Do you have bipolar disorder? Do you consider yourself healthy?!
Question: What tips do you have for managing your mental health, medications, and side effects?
Answers: What tips do you have for managing your mental health, medications, and side effects?
This is a standard post of mine, but I worked on it for a long time. You might want to print this out. The docs forget to tell you some of this stuff.
#1 You need to take the meds as prescribed. You can't miss. A lot of people forget from time to time, and the pills can't work if you forget to take them. There are pill boxes with little alarms on them. If your symptoms are getting bad, you need to call up your psychiatrist for a med adjustment. You may never get complete relief, but you will need to try things maybe for a few YEARS to be sure you can't tweak things to a really good place for you. Don't forget - you may need to take people's word that you are getting sick again - a lot of times the bipolar person can't tell.
#2 You probably will need the support of a counselor all your life. You have to learn to cope with stress better than most people, because stress makes the bipolar symptoms a lot worse. You will also have to make big efforts to keep a good social support network. To avoid burning through people, make sure you apologize sincerely and often if you go off on them or ignore them due to symptoms. You may want to join a support group with other people with mood disorders, they will give you a break and take it less personally when you relapse. Get some books on reducing stress. Over time, work your life into a low-stress direction.
#3 You need to keep a routine. Get up and go to bed at the same time each day. Sleeping in makes depression worse, staying up all night makes mania worse. Never take a swing shift type job.
If your depression seems to be more of a problem in the winter, try to get more sun. You could have seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, or your depression could have a seasonal component, meaning you can get depressed other times of the year, but you tend to have more trouble in the winter. A light box is really good if you can afford one (about $300 online, don't get it at a local store, they will charge more for a light less than 1/2 as bright). Since I will always have a mood disorder, I have put in extra windows, keep the drapes mounted so they don't cover them, make sure I spend a lot of time in southern exposure rooms, painted the walls peach and yellow, mostly. I even have a skylight, although that was here when I moved in (and I LOVE it, it helps a lot!!!!!)
If anxiety is a component of your depression, try turning the heat up in the house or dressing much more warmly. It is hard to feel anxiety when you are too warm. I was able to cut out ativan use altogether by using this trick. Saved me big $$ too, because pills cost way more than heat. Hot baths work too, and in a pinch, like at work/school, you can try running hot water over your hands. Also, if anxiety is a primary problem, avoid caffeine like the plague. I personally use a lot of caffeine, because the depression is much more of a problem than the anxiety. Can't win for losing! Also, some cold remedies can cause anxiety and mania, and lack of control. Look for the "agitation in children" warning on the box. Adult bipolar folks can get problems too. Other drugs can trigger mania, too, like steroids (given at surgery I think).
Try meditation tapes like progressive muscle relaxation or guided imagery. They may seem silly at first, but they work!! They help reduce stress, which makes depression worse. I made my own tapes by getting the anxiety and phobia workbook at the library & reading those tapes into the computer & burning a CD. I actually used a program called audacity to digitally alter my voice because I don't like the sound of my own voice. You could also get a friend to do it. Read the script pretty slowly.
Go out with friends, and if you don't have any, find a club to join and MAKE yourself go until you actually look forward to it. Isolation makes depression worse. I go to a social club for people with severe mental illness, because I'm ashamed of my disability and don't want to deal with the