Uncategorized « Straight Talk on Managing Bipolar Disorder

Join me on Facebook at Julie A. Fast and Julie A. Fast Books

After you enjoy the posts on this blog, I hope you will join me on Facebook and leave your comments on my more personal posts. I also do a weekly Q&A session on Facebook that is a lot of fun! Click here to read one of my posts about athletes and mental health. Facebook readers help me with research. Here’s an example regarding bipolar disorder and focus problems.

Click here to read a Q&A session. The questions and answers are posted in the comments below the post.

The best way to reach me with your bipolar disorder questions is through one of my live sessions! My next session is

Sunday, May 14, 2017 at 4:00 PM PST. Details are on my Facebook page.

Julie

Bipolar Happens! Receives Best Individual Bipolar Disorder Blog on the Web Award from HealthLine

I have some great news. My blog BipolarHappens! received a top blog award from the HealthLine website. This is quite an honor and one I want to embrace with great gusto.

Thank you to HealthLine and congratulations to my fellow award winners.

Click here to read the full list of The Best Bipolar Disorder Blogs of the Year from HealthLine and the other great bipolar disorder bloggers including Bp Magazine!

Julie

What I Do When I Can Tell I’m Getting Depressed or Manic

1. I feel a bit sad for myself and upset and worried and lonely and scared and bummed out and pissed and…… you get the idea.

2. I ALWAYS look for a trigger. If I can find the trigger, I change the trigger. This is always upsetting because my trigger is usually doing too much work and I LOVE to work.

3. If it’s depression, I do everything possible to stay out of bed and keep myself from isolating. I use the ideas in Get it Done When You’re Depressed ever minute I’m depressed. There are a lot of ideas in this book that work immediately and I truly use them.

4. If it’s mania, I work on my sleep first. If I can’t get it to calm down with my management plan, I take 5mg of lithium orotate and that often knocks is [ Read More ]

How to Say THANK YOU, NO THANK YOU when You Have Bipolar Disorder

Julie, come to the concert with us! We have a box and I know you love the band! You will love it! Thank you so much for thinking of me. I want to go and the stable me would LOVE to go. Unfortunately, the bipolar me, the one I dislike but have to live with every day simply can’t handle the big crowds. I get overstimulated and this can lead to so many symptoms I simply can’t have in my life right now. I am sad to miss this. I know you are going out to dinner first, and I can definitely join you for that part of the evening. Thank you very much for asking me! Julie, I don’t see why it’s so hard for you to travel. You love it so much. We [ Read More ]

Signs a Loved One with Bipolar Disorder Needs Help

1. Current behaviors are not in line with past behaviors. For example, – a person who has been empathetic throughout life suddently becomes selfish and callous and says, “I don’t love you and never have! You are finally seeing the real me!”

2. They stop paying attention to what has always been important. This can include being with their children. People who once cared about helping animals will forget to feed them or might kick them for example.

3. They don’t listen. And when you point this out, you are always the one with the problem.

4. They simply can’t see that they they are doing or are about to do isn’t going to end well.

Julie

I’m not as disciplined as you might think………

I often read comments that I must be very disciplined in order to write books and do a blog. If you guys think I’m disciplined- think again. HEHE! It’s a daily struggle and sometimes a minute by minute struggle for me to get things done. Ask the people I work with and they will all say the same thing.

Working with me is like herding cats.

Work is a huge issue for me- a lifelong struggle with focus that started when my bipolar got serious at age 19, over 30 years ago. I also have a right brain injury from a 2012 biking accident that greatly affected my memory around dates, times and numbers.

I think I had a breakthrough today as to why I have not been able [ Read More ]