[Giabrina]

How do you find the strength to keep going day after day, month after month, year after year with this dreaded disease (bipolar)? Knowing that there really is no cure and finding the right med combination can take years? How does everyone keep going?

[eloquentdisaster]

For me, its just not worth it to give up. I can't put it any differently than that, honestly. I just know ow much life sucks when I'm not trying at all, so I don't give up.

[moremi]

I think I have just always done what I gotta do to survive. This is just another bump in the road. I will not let this disease win, its just that simple. **** bipolar!

[cocoabeans]

Giving up on meds means no more side effects or pin the Rx on the patient (me), less appointments too! Meds are ****.

[hamster-bamster]

I feel that I am more than half-way through in having the med thing figured out (assuming the currently good drugs do not poop out, of course). Feeling that I am more than half-way done gives me strength and reassures me that I will arrive at the destination (=stability+function with fewest side effects).

[Blue Poppy]

...... despite it all, the depression and the hypomania and the awfulness, I still have hope when i read about other success stories.

[Victoria'smom]

"just wait it out, it'll pass." has been my motto. I have a large support system, but most of them don't know they're my support system.

[BipolaRNurse]

Sometimes it's just putting one foot in front of the other. One of the things that keeps me going is the mood disorders support group on Facebook that I lead; having obligations to other BPers forces me to work harder than I would if left to my own devices.

I admit, having this diagnosis scares me at times. I don't like the 'forever' aspect of it. It's hard to fathom, even at my advanced age, that I'm going to be battling bipolar disorder for the rest of my days. But whenever someone asks the question "How do you get through life with all the stuff you have to deal with?" the answer is always the same:

What other option is there?

I am not sure exactly when, but somewhere along the way I started have a real love for life. I stopped fantasizing about dying and started fantasizing about living ( weird right ), I have a lot of time to die when i get to dying. I started to remember how beautiful, fragile and fleeting life was. How I have so much stuff in such a weird world to explore, amazing things on an amazing planet. How was I so lucky to be born in a human mind and body, to be given this opportunity? I mean if I was born as a fruit fly, surely I would miss ALL this!

I think when I start to fall I remind myself of all that I have, and have had including experiences, bad and good. I feel a lot of gratitude, amazement... Ahh feelings. I dunno how to explain it, I feel a bit weird talking about it, but when I think about this stuff I feel overwhelmed with intoxicating passion for life.

And that keeps me going and going. If things are bad, I know I will feel this good again, I dunno, maybe if things weren't ever so bad for me, then maybe they also would not feel this amazing when they are good. Not manic good either, just normal everyday okay.

[OutlawedSpirit]

I guess one way I look at it is it beats the alternative... a quote I've always loved was attributed to Voltaire:

Someone said to Voltaire, "Life is hard" and he relied, "Compared to what?"

We may think at times that life is hard, but since I'm assuming none of us has actually been dead, how do we know that it isn't harder? Maybe I'm being too philosophical, but thinking like that usually gives me a reason to put another foot forwards.

[hamster-bamster]

Originally Posted by Anika

I am not sure exactly when, but somewhere along the way I started have a real love for life. I stopped fantasizing about dying and started fantasizing about living ( weird right ), I have a lot of time to die when i get to dying. I started to remember how beautiful, fragile and fleeting life was. How I have so much stuff in such a weird world to explore, amazing things on an amazing planet. How was I so lucky to be born in a human mind and body, to be given this opportunity? I mean if I was born as a fruit fly, surely I would miss ALL this!

I think when I start to fall I remind myself of all that I have, and have had including experiences, bad and good. I feel a lot of gratitude, amazement... Ahh feelings. I dunno how to explain it, I feel a bit weird talking about it, but when I think about this stuff I feel overwhelmed with intoxicating passion for life.

And that keeps me going and going. If things are bad, I know I will feel this good again, I dunno, maybe if things weren't ever so bad for me, then maybe they also would not feel this amazing when they are good. Not manic good either, just normal everyday okay.

I do not know the appropriate emoticons, but what a beautiful post!

[faerie_moon_x]

Because why should I be a negative statistic? I'd rather be a positive one that gives hope. And bipolar is not the worst thing that could happen. What if the worse things happen? Like cancer or something immediately life threatening? Should I then also give up because it is hard? No way! I'm not giving up. I'm not laying down. If I'm going down, I'm going out fighting.

[treehugger727]

I have often felt the same way about this dx. Even though I know the dx hasn't changed the person I am I feel different somehow.

I keep going by telling myself that there is no other choice. The only choice I have is to be the victor. I am not giving up no matter how scary, ******, terrifying, ridiculous, overwhelming things get because somehow I have convinced myself that I am worth the fight I give to stay afloat. You are also worth all of the efforts you put forth.

When I look at my son I know that he is at the center of that. He needs me. I'm his mom. (Even though sometimes I think it is me who needs him)

There are numerous reasons to keep going- I think about how when things seem impossible and I plow through them or make the wrongs right that they are not impossible. When I get overwhelmed I think about all of the stuff that I have been through in my life and how they brought me to the place that I am now. That place is not always pleasant, but it is the world I live in and I know that there is some way I fit into it, even if I can't verbalize how.

