[seoultous]

Do you blame yourself for relapsing? I know and believe BP is a brain disease but when I get depressed I feel that there must have been something I could have done differently to prevent myself from getting depressed. If I ate better, exercised more or slept regularly, maybe I would not get sick again. Does anyone else feel similarly?

I am on meds and I take them ALL as prescribed so I can't or don't blame it on the meds.

[Tryingtobehappy5]

I completely blame myself but i have more of a reason to. I quit my meds and drink a lot sometimes so it is definitely my fault.

If you are taking your meds and they arent working that is far from your fault hope it gets better soon

[Wander]

Most of the time I use a mix of blaming the illness, and blaming myself. However, if I really have been doing all the right things and still have an episode I blame the illness alone. However, what I use to blame myself can be petty and rejected as a cause by my pdoc. Things like I had a week where I didn’t exercise like usual. We can definitely trigger our episodes with significant negative behavioural changes though. That is when I blame myself. Still if we didn’t have Bipolar there would be nothing to trigger.

[sarahsweets]

What do you mean by relapsing? I look at BP as either active or being in remission. To me, relapsing is like self blame and I do not think you need to blame yourself, nor do you deserve it.

[FriendlyJoe]

Is this for bipolar 2 or 3 people? I have no idea what relapses or remission of BP is or even possible.

[Pookyl]

I’ve only blamed myself once. Two years ago I drank myself stupid. It triggered the worst sui episode I’ve ever had. I ended up in hospital and have never touched alcohol again.

Sometimes I have. Other times my episodes came on beyond my control from either triggers I had no control over (I can't change seasons, stress, medication issues) or seemingly nothing.

[sarahsweets]

Originally Posted by FriendlyJoe

Is this for bipolar 2 or 3 people? I have no idea what relapses or remission of BP is or even possible.

Some people like myself like to say that their bipolar ( or other mental illness) is in remission when stable on the right meds, going to therapy. etc. I was asking about the relapse part because I am not sure what that refers to.

[wildflowerchild25]

I blame myself as well, especially if I’ve had a long period of stability and then slip back into depression. I always think there must have been something I could have been doing to help myself more. Even though sometimes there just isn’t. Sometimes it’s just my brain. But I always think I should have tried harder to avoid depression.

[~Christina]

I can be rolling along stable and bipolar just reaches up and slaps me hard. No I do not blame myself.

A few times I have fiddled with my Meds and drop my coping skills out of anger and well that never ends well. So that one I blame myself for.

[seoultous]

Thank you everyone for the insight. I was symptomatic for a few weeks (doing fine now) and I just started thinking about the course of this disease and if I was doing as much as I could to avoid depression.