Thursday, July 10, 2008

Helping yourself

Most people don't understand what bipolar is or what having it means. The people who do are generally the people who have it or a family member of someone who does. They are the people who care the most. Having bipolar disorder is a challenge, especially for teenagers. The teen years are hard enough without problems, and then when you add in things like bipolar disorder, social anxiety, and depression it becomes an even harder challenge. Bipolar disorder affects people differently. Two people with bipolar disorder can have completely different symptoms and some are more severe than others. For example, both me and my brother have bipolar disorder, but it affects us differently. Some things that don't bother me set him off, and vice versa. I have more anxiety problems than him, and he has more irritation problems than me. Everyone is different, but learning and understanding what bipolar disorder is and how it affects you personally is a good way to understand what you can do to help yourself. If you know what bothers you and sets you off then you can try to find a way to deal with it. For example, when I'm upset over something I listen to music to help me calm down. If you have social anxiety, or don't do well in large groups of people you might find that leaving the room and finding a quiet place to wind down will help you deal. Or if you tend to get angry a lot maybe what works for you is to stop and count to ten, or go do something else entirely. Everyone reacts to things differently the key is to find out what helps you personally.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Begining blog

This is my first blog so it might be a little rough, but just bear with me. I want to start this blog so i can put my voice out there, whether it gets heard or not. I'm not completely sure where this blog will go or even if anyone will read it, but it's as much for me as it is for others. I have one bipolar sibling and a bipolar father so i know firsthand that it can be rough not only for yourself, but for others around you also. I think that talking about your problems and hearing that others are going through the same thing is important. When i first heard i had bipolar disorder, and understood what it meant i felt completely alone. Even though i had others there to support me i still felt like nobody understood what i was going through. And not everyone did, but it helped tremendously when i knew that there were others out there going through the same problems and that i wasn't the only one in the world to have bipolar disorder. I want others to hear and know that too. I strongly believe that everyone suffering from bipolar should learn everything they can about there disorder, and educate themselves on there options. So I'll try to put pieces of info. that i think would be helpful and interesting to others in later blogs. I want to hear what others think also so feel free to leave a comment about anything you feel is important. Gotta go now, but I'll try to blog more at a later date, and hopefully get the hang of this.