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Resilience and confidence post diagnosis and during sickness

Jenn4Senior Contributor16 Feb 2020, 7:52 am AEDT

Resilience and confidence post diagnosis and during sickness

Hey friends, hope you are all well. Does anyone have any advice on building confidence and resilience post diagnosis and throughout sickness, please.

I got diagnosed with bipolar at the end of 2018 and got hit with the worst of the depressive episodes I've had in the first half of 2019 (couldn't get out of bed for up to four days in a row for example, or walk 100 metres. 2019 was the first time I had experienced anything like this).

Since then my confidence has been super shot, more or less across the board, even when I am feeling alright or good or in a hypomanic ep. Prior to the end of 2018 I was quite a confident person, not without exception, but even when I was in (not as bad) depressive episodes, I was still very confident and self assured and resilient. This was fairly integral to my personality.

How can I get that back? I want it back haha.

I feel like being diagnosed especially has just been so confusing and affronting and that I'm still in shock from it. I feel like I've been told my brain is broken and shouldn't be the way it is, even though to me it's just me (though I do realise it's not working properly,,). And yeah, my confidence in my brain - and body - having been so unwell is not good.

Advise and wisdom much appreciated. Thankyou and kind regards, Jenn 🙂

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In response to: Resilience and confidence post diagnosis and during sickness

CalmblueoceanSenior Contributor16 Feb 2020, 5:42 pm AEDT

Re: Resilience and confidence post diagnosis and during sickness

Hi #Jenn4. I was diagnosed with a mental illness back in 1999. I have had a lot of time to think on things about why my brain works the way it does. There is still an awful lot of stigma about mental illness and most of it stems from the fear of the unknown. Being diagnosed with a mental illness can be quite frightening. Its gone from knowing something is maybe not quite right to Crickey i have a mental illness. After all the years that i have lived with schizo affective disorder i have decided that my brain just works differently to others. I am still here me first. Diagnosis not the forefront of my life. Sometimes with diagnosis comes the correct medication, help and understanding. You will i hope get your confidence back. Just realise you are the same person post diagnosis. I was really ignorant about schizophrenia when i was young. I thought it meant that i had multiple personalities. That i thought i could be someone else. I thought thats not so bad i can be an astronaut or a scientist or anything i wanted to be. But do you know what. If i put my mind to something i can do it. Think positive and you can do what you want to do too. Don't get bogged down by a diagnosis. You are still you.

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