There has been drama and heartache and frightened moments, unexplainable behaviors, being scared shitless of myself, self hatred, confusion, contradictions...but also appreciation. For the heartache that makes me grateful for what I have, the multifaceted nature of this woman that I have become that feels connections with people, nature, and refuses to give up.

Somehow it seems clear that there are things that we are put here to do even though it isn't always clear as to how to get there but at some point it becomes a manageable objective. We push on. Its what we must do.

"After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb."
- Nelson Mandela

[BlueInanna]

Gia -Some days are easier to answer the question than others for me. I have these dueling voices in my head telling me different things. And I have past experiences telling me different things. But, in my heart, if I take a deep breath, in my heart, I know that I must keep on because the journey is not complete. I love my kids, they keep my going. There are things I want to do, like explore more of this planet.

How are you doing? Any better since first posting this question? I hope you're ok

[Giabrina]

Originally Posted by BlueInanna

How are you doing? Any better since first posting this question? I hope you're ok

Thank you Blue for asking, it is really nice to know that others care how I am. I don't have that kind of support in the real world. And thank you everyone who responded -- your responses helped me put everything into perspective and realize that I must continue on. I'm not doing too good, I really just want to stop the world and get off. But instead I think I am going to print out everyone's response and hang them up and re-read them over and over again and know that I am not the only one fighting this battle and that I must not give up. Thanks again everyone!

[BlueInanna]

Originally Posted by Giabrina

I am going to print out everyone's response and hang them up and re-read them over and over again and know that I am not the only one fighting this battle and that I must not give up. Thanks again everyone!

You are not alone! Sometimes I make collages, like tear the back of a cereal box if I don't have poster board. Draw things, use stickers, cut out pictures from magazines or junk from the mail, write positive affirmations. Then I'll try to look at it in the morning or throughout the day to keep me visualizing what I want to create in my life. About time I make a new one, so that's something I'm going to do to find strength to keep going. xoxo

[Yoda]

I was diagnosed in 1999. Around 2004 or so I asked my pdoc if this is as good as it gets. She said she didn't know. Fortunately in 2007 I started taking selegiline and clozapine and my bipolar is now controlled. My doc has even okayed me to go back to work part time!

Originally Posted by Giabrina

How do you find the strength to keep going day after day, month after month, year after year with this dreaded disease (bipolar)? Knowing that there really is no cure and finding the right med combination can take years? How does everyone keep going?

I have a newly devised method that I use, thanks to the peeps on this forum. I don't know how I did it before, and I'm super grateful that I have this new way.

I analyze myself throughout the day and experience knowledgably how it is I am feeling. How I am reacting to those feelings and what my emotions are. It seems to make all the difference in the world for me and I am improving by doing this. It sort of opened up a new door for me and it's making each day new again.

That is my main focus on each day. It is really helping keeping my mood stable too! before doing this, my emotions were always so out of control that each day seemed to be a nightmare that I had to just get through to survive. it really made that big of a difference for me. I hope this helps.

[Giabrina]

Dan, I don't understand. Please elaborate. Thanks.

okay. I'll elaborate.

So lets say I am feeling overwhelmed and like crap... nothing new for me. My emotions are normally out of control and triggering. I have always tried to change and control my emotions, and it's never worked. So I have always been struggling.

But recently I learned that mood was my overall state of being, whether it is up, down, even or wherever it might be. I learned that emotions, what's always been out of control for me, are seperate and different than the mood that I am in.

following me so far?

So I have my mood, seperate from my emotions. I then learned that I have feelings too, that are based on my emotions. So my feelings are how I feel about my emotions. in example, I can be scared (feeling) that I am so angry (emotion) about being so depressed (mood).

still following me?

What I was reffering to in my earlier post was that I break this up in my mind and I monitor it, seperating my feelings, emotions and mood and monitoring where exactly I am at at any given time. It seems to have given me back control. I can't change the ways that I feel, but it seems that in knowing what is going on, I have control again on how I handle it and just knowing what is going on is making it possible to deal with it.

Now, I have taken it one step further, it's like the missing link to my puzzle.

I have also started monitoring my reactions to everything that I feel. the way that I react to my feelings. now THAT I do have control over. and in seperating in my mind what exactly is going on with me and why, I now have control over the way I react to it. So when I am feeling scared about feeling overwhelmed cuz I am depressed, I can now consciously go slower throughout the day and change the way I react to others around me to compensate, something that I was never able to do before.

So this is how I get through each day that was seemingly impossible before.

I hope this post was not too confusing, it's just the way that I have recently learned to cope. It could be that staying occupied enough to do this has distracted me enough to not let other things get too overwhelming.. that is possible, but the point is that it works for me and I hope you can get something out of it.

I should add that thinking this way has also given me back personal accountability for the way that I feel and my actions. It allows me to own up and take responsibility for myself again!