[WendyAussie]

To my friends in Australia and OS. I send this message as a sober alcoholic and a Bipolar person with Panic and Anxiety Disorders, to contribute to me trying to keep my head on straight and concentrate on the core issues in my life of maintaining my long term sobriety and looking after my mental health.

Today in Australia has been one of the biggest days in Australian history - equal to any day in politics in the 200 years since European settlement.. We have had a routing of our elected Prime Minister Kevin Rudd by his Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard. I am a member of the Australian Labor Party (comparable to the Democrats in the US and Labour in the UK), have been for many years and am very involved in politics both emotionally and also in the past actively in terms of working on political campaigns etc.

Two and a half years ago Mr Rudd swept Labor into Government, taking many seats from the Conservatives in a landslide victory. He has been a star perfomer. But in the last 6 months he has lost his Mojo to such an extrent that the Labor Party, Mr Rudd and Australian Electorate has been all at sea. Some major blunders have occured and he hasn't been able to address them, let alone the public's perception of them. While he did great things, including proactively taking on the GEC and keeping Australia out of the Recession/Depression like very few other Western Democracies, he has lost the confidence of the public. We have a General Election coming up before then end of the year and thus Labor has been in a shambles.

Cut a long story pretty long - LOL, Julia Gillard took him on, got the numbers and he conceded to her in the interests of the country - all on the last 15 hours or so, with no notice before this that there would be a challeng!!. This is the first female Prime Minister in the history of our country.

I am both so sad that Mr Rudd has come to this, but excited beyond belief that Miss Gillard has come to power - for obvious feminist reasons. She is a formiddable and astute politician - we now have hope of sorting out all the major issues at hand and also a chance for the election. She had her first Prime Ministerial address to the Press - she absolutely owned that statement and questions from the press - usually they are very unweildy and disrespectful of politicians, but I think they were as blindsided by all this as much as me and everyone else. She then went to the Governor General, who is also a very impressive woman and got sworn in and then she went to the Parliament for Question Time - those are things which form our Westminster form of Government which emerged from the UK form of Government. She is now our Prime Minister.

I've already called my psychologist because in terms of Bipolar, my mood is certainly elevated!! And Hypomania is a very bad state for me to be in. So I told her how I am limiting my media intake and other strategies, which is good. Any advice from you about how to stop the top of my head blowing off would be greatly appreciated!! lol

[Fire_Star]

Watching Kevin give his speech made me want to hug him. Poor guy. He did have an impressive list of accomplishments. Pity we never remember the good people do in politics and always focus on the negatives.

Gosh what a shock! 5min ago I read on facebook that we had a "New Prime Minister" ...and they were bagging her out! What a Shock!
I quite liked Rudd, he seemed calm and composed and had good ideas!
What went wrong? How can Gillard Salvage it?
:s

also...

AWESOMENESS! WE HAVE A FEMALE PRIME MINISTER!!! yaaaay!!!!!

I think your tactics sound good, what else has helped you in the past?

[WendyAussie]

When I was watching his speech, it occured to me (through my tears) that if Rudd had been so honest and heartfelt in recent months we would never have been where we are today. His ego has gotten in the way, he hasn't respected and enabled his own MInisters. And sadly Georgie, becase he has been ducking and weaving and syopping spot fires, he hasn't had the time and energy to highlight all these amazxing achievements - in politics you have to repeat and repeat your accomplishments - the electorate can have a very short memory. Very sad for My Rudd, my heart is full of sadness for him - he did his absolute best and worked his guts out for this country, but that's the way of politics.

[BlackPup]

How not to be too hypo - they still have the next election to win... I think the limiting media is a great idea, hope it works. Gentle exercise - walking/yoga, Sleeping tablets (i use seroquel or temaze). I also use risperidal as a break thru med for hypos

I do feel sorry for Kevin - its all the medias fault, they turned against him and amazingly so did the polls - but I'm much more likely to vote for Julla. (except that they are all politicians and I hate them all equally - no offence but I hate the media worse, they are all liars... every single one... )

[WendyAussie]

I did do all those thing but still as I thought, I did have trouble getting to sleep and staying asleep and woke up early this morning - the latter is unusual for me - usually now because of my huge night meds, even if I have trouble getting to sleep and staying asleep, I can catch up in the morning to some extent. It just shows me that yesterday's events DID elevate me. But I'm OK with a patchy night's sleep - days like yesterday don't come along too often. It's 7.00pm Friday EST now and I'm tired, but not wigging out, so that's good. I luckily had a massage booked for today and the therapist got right in there!! But she's very good and we always chat and laugh so that was a good thing to do today. I don't have to do too much on the weekend.