I realize I need to recognize the real me who has bipolar disorder and not the idealized me that, theoretically, does not. What I need to recognize, to deal with, is the me of today and not the me before bipolar disorder or the me of five years ago. Things change. I have changed dramatically and what I’m capable of has changed too. I need to recognize this in everyday life. I need to work with the current, real, bipolar me and not the me I wish I were.
What Is the Idealized Version of Me?
We all have an idealized person of ourselves. My idealized me works eight hours a day, exercises three times a week, eats healthy food and doesn’t have bipolar episodes. You probably realize this isn’t reasonable. Our idealized selves often aren’t even reasonable on a consistent basis for those without bipolar disorder, let alone for someone with. But we all have this idealized version of ourselves in our minds anyway.
What Is the Real, Bipolar Me?
The real, bipolar me is the me that exists today and not the me that I wish existed. It’s the me that has way too many bipolar episodes. It’s the me who despises exercise. It’s the me that eats too much ice cream. It’s the me that can’t work eight hours a day. It is the wildly imperfect me that I really have to deal with.
Recognizing the Real, Bipolar Me
This means that I need to accept the limitations of the real me with bipolar disorder, living the life I live today. I can’t pretend I’m a normal, average person. I can’t pretend I’m the person I was 10 years ago. I can’t pretend that just because I want something, I can have it.
I used to be the kind of person that would never shy away from a challenge. Whatever you put in front of me, I would conquer. (Well, except, say, exercising. I never did that.) I was a person who believed in going with the flow and just taking advantages as they came along – no real planning needed.
But I can’t do that anymore. I can’t just take an opportunity because it presents itself. I have to consider whether the opportunity truly fits into my life and whether I can truly do it thanks to my current experience of bipolar disorder. While my reflex action is just to take more and more and more on, I can’t do that if I want any degree of wellness.
Recognizing the Real, Bipolar Me in the Workplace
This video talks about how I had to recognize my own limitations thanks to bipolar disorder and turn down a recent opportunity.
So no matter what is in front of me, I need to break it into pieces I can actually eat and pass over the things that I just can’t. This is extremely hard for me. I hate it. I want to be the person I used to be. I want to be stronger. I want to be more resilient.
But I’m not.
I have to admit it to myself before I can engage in a lifestyle that actually encourages my wellness. And I have to not judge myself for it. I’m not like everyone else. And that’s something I must recognize and must take into account every day.
(Thanks to brilliant writer Julie Fast for starting a conversation about something similar.)
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I appreciate this forum. Looking forward to sharing soon.
Hi Tracy, thank you for the reminder. My life slowly deteriorated over the last 10 years, as I slowly but surely went from full time national management work, to working part time, to now on a disability pension. Within myself I feel, not shame, but resentment. Because I know the real me is capable of so much more than who I am with bipolar. What I am capable of and what I am able to do is the key.
What I am capable of is not sustainable, hence I have to learn and remind myself that I have an illness that constantly changes what I am able to do. It does impact the way you feel about yourself, and there is a huge stigma attached when others see you, think very little is wrong, if anything, and wonder if you are just slack or an under achiever. This stigma adds to the battle you have to fight within yourself, and more importantly listen to.
I have tried several times to live beyond what I am now able to do. And each time I have learned the hard way that when I fall, when the bipolar hits, not only does it hit hard, but it in turn inevitably shrinks what I am able to do. Its like each time you have an episode a little more of your abilities dies with you. I think this has been proven via brain mapping, but guess what, I can’t remember. Fancy having bipolar and not being able to remember.
In the end, I totally agree with you. There is no point ignoring what you are able to do. You live with bipolar and it places limitations on what you can cope with. As you age I am 100% sure that what you are able to do shrinks. You still put up a fight, you never give in, but you do have to recognize when that fight is killing you and making your bipolar worse. The key then is changing your circumstances so as to improve the stability of your bipolar which in turn improves your quality of life.
