I agree in psychosis there can be a loss of control. I agree moods can trend one way or another and feel hard to choose. But I also have found the best way to start to learn coping skills in bipolar was to see how many choices there are out there for how we do self-care or just for how much we let a situation bother us. I call it leaning into an emotion versus seeing it for what it is and saying "This is a bipolar emotion" (what some people on blogs say to do) or saying "this will pass". I'd say in the past 6 months or so, seeing more choices in my reactions has helped me a lot with how i manage myself. For instance, I used to and often still do wake up w/ dread and anxiety. Even if I'm in an alright place it can happen. But I'm getting so used to that that I can get through it whereas if I thought "What is wrong with me! I'm so anxious! I don't want to get out of bed! I'm useless!" it'd be much worse...

I tried to sign up for CBT to build up those skills at least even more, but my therapist seems to just scowl at me instead of doing CBT (for another thread...).