Straight Talk on Managing Bipolar Disorder

If you are, you may know I had to close my personal football account due to OCD. But I have continued Tweeting for the bar where I’m watching all the matches! It’s called Beulahland. You can find my tweets here.  @BeulahlandPDX.

I try to do funny stuff. I’ve found that writing about soccer or interacting with all of the journalists I know is simply too much for me. Here is a latest post.  Isn’t it amazing that I can do work anonymously- but as soon as my name is out there in the world and people I don’t know start to comment on what I say and do, I start to get sick. Managing this illness is ALL about finding what you can and can’t do, dealing with the disappointment and then moving on! I’ve dealt with this illness since age 17.  I’m still learning! Julie

I just received a great email from a reader who has been on the bipolarhappens.com mailing list for years.

I once wrote a newsletter for family members that started out with a conversation my mother and I had about cabbage. I told the story to show how family members have to be educated as to why those of us with bipolar disorder can be so WEIRD! Here is his letter- the cabbage story follows.

Hi Julie:

This really isn’t a question but rather a comment regarding a piece you wrote about fixing dinner with your mother one night.  You were making a salad and your mom suggested adding cabbage.  As I recall you said it was just too difficult to get it out of the refrigerator and cut it, etc.  Your mother said something like “what’s so hard about that?” and you said, I think, “I have bi polar.”  Enough said!!

Ever since then every time I find it difficult (impossible???) to do something as “easy” (oh sure!) as preparing a meal or responding to an e-mail, etc, etc I always think of it as a “Bi Polar Cabbage Moment.”

I cannot begin to tell you how much this helps me!  I won’t be able to listen to your radio broadcast so let just say thanks so much for all you do.

(Horace) Bruce Deal
New York, NY
**
A Conversation about Cabbage

Mom: Why don’t you put some cabbage on your salad?

Julie: I want to have cabbage on my salad but it is just too hard to do it.

Mom: Julie! It’s too hard to have cabbage? What is your problem?

Julie: It’s not just cabbage, Mom!  It’s getting it out of the fridge. Taking off the old leaves, finding a place to cut it, making sure the knife is clean, slicing it, putting it on the salad and then cleaning up the cutting board. It is too much right now.

Mom: It really is just cabbage, Julie. Why does everything have to be so hard for you?

Julie: Mom. It is not a *normal* thing!  It is not a cabbage thing. It is *bipolar* thing. It is an overwhelmed thing. It has nothing to do with cabbage. Things are hard for me because I have bipolar disorder.

Mom: Ok. I understand it a bit better when you put it that way. Would you like me to do the cabbage for you?

PS: If you sign up for my newsletter,  you will get the full story of my mom and the cabbage! Julie

My OCD is acting up. Darn bipolar. How do I keep my excitement level normal so that I can SLEEP? That is the question. You guys know me. You know my philosophy. But just for once, can’t I get excited without getting sick too!  I can and will learn to live and be stable and have fun and SLEEP.  Julie

PS. Well, reality bites. Just closed my World Cup Twitter account because it was getting too successful. Only bipolar could make me ill because I got too excited.

I need to focus on writing as it is the one thing I can do that doesn’t cause symptoms.  I’ve been managing bipolar disorder for a long time. It’s always a struggle when something new shows up and I have to see if my brain can handle the change. Sometimes it can. I’m able to travel and speak professionally, for example.  But sometimes it can’t.  It seems to be the situations where I’m waiting to hear from others about something I’ve said or done are the main problem. I’m still learning how to better manage this illness!