It’s a bitter pill to swallow, because even we at times treat ourselves as normal. We carry a broken leg or broken arm with us each day of our lives, and we need to remember that when we start beating ourselves up because of it.
For the first decade after I was disabled, I kept thinking I was going to get better and go back to the old me, who worked 3 jobs at a time and lived for nothing else. Well, I got worse mentally. I was miserable. I hadn’t finished college, I couldn’t even hold a part-time job, I gained 50 pounds, and I still kept pushing myself to do things and be “normal”. Every time, it ended up with me in a bipolar episode, feeling like a failure. I didn’t just one day decide to accept the bipolar “me”. It came on gradually. I think some of it was due to having children with the same sorts of problems, so I focused on them instead of myself. Some of it was that I ended up with rheumatoid arthritis, which further hindered me from going back to my old life. But I now accept…first, I will never work again. My doctor, husband, and my therapist have all told me, it’s over. I’m not working again. That was the most difficult hurdle. The other hurdle is that I will never be skinny again (I am on a med for bulimia.) I really need to work on that one, I cannot stand having these pounds on me. But people tell me all the time that they admire my abilities as an advocate, a gardener, a mother of children with special needs. And I, over the years, have finally understood that my path was doing those things. I do not believe in a god, and I don’t believe things happen for a reason. I am a tad jealous of people of faith…I will never have that and I think it makes it a bit easier if you can say there is a path all laid out for you if you can find it. However, I do believe that we have a choice…to be happy with what we have, or to be miserable with what we don’t have, and I chose to be happy.
Take heart. I was living a life like yours for more than a decade. Three years ago I decided I did not want to die young, obese and friendless. I found a new psychiatrist. I adjusted my meds. I had gastric sleeve surgery and lost over 100 pounds. I started dressing better.
Today, I still cry sometimes for no reason, and I still have anxiety, but I look and feel so much better. I lost a management job in 2011. I have found other work, albeit at a reduced salary. I still have trouble getting out of bed some days – but I do. I face my fears and go to work and I feel better for it.
Watching & Hearing you share this helps me to relax & accept myself & my limitations a little bit better. I’ve had bipolar1 for decades and have been at the “therapeutic lithium level” for 2 years. I use to teach full time and now I substitute teach 3 days a week. I love your writing, thank you.
Cindy, have you considered contract work? Or project-based work? Or telecommuting? In some of these you’d be self employed and set your own hours. The great thing about project-based work is that there is a project with a timeline. You can work on the project any time you feel like it — for fifteen minutes here, several hours there, in the middle of the night — I think the “killer jobs” are the ones where someone owns your TIME. Tells you when to work, how many hours at a time, and how to do the job. The types of work I mentioned, the end result is what matters, not “how” you do it. Not how long or how short it takes you to do the project job. For me, some form of self-employment was ideal, and I was very successful at it, with the exception that my stamina was so limited that I did not make a lot of money. But I paid my share of the household expenses when I was married. I could not have supported myself if I’d been single. Also, that was decades ago, and health insurance was very inexpensive, and I paid for it out of my earnings. Another thing here — have you contacted the Department of Vocational Rehabilitation? If you get a good worker, they will take you to worksites and let you see if you would like to work there. One woman I know was actually given jobs to try out — she got paid, and the worker and the employer would work with her to figure out if the particular type of work was suitable and pleasant for her.
Hi everyone,this is such a great topic,think we can all relate to.
I wanted to graduate from uni with my PHD have a cute & sensitive boyfriend,of course be skinny…
Live in a great apartment,get some classy buyers job for Cartier or other upper end designer
& live in the U.K.
Buy another Yorkie dog as well oh minute detail no BP!!!!
Almost a dream……so unrealistic.
My reality couldn’t be farther from that.
I never got to uni though I was accepted.
I fell apart w a nervous breakdown……….I was scared & my illness intensified it.
As far as bfs go unlucky that way,made the decision to stay solo.
I do have a gorge cat who takes wonderful care of me / ditto.
