Learning to LIVE WITH a long term serious mental illness like Bipolar was a shift I had to learn to be comfortable with
I started out by saying things to myself like “I’ll have some therapy and get fixed” “I can beat this” “I won’t let this beat me” and in the early days it needed to be this way to get me through and stay alive
After some time the result of this is I battled and battled and battled and got fatigued often
Accepting that I had to LIVE WITH Bipolar and learn to cohabit with and RESPECT my diagnosis has not been easy and has certainly come in layers of accepting as opposed to an over night thing
I had to accept that my life HAD to change, some things I just couldn’t do anymore and that caused resentment, feelings of entitlement, rebelling against myself and ultimately I just made my mental health worse leaving me more vulnerable to becoming mentally unwell again, over and over again
I had to GET TO WORK! Unpicking my past, getting help, ASKING for help and learning how to deal with my most uncomfortable feelings, the ones I would always try to brush over, the ones I wanted to pretend didn’t exist
It’s only when I really stepped in to this and allowed myself to grieve, feel, realise the true extent of my anger, resentment and hurt that I could start to emerge in to being more accepting with a different mindset
I CAN live a good life AND accept everything that comes with that. This means LOVING myself through the tough stuff, allowing myself to rest without guilt, showing all of my emotions unapologetically
I realised that every day I was trying to beat my illness I was trying to deny parts of it and in this I wasn’t allowing myself to process my reality. I was always looking for how things should be... this didn’t help me as a long term sustainable route to living the best life whilst also befriending Bipolar ❤️
Contact me for details on 1:1 Mentoring and Bipolar Support groups
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