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10 Self-Care Suggestions for Between Bipolar Episodes

(This entry blows my usual 200 word limit out of the water, but because it's a listicle, I think it works best as one post.)

If you spend much time at all in bipolar groups, you’ll eventually hear someone say “Bipolar is a fulltime job,” and then a bunch of people will nod their heads. 

This might not be true for everyone. I guess some people can get their meds sorted and be on their way. But for the rest of us, we have to deeply invest in self-care. And it can absolutely take up 8 hours a day or more.

What do I mean by self-care for bipolar? Well, there’s self-care between episodes, to help minimize their occurrence, and there’s self-care during episodes, to help minimize the damage they create.

I'm gonna start with preventative self-care. Here are 10 self-care suggestions that I’ve found helpful.

 

#1 Establish a routine and stick to it. 

Include

-          sleep

-          medication

-          hygiene

-          nutritious food

-          exercise

-          and some type of mindfulness practice

So far, this looks like a normal self-care list. The difference is most people aren’t at risk of their brains short-circuiting if they fall off the wagon for a few days. Also, this routine will become essential when we talk about self-care during episodes. Set it up when you’re feeling alright, and it will help you get through when you aren’t.

 

#2 Maintain a support system

This includes psychiatric visits, therapy, support groups, and nurturing the personal relationships that are essential to our wellbeing.

 

#3 Play

Do something you enjoy every day, even if some days you enjoy it less. It’s easy to get into the mindset that we don’t deserve to have fun, but that’s bullshit. Play, laugh, create, appreciate!

 

#4 Keep track

I’m not talking about journaling, as helpful as that can be. I’m just talking about keeping track of up days and down days. I use a wall calendar. There are apps you can use, too. (But I'm shooting for less phone time, not more.) Keeping track is important as fuck when it comes to being able to tell when things are stable and when they’re shifting.

 

#5 Don’t take on too much

Stress is a universal trigger. It’s essential to keep our workload and emotional load in a place that gives us wiggle room. Don’t fill yourself up to your borders. And if we take on too much in a hypomanic state, it’s okay to say, “I thought I could do this, but I was wrong.”

 

#6 Don’t completely empty your plate

Connection is important. Quitting everything might feel really good in the moment—relief!—but in the long run, it can lead to isolation.

 

#7 Communicate

It’s important to tell the people we’re close to what’s going on. Just a heads up is all it takes. And don’t be stingy with apologies. With bipolar, bad decisions are going to happen. The quicker we can recognize, acknowledge, and correct for them, the better.

 

#8 No jerks

One negative, shitty-feeling interaction can be enough to trigger depression, paranoia, self-loathing. Having bipolar is isolating, so choosing to block or step away from a person, even if they’re a dick, can seem counterintuitive and be just plain hard to do. But I’ve found a strict “no assholes” policy very helpful.

 

#9 Get a pet (if you can)

Brains love pets, and they can help us maintain a routine. Plus pets give us affection, oxytocin, and another reason not to kill ourselves.

 

#10 Accept yourself and your bipolar

Ahahaha! This one is so hard and has to be practiced on the best of days. No one plans to have bipolar, and no one plans to be derailed by it over and over again. But once we overcome the denial stage (because 98% of the time there will be a denial stage after receiving this diagnosis), next comes the “oh shit, this is the rest of my life” stage. And it’s a doozy. The suggestions in this list and others like it can ease the impact bipolar has on our lives, but we will never be able to make it go away. Just like episodes can be lessened with meds and behavioral changes, the disappointment, shame, regret, anger, and fear can be attenuated with acceptance.

 

There you go, 10 ways to practice self-care between episodes. But what about when we’re in them? First, self-care for hypomania, then depression.



 

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