My mother visited for Thanksgiving on Sunday. It was nice for our family to be together.

We saw the new Bond movie, No Time to Die. The movie was good and I can see that they are updating the franchise to be more current in terms of what's happening in the world (nothing about covid, just changing times and audience expectations).

I've been thinking a lot about what my life, and I'm sure many others here, is like.

For a "normal" person (someone without known mental health issues) life can be a simple relationship that lives between what you put into it, you get out of it. For example if they want to get stronger, put in exercise and get out a stronger body.

For me on the other hand, I feel awful most of the time, gripped with depression and anxiety. So the question is, what do you put in to get the result of feeling better?

Exercise? Meditation? Sleep? Listen to music? Self care? Positive thinking? Vitamins? Get a hobby? Hang out with friends? Work?

The thing is, I've tried all those things and continue to do them even though they have done nothing to help improve my mood. The relationship between what you put in and get out of life is clearly broken by bipolar.

I have a really hard time explaining this to my wife and family.

I'm not looking for solutions, I'm just making a general comment on many of our situations. Thanks for reading.