{"id":12971,"date":"2019-12-18T17:50:37","date_gmt":"2019-12-19T01:50:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/?p=12971"},"modified":"2019-12-18T17:58:12","modified_gmt":"2019-12-19T01:58:12","slug":"bipolar-and-the-festive-season-how-i-unplugged-the-christmas-machine-and-created-stable-holidays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/bipolar-and-the-festive-season-how-i-unplugged-the-christmas-machine-and-created-stable-holidays\/","title":{"rendered":"Bipolar and the Festive Season: How I Unplugged the Christmas Machine and Created Stable Holidays"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I often write for the Gum on My Shoe website. Authors Martin Baker and Fran Houston created the site as a companion to their excellent book High Tide, Low Tide: The Caring Friend’s Guide to Bipolar Disorder<\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Here is an excerpt from my latest article: How I Unplugged the Christmas Machine and Created Stable Holidays…<\/p>\n

I love Christmas. I like the music and the colors. I\u2019m listening to the Charlie Brown Christmas Soundtrack as I write this! I love the food and the snow and the lights on the houses. It is not a religious holiday for me, but one that I associate with really good childhood memories and a lot of family events.<\/em><\/p>\n

And yet, there is also the bipolar disorder side of Christmas. Bipolar is an illness triggered by change, even if the change is positive. I write about triggers in my book Take Charge of Bipolar Disorder<\/a>. For all of my adult life I\u2019ve loved Christmas, but once my bipolar started in my late teens, I kept getting sick at this time of year.<\/em><\/p>\n

It took me years to figure out why. My bipolar diagnosis at age 31 helped, but I still wasn\u2019t able to handle the up and down emotions during the holiday season here in the States. (Please feel free to substitute the holiday you choose to celebrate.)<\/em><\/p>\n

Even after my diagnosis and creating my management system I lived with very serious depression and paranoia for many years. No matter how hard I tried I could not stay stable during the holidays. Each year I would promise myself that the time between Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year\u2019s Eve \u2014 our biggest holiday celebrations in the United States \u2014 would not make me sick.<\/em><\/p>\n

I usually failed……<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Click here to read How I Unplugged the Christmas Machine and Created Stable Holidays!<\/a>\u00a0 We can have happy holidays. It takes a plan and it might take a few years of practice, but life gets better when we recognize what we need and take small steps to change the holidays for the better. We can do this!<\/p>\n

Julie<\/strong> <\/em><\/span><\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I often write for the Gum on My Shoe website. Authors Martin Baker and Fran Houston created the site as a companion to their excellent book High Tide, Low Tide: The Caring Friend’s Guide to Bipolar Disorder<\/a>. \"\" <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here is an excerpt from my latest article: How I Unplugged the Christmas Machine and Created Stable Holidays…<\/p>\n

I love Christmas. I like the music and the colors. I\u2019m listening to the Charlie Brown Christmas Soundtrack as I write this! I love the food and the snow and the lights on the houses. It is not a religious holiday for me, but one that I associate with really good childhood memories and a lot of family events.<\/p>\n

And yet, there is also the bipolar disorder side of [ Read More ]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12972,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12971"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12971"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12973,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12971\/revisions\/12973"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}