorder but the overlapping of the senses) are signs of great evolutionary intelligence. Perhaps this may not apply for all cases but for most cases it does

May I ask if yours is Bipolar II, Bipolar I or Cyclothymia? They are very different conditions. You say Bipolar Depression. I find that term strange to say the least. All people with Bipolar experience more depression than highs and those who do not have highs may not have Bipolar. Feeling High is a period of intense energy, happiness and joy where you become superproductive and full of ideas. Wonderful at the beginning but, depending on the severity of your Bipolar, it can escalate into mania in some cases and need hospitalization if not controlled in some way. Medication is often necessary for Bipolar I.

Bipolar is not one and then the personality and uniqueness of the person comes into it.

Please forgive any grammatic or spelling mistekes I am typing fast. Also please know that I am just a person that suffers with Bipolar not an expert I am an Average Joe 🙂

Hi again Flower, I have posted something on THe Power of Now that explains a few things from experience. I posted it yesterday I think. The post is called The Power of Now.

Hi there FLower,

you mentioned two important things that are characteristic of people that suffer with Bipolar Disorder: experiencing Highs and being creative. OF course we know that the depression is there.

I don't have any problems with a label, I think that other people do. Naturally a label is an abstract thing but in our case Bipolar means that we experience shifts in Depression and Elevated Moods. What is so terrible about that? I like the term Bipolar, and I am proud to have Bipolar. I think that it is a gift for me and I mean no offence to those who suffer terribly and don't like the term. I understand their position and respect it but this is my position and it also needs to be respected.

I tell everyone that my wife and I suffer with Bipolar, the whole community knows it and we are not treated differently from anyone else. Sure there are some that are prejudiced but we soon get thise people out of our lives.

I will try to write about Bipolar, In fact I have a post where I have asked the question: What according to YOU is Bipolar? Would appreciate if you could try to answer sometimes you find that you know more than you think you do.

How do I cope? Creativity, art, art and more art. I am multi talented artist, and I thank the Light for giving me talents in the creative area. And I help people as a volunteer, I both raise funds for my local hospital (Mental Health Section Only) and I try to help people that suffer with mental disorders as a volunteer. THis helps me not only to feel valuable in the community but also to cope.

Hi @Former-Member

You bring up some very important questions, ones that have troubled me for years...

As always, what I am writing is only my opinion and my perspective, based on what I have learned from my own experiences. I may be right, I may be wrong... search within yourself to see if there is universal truth that also applies for you...

You wrote:
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"I thought about my ego yesterday - is that the power that wants to hide my illness and wants to hide that things are not going well? Is it my ego that prevents me from reaching out to family and friends and asking them to be gentle with me and help me?

Who am I if I am not my thoughts and feelings? For me as an analytical thinker that was raised by atheists this is a tricky question. I struggle with the concept of god or soul."
------------------------------------

In answer to your question about ego being responsible for hiding how badly you struggle, I would say simply - yes.

But of course it's not a simple thing at all. Why does the ego do this, I asked myself, because my ego hid how badly I struggled from everyone for decades. My 10 year marriage failed largely because I could not reach out for help or even acknowledge I had issues greater than I could deal with at the time...

Why did my ego hide it?

Part pride - I felt I should be able to overcome my issues by myself, to apply reason and logic, to control myself, to out-think my overthinking brain. I prided myself on my intelligence (but my emotional intelligence was at that time ignorant and stunted). I prided myself on my self sufficiency - I had always had to rely only on myself when growing up, and this pattern continued into adulthood...

Part habit - I was so used to wearing a mask (smiling whilst dying inside) that I had forgotten what my real face looked like. Breaking these patterns of a lifetime takes incredible insight, self awareness and strength, even just to identify the patterns, much less change them...

Part pain body - our pain exists within us like a living thinking feeling part of us, like a separate entity contained within. It seeks validation. It wants to continue to exist within us. It is a part of us, but it always seeks to be the most powerful part of us, of our lives. This is the part of us that actively fights everything we try to do to heal and get better. Identify this "enemy within", for it is every bit as smart as we are, and has many subtle tricks up its sleeve. It is so exhausting fighting ourselves every step of the way. We need to find ways to deal with the pain body fragment of our ego...

Part self hatred - hating myself, I self sabotaged my relationships and my chances of success. I did not deserve to be happy or healed. I needed my misery, my depression. I wore it as a cloak sometimes...

Part wanting to protect others from the hurt I was going through. Nobody wants to see a loved one hurting so badly, so I wanted to shield my loved ones from seeing a part of my hurt. This motivation of my ego is supposedly noble, but it does nothing to ultimately help my own hurt...

