11 ways to cope with bipolar disorder

Hey Everyone Ali Mattu here and I am with my friend Tristan Miller. Tristan welcome back. We just did an episode about the top myths about bipolar disorder and I wanted to invite you back here to do an episode about how to cope with bipolar disorder. Sure yeah that makes sense. The first one is sobriety and this is one that I know a lot of people who have bipolar disorder myself included have struggled with. I've been about two years sober which is and I've been happier and healthier for it. And it was a real pain to start. Yeah but it is one of those things that like when you're putting alcohol and specifically if you're putting street drugs in your system to try and self medicate it's a it's not so good. It's just like you're just going to exacerbate every pre existing condition that you have. And so that's if you're not sober. That's where I would start. For a lot of people when they're moving faster. Yeah they might want to slow down and they might use drugs for that. Or when they're down or slower they might want to move fast. It's like trying to do that stuff yourself. Yeah. The other thing I want to add to that is gambling. A lot of people might not think about that when you are putting your emotions in the hands of chance yeah which is what happens when you gamble when you have bipolar disorder. It is. It is a really risky thing. That makes sense. And for me I know when I was heavily drinking it was I just wanted consistency and I knew like I was going to feel terrible in the morning but at least I knew how I was going to feel. You had to control. Yeah. Number one no one has control you have to accept that yeah we're all the chaos total chaos chaos theory. You can get that with professional help. You can also. Which is the second thing I have with you. Go find a therapist find a therapist that specializes in bipolar disorder if you can and really decide to work with that person for your betterment. That brings me to my first one which is understand the pattern of your bipolar disorder. Really understand it inside and out. What are the kind of things that might make you more vulnerable to going fast to getting to hypomania or a manic episode. What are things that might make you more vulnerable for depression. Sleep is a big one that a lot of people I work with discover. So the more you know your own pattern of bipolar the more you can set yourself up for success and also deal with unexpected problems when they come up. One of the ones that I have is maintaining a consistent sleep schedule also know how your symptoms manifest themselves. Yes! Know like oh I'm doing this that means I'm anxious if I'm anxious that might mean I'm up. Yes. And you just got to do checks and balances. Totally. All the time. Sometimes people like like to write things down in a notebook and maybe there's an app you like. Find whatever way of figuring that stuff out works for you and then keep at it. There's a bunch of really good mood chart apps. There's one I can't remember the name of it but if you just look at bipolar disorder mood chart you can just get the kind of stuff. The next one I have is telling your friends like you have building a community which is kinda the same thing. Spoilers Tristan! I'm sorry but hey hey it's cool it's spoilers for mental health. Making sure that your friends know what's going on with you and communicating. Maria Bamford talks about like if I'm talking so much and have a really great a bunch of really good ideas call the purple van because I got to go to doggy daycare. So like just so you know so you're aware and that's actually how she caught her the fact that she was she has bipolar disorder because she had a hypomanic episode for the first time. And so her friends were like "Hey you're not doing well. You should see somebody." Sometimes you just want to talk to someone and not have to explain what it feels like. Yeah. So that might mean like a support group or that might mean connecting with NAMI and finding other folks who also have bipolar disorder and these people you don't have to like like explain what it is and all that and they get it. So I think knowing who is helpful for what kind of thing. Yeah it's super helpful like who's a good late night person to reach out to for help. Who's a great person who's going to help you get off the couch when you're feeling more depressed and you need someone to just push you to going outside. Another really great thing is that resources online there's a bunch of online communities. Oh totally message boards and like Twitter and it has ups and downs for me regarding mental health. Oh yeah. But one of the nice things about it is there are a lot of people who are open about their illness. There are some great YouTubers there's some great Sub Sub Reddit. Sub Reddit groups? Just subreddits I think. See this is what separates the older millenial from the younger millenial. The next one I have is meditation actually. And that's really helped me at a few points. If you can afford it headspace is a great app and it was really great and really soothing to get relaxed and then also the whole kind of point of meditation is just to accept. I think I couldn't Stephen Fry last time like he says the moods are like the weather just because there's clouds doesn't mean there's going to be clouds forever. Totally and you can just accept it totally. My next one is I can't remember oh this is my favorite one okay. Yeah. I'm very excited to share this consume awesome stories. Yes that is super important to find stories about bipolar disorder like memoirs. My favorite is Marbles by Ellen Forney. It's a graphic memoir. You haven't read it? I haven't but I've heard of it and I want to talk to her. She's amazing and she just came out with a sequel which is called Rock Steady which is like a it's a book about how to cope with bipolar disorder. It's amazing. And then I talked last time about Next to Normal Broadway show. You mentioned Maria Bamford there's Kay Redford Jamison's An Unquiet Mind. There are so many books that will give you hope will make you feel less alone will help you to better understand it to contextualize it. Stephen Fry's documentary The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive I've not seen that I've seen it five times maybe more. It's really good and it's really succinct. One other reason it's important to find a story that really resonates with you is so you can give that story to someone else. Yes. Like a friend someone you're dating a family member to say read this. Watch this. Listen to this. This is what I'm going through. Yeah even like music it's really great. Totally like anything from Nirvana kind of like. To be honest some music will pull you down and some music will lift you up. And so it's also about knowing what music captures the experience so you can share it to other people. And also knowing what music helps you when you're going too fast. Yep. And what music will help you when you going to slow. Absolutely. And the next one I have is writing you should create things for you and you should create things for other people yeah share. So a journal might be just for you and you're just going. This is how I feel or might be an application and you might write notes in the application or you might start a blog and go "this is what I'm going through seeing what's going on with me" or you might start a podcast or 5 or do stand up which is what I do which is my other thing is like that's how a lot of the ways how I cope have one more and it's schmaltzy like I like schmaltzy and I do like schmaltz too. I miss the 90s. I love it. I love the 90s I'm a 90s kid. I miss I miss sincerity. But it is love and it is the biggest coping mechanism is learning to love others and learning to love yourself and like you said. Learning to love people stories and seeing what they've gone through and just sharing because specifically I think we mentioned in the last episode. Bipolar people are very sensitive and I think they have a lot of love to give and I think you tap into that and you let yourself experience that and let it show. And don't get so wrapped up with everything that might be bad that's going on and you let yourself love yourself and love the people around you and your community and give back and empathize. I think that's the most helpful thing to cope with life let alone illness. That's a great place for us to tie this up. What are your favorite ways to cope with bipolar depression. Let us know in the comments below. Where can people go to check out more of your work? I have a website TristanJMiller.com has all my information there. I do a podcast called positive and negative that talks about mental health and the arts. And then I have a YouTube channel which here here here where? Probably they're probably here. Yeah. All the links will be in the doo ba de doo below. And thanks so much for being on my friend thank you for having me. This was a blast and a half.

Channel: Doctor Ali Mattu

Views: 83,263

Keywords: psychology, ali mattu, the psych show, bipolar disorder, mental health, bipolar disorder (disease or medical condition), bipolar depression, mental illness, manic depression, bipolar help, bipolar depression help, bipolar tools, bipolar coping skills, managing bipolar disorder, strategies to manage a bipolar disorder, self-help techniques for bipolar disorder, help with bipolar disorder, bipolar disorder help, bipolar disorder treatment, bipolar tips, bipolar disorder tips

Id: llOPqKD-s4w

Length: 9min 35sec (575 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 31 2018