Not near skinny,but part is it’s bloody cold snowy for months you do get hungrier
Plus the meds so it’s not just meds.
I’d suggest that to anyone living in cold climate ….don’t completely blame yourself or meds
Also those raw temps making you so hungry.
That’s normal,so though I hate my current look” I realize by spring I’ll lose weight as I never eat as much
& more fresh fruit/ veggies way cheaperi
I buy dried fruit big bags as fresh fruit I like costs more don’t like apples……
I need naps too,b/c of my pain,too.
I feel I’ve no life as it’s so quiet compared to what it used to be like
But mania is ( mine) tamed more so by living a quiet life.
Taking your meds on a schedule ( really helps me out)
I try & meditate but I’ve not got the hang of it yet……..
I love hot bubble baths for pain / chill out purposes.
I guess morale is you were made one way.
You can fight it all you bloody well want too …..but in the end you must accept your limitations.
I’m not saying it’s an easy ride.
It took me yrs fighting & not really accepting myself as I am now”
But I ask you ,
What choice do you have?
Accept.
Things will not be perfect.
But they will become slowly easier.
Be well.
Sandra,
From Bipolar Cyberspace.
It took a long time for me to fully accept that I can’t go back to my old self, which initially led to feeling defeated and resigned to things not changing for the better. I’m beginning to understand that just because I can’t “be her”, doesn’t mean I can’t still improve the quality of my life, that change is possible…one small thing at a time.
I grieved my “old self” pre-disability for a long time. Actually, I still do, but I have progressed in my acceptance of my limitations, but at the same time I make sure I also recognize what I CAN do, as well.
When I’m currently in the worst places of our disorder it sometimes does seem like my productivity and general abilities are forever gone, but that is not the case. Time heals, but at the same time, effort and desire is needed to make progress forward. One should not just be resigned to a lousy situation. Maybe I won’t be able to work a 40 hours per week job again, but I can certainly eventually do more than at my worst. Part of the challenge and necessity is to do your best, and be happy with where you’re at. Any desires to move forward should be done in baby steps. It would be stupid for me (I can’t speak for others) to go from full disability to a 40 hour per week job. Just as Natasha said, I know that would be a recipe for disaster. My husband, therapist and I have also agreed that going back to my former line of work would be very unwise, even if they did allow me to do it part-time.
When I do start to earn money again, having full flexibility in work schedule would be ideal, but maybe not possible. I would have to find a situation that at least offered “enough” flexibility for me to function and hopefully maintain stability long-term.
Here’s a subject heading I added to the version of this, that I customized for my own personal situation: Appreciating the Things and People in My Life that I Have and Love NOW.
What Is the Good, Present Version of Me?
Paul I can so relate to what you’ve written!
And a question for Natasha about the contract job you spoke about in the short video above…so, what did you tell the recruiter? What reason did you give the recruiter for turning down the contract offer?
Hi Synergy,
I just told her it wasn’t the right time for me to take that type of contract due to pre-existing clientele.
– Natasha Tracy
For most of my life, my “idealised” self was my hypomanic self: talented, brilliant, undefeatable, handsome, sexy, fit, a leader and a genius. Whenever I was *not* that way, I assumed it was an “off” day (or week, or month . . . ) I really thought of myself that way for decades. The way I *really* am is, comparatively, a pretty big disappointment; I think recognising that has been the hardest part of my bipolar journey.
Another great topic and post! So in the midst of struggling with this very issue. How moving from being a workaholic to completely disabled is such a bitter pill. My doctor says I need to come to some acceptance. Part of me wants to and the other feels like I will get up one day and it will be time for me to go for it again. I hate when I put my hair and makeup on and people say you don’t look like you are disabled. Ugh ! I managed to accumulate multiple issues like many of us with bad including horrific fibromyalgia and osteoarthritis plus a migraine disorder. Ugh is this really life? Any way thanks Natasha and to all that have shared on this post.