Part problem solving addiction - from a very early age, our society and our education conditions us to seek out and find problems, and then to apply ourselves to solving those problems. Alas, this can be an ongoing pattern and life trap - we feel validation in "fixing" things, in solving problems. It gives us a sense of worth. We get a firing of our reward centres in our brains when we solve a problem. If there aren't enough problems, well, we are very adept at making problems up straight out of thin air. This is what our thoughts do, always consciously or subconsciously looking for problems, for things to be worried about or afraid of. Then we add to the burden of our anxiety with fears of the future and the burden of our depression with regrets from the past. We start to look for things that are "wrong" inside us, and often end up trying to fix things that didn't really need fixing. Then we can fall into another common life trap - over-analysing. The old adage - don't touch what isn't broken - can very much be a strong guide in our mental health as well as in the physical world of things...

Part drama seeking - bipolar people especially seem to be wired to seek out or create drama. The heightened emotions and conflict and energy of dramatic life situations are a powerful trigger of hypomania (as a self-defence mechanism) and anger-fear-anxiety (also as a self-defence mechanism). We get all doped up on go-go juice in our brains, either adrenaline or dopamine or other biochemical substances and stress-related hormones. Eventually though, the heightened states of awareness and energy lead to a depletion phase, and pow! There we are back in a major depression, as our bodies force us to regulate our need for sleep and recuperation...

And there are many other parts to the ego that contribute either helpfully or harmfully. It is not one thing, this complex concept of "I"...

Finding ways to integrate all of the hurt, separate and fighting components of our egos is key to a lasting peace and balance and good health. How we do this is fraught with danger of always making things worse. Picking at old wounds can bring new pain, and that sort of thing.

I say I want to be better. But who is the "I" that is saying this? Again we come back to the complexity and confusion and conflict inherent in ego...

I want to heal myself, to fix myself. And so a part of my ego becomes fragmented from the rest, and tries to take charge of all of the other fragments of my ego. But many of the other fragments resist this authority figure. I then end up creating more internal conflict and turmoil...

Acceptance is key for me. It's not just a matter of saying "My life is crap and I accept that", because I want to change my life for the better, to become a better person, to become healed. But all of this trying to become something else is so riddled with conflict, and it is the internal conflicts that continually tear me apart...

I accept my depression as a natural part of my mood and energy spectrum, just as I accept my hypomania as a natural part of my spectrum. I accept and I observe and I learn from the thoughts and emotions. With the insights I gain, I sidestep the worst of the mood storms...

What is my "I"? I don't worry too much about that. I just accept that I am I. There's no need for me to speculate about a god or a soul - I studied Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Sufism, Buddhism and a dozen other -isms. I read all the holy books, even the Mahabharata of India. I travelled pilgrimage trails. I became agnostic, atheist, nihilist...

Now? I don't care. It doesn't concern me. Is there a soul, a god, many gods, a great big nothing after death? I can't know for sure, so why waste my precious Now moments speculating about it?

I accept me in all its forms, inside and out. The insight this gives, the power of that peace, it unifies my splintered self and stills the inner conflict that previously tore me apart. I love myself instead of hating myself now...

I hope some of my rambling thoughts are of use to you and others here. Hugs and happy vibes beaming to you all... 🙂

Hi @Former-Member. I don't know if it is of any use, but I just edited my previous post, adding a few more sections about parts of the ego...

I hope I'm not overwhelming peeps with this stuff - sometimes I do tend to rabbit on at a million miles an hour with my typically long posts...

I am thinking that my previous post here would provide a good introductory first chapter of a book I'm maybe going to write on mental health. It ties together much of what I have learned and applied in my life in order to come to grips with my mental health issues... @Former-Member - do I have your permission to use your questions about ego that I quoted, or can I perhaps paraphrase your questions?

As always, I finish with hugs and happy vibes... 🙂

Hi @Silenus

I read your post this morning and again just now. Powerful words and explanations. You have a gift of explaining things in a way I understand - or you have a gift in understanding what my questions are really about. Either way, I think you would write a brilliant book and give you permission to use my question.

I still remember when I turned the corner and left my unique little quirkiness to be hidden behind a facade that is acceptable to society. That is 15 years ago. Smothered in responsibility and ambition, I moved further and further away from myself. Sometimes I am not sure if I can turn back.

My ego is also caring and loving and it keeps me from hurting people I love. My ego tells me to "suck it up buttercup" so life as we know it can continue.

My ego also tells me that I am doing wonderful things for people around me and I make a difference in people's life, this is very important for me.

There are many parts that I treasure about my ego, but I do understand that it is not always in my own best interest. I am hoping to find a golden middle. I do not want to let go of my values and my current life and spend time on a park bench. I know it worked for Eckhart, but I don't think that will be my way. There must be other ways to find a golden middle.

I am confused once again, but I think that is part of the process.

May I ask, why you are showing a Vendetta mask as your profile picture?