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Oversleeping and Bipolar Disorder

I overslept last night. I think I woke up at my standard time this morning but then I, lazily and foolishly, turned over and went back to sleep. This seemed like a good idea in the moment, as I love sleep, but in the long run, my experience says that oversleeping with bipolar disorder is bad, bad, bad.

I got up and got into my bipolar routine as per the usual. Then, I was watching TV while eating breakfast and something a little sad happened on the show. An animal was hurt and killed. And I hate it when animals are hurt. Humans, somehow, you get used to seeing die on TV but innocent animals are so much harder for me to take. It might just be me.

But this sent into production a stream of tears and even sobbing. I was in such pain because of this tiny, make believe thing. And I know it’s the bipolar, the bipolar depression, specifically, rearing its ugly head. And I know it’s because I overslept. And, naturally, I feel like an absolute imbecile for letting it happen.

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Most Popular Bipolar/Mental Illness Blog Articles of 2014

Last month I did a round-up of dealing-with-holiday-related articles for you and now I’d like to list the most popular bipolar/mental illness articles of 2014 here at the Bipolar Burble.

This list is always an interesting one for me because it tells me what you, my readers, care about. In general, you care about a lot of what I can about but sometimes you surprise me with exactly how much you care about a given subject (and by what doesn’t show up on the list).

The Top 10 Popular Bipolar Posts of 2014

10. Bipolar Treatment Fatigue — We start the bipolar post top 10 list with a term I invented. “Treatment fatigue” is a concept that is widely felt but underrecognized. It’s when you can’t bear undergoing any more treatments because you’ve just lost faith in bipolar treatments altogether or are tied of the side effects or are exhausted with your doctor or, or, or. I would argue that while these feelings are real, we need to fight bipolar treatment fatigue in order to get better.

9. Accountability for Your Actions with Bipolar — I’m a big believer in accountability and I’m a big believer in not saying, “the bipolar made me do it.” Sometimes, bipolar does strongly influence our behavior and sometimes we truly aren’t accountable for it, but most of the time this just isn’t true.

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Feeling Like a Failure When You Fight Bipolar and Lose

Every day I fight bipolar disorder. I have to because every day my bipolar disorder requires fighting. Every day, bipolar disorder is at the forefront of my mind. Every day, I have to do all the things that are required to improve (or at least maintain) my mental health. Every day, I have to fight the bipolar depression that makes me exhausted and upset. Every day, I have to focus on medication and schedules and sleep. Every day, every day, every day.

And my reward for all of these fighting and fighting and fighting of the bipolar disorder? If I’m lucky, it’s the reward of not being sick. If I’m lucky, my reward is feeling like one of the normals for one day – a way that other people feel without putting any work into it at all.

And if I’m not lucky? My reward is just another day with illness, with me expending hopeless amounts of energy in a seemingly-impossible fight to stay alive.

Yay me.

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Pressure and the Limited Time, Resources of One with Bipolar

My bipolar is making me feel like hell. But then, there are so few days that I don’t. And now it’s particularly bad because my body won’t seem to regulate its sleep properly. I’m having trouble getting to sleep and then I’m waking up too late. (Yes, an alarm would fix the too late part but then I’d be even more tired than I already am.)

Did I ever mention that I hate bipolar disorder?

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Additional Writings

Check out my Amazon Author Page.

I write a three-time Web Health Award winning column for HealthyPlace called Breaking Bipolar.

Also, find my writings on The Huffington Post and my work for BPHope (BP Magazine).

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