The Upside of Bipolar: Conversations on the Road to Wellness
Living with bipolar disorder sucks! Each week Michelle Reittinger and her guests explore tools and resources that help you learn how to live well with your bipolar. If you are tired of suffering and want to live a healthy, balanced, productive life with your bipolar, this podcast was designed with you in mind.
The Upside of Bipolar: Conversations on the Road to Wellness
EP 77: Choose Healing Over Victimhood: Reframing Bipolar Symptoms
I challenge the idea that a bipolar label defines a life and show how reframing symptoms creates room for choice, tools, and repair. I share a practical survival guide, language shifts, and boundary skills that turn chaos into traction.
• labels built on symptom clusters create helplessness
• medication roulette, side effects, and why talk therapy often stalls
• rage and dissociation explained as fight or flight
• family strain, codependency, and children’s regulation needs
• choose responsibility after crisis and hospitalizations
• build a response team with clear roles and limits
• design early warning systems to spot triggers
• power priorities and daily reboot practices
• use precise language: symptoms as information
• become a detective of your story and sources
• set healthy boundaries to protect trust and repair relationships
• choose your hard and commit to sustained change
If you're ready to heal and you want to know more about the Upsiders' Tribe make sure you send me an email, linked down below, and you can set up a 30-minute complimentary Zoom where we can talk about your specific situation, and we can determine if the Upsiders' Tribe is a good fit for you.
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website: https://theupsideofbipolar.com/
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We have been convinced in our society by the psychiatric industry that anxiety is not a fight or flight response. Anxiety is a disorder. The brain's normal reaction to not getting adequate nutrition, it is a disorder. Bipolar is not the result of trauma and micronutrient insufficiency. It's a disorder. So when we experience these symptoms, we don't recognize them as clues. We don't recognize them as information. We just think they are indications that our brains are broken and they need drugs to fix them. Welcome to the Upside of Bipolar, where we uncover the true sources of bipolar symptoms and share proven tools for recovery. I'm your host, Michelle Reitinger, number one international best-selling author of the Upside of Bipolar Seven Steps to Heal Your Disorder. In this podcast, I bring you solo insights from my journey and guest interviews with leading researchers and experts. Join us to transform chaos into hope and reclaim your life. Let's heal together. And I'm doing another solo episode today because there is a topic that keeps coming up on social media, in my group, in other forums, and so I thought we needed to talk about it today. And that topic is how important it is for us to choose to stop being a victim to our diagnosis. In a previous episode, I talked about how harmful the bipolar diagnosis actually is because it does not actually give us an answer to why we're experiencing the symptoms because a bipolar diagnosis is not based on an underlying etiology or an underlying disease. It is solely based on the symptoms. When this diagnosis was created in the first place, they did not identify an underlying etiology. They did not identify an underlying disease mechanism. They just created a diagnosis based solely on a cluster of symptoms for the purpose of medicating. It was for the purpose of doctors to know which psychiatric drugs they were going to give to their patients. And it's a very subjective diagnosis as well, because the symptoms are self-reported and interpreted by the individual psychiatrist. And I've seen interesting documentaries that have shown people going into various psychiatrists with vague symptoms and getting diagnosed with different things based on the psychiatrist observation and discernment. So there is no underlying etiology or disease being identified by the bipolar diagnosis. However, what it does is it actually makes people feel like they don't have any control over the symptoms they're experiencing. And that feels valid because for me, when I was going through the symptoms that led up to my diagnosis, I didn't feel like I had control over what was going on. I felt very helpless and I felt very confused about why I was experiencing these symptoms. I kept trying to fix myself. I was buying self-help books. I kept trying to give myself a new schedule. I kept trying all these things to try and fix what was going on with me. And I didn't understand why I couldn't just exercise more self-control and fix myself. And so when I went into the doctor for the diagnosis and received the bipolar diagnosis, I felt like I'd been given an explanation. And I talk about this in a previous episode. I'll link that in the show notes. So I'm not going to belabor that point today, but I want to talk about what happens when somebody is diagnosed with bipolar and begins to feel like a victim. You feel helpless, you feel like you don't have any control. And so people start to give up. They start to feel like I can't help this. I can't, it's just part of who I am. And it's one of the reasons why we end up with so many people, you know, advocating for awareness and normalizing. And, you know, there's a lot of advocacy online to try and get people to accept people who are struggling with bipolar symptoms as they are. Because, you know, based on what we're told about bipolar diagnosis, we can't help ourselves. It's just the way we are. We have a disease that we don't have any control over, a disorder we don't have any control over. It creates victims in the people diagnosed, and it creates victims in the people who love them and who are close to them because they suffer right along with the person who's struggling with the symptoms. So it's really important for us to understand that the diagnosis itself is creating a victim, turning you into a victim. And I'm going to talk a little bit about my story just to make sure that that is what I'm talking about is clear. So I talked, you know, I mentioned when I went to the doctor initially and I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and I thought I had been given an answer. And so I started to depend on number one, the medication, because the symptoms that I was experiencing, I was told were a chemical imbalance that I didn't have any control over it. My brain chemistry was messed up, and the medication was supposed to fix that. So I became very dependent on the medication and I went very proactively to the doctor on a regular basis. I took every medication I was given, and that turned me into a victim because when the medication wouldn't work, I felt helpless. I felt discouraged. I felt frustrated. And the medications also introduced all kinds of new problems for me because I ended up with a bunch of new side effects. The first serious side effect that I experienced was mania, because when I was initially diagnosed, I was first diagnosed with depression and anxiety, and they put me in an antidepressant and it ramped me up into mania. So that was the first quote-unquote side effect. And I am putting that in scare quotes because Professor Joanna Moncrief says we talk about them as if they're side effects, as if they are incidental to the action of the drug, when in fact that is what the drug is doing. About 60% of the people who are diagnosed with bipolar disorder were first treated for depression using antidepressants. And that's another squot saying antidepressant, because that's just a marketing name to make people think that it is an anti-something, that it's antidepressant. But the antidepressant, one of the drug action, one of the actual effects of the drug is to cause mania. Antidepressants can cause mania. It is not incidental to the drug, to, to the drug action. It is what the drug does. And instead of acknowledging that the antidepressant actually causes mania, you will be told, this is what I was told, and I've heard lots of other people that were told the same thing, that it actually revealed you were misdiagnosed and that what you actually have is bipolar. And so then my diagnosis was changed to bipolar too, and I was put on lithium, was the first, the first mood stabilizer mood stabilizer I was put on. And that caused psychosis for me. I had a psychotic episode on the lithium. And I've also had people say, well, you must not have been bipolar because lithium worked for me. It is like playing Russian roulette with medication. They don't fully understand what these drugs do in the brain or what the what is causing the symptoms in the first place. And so it's it's like a crapsuit. It's, you know, they're they are playing guess and check with these medications. They're gonna put one, put you on one. And I've heard people on out online say it's just part of the process. It might take 10 years to find the right medications. What a joke! Like that is so ridiculous. If these medications were really treating an underlying condition, if they are really treating a chemical imbalance, if they were really like diabetes and the medication like insulin, then it there would be a standard protocol for treating the underlying disease mechanism. But that's not the case. And so I was dependent on the medications that were not working. And so the side effects be, you know, made me feel helpless. The symptoms that I was still experiencing made me feel helpless. And I was burning down my life around me on a regular basis, and I didn't feel like I had any control over it. And it made me feel terrible about myself. I kept trying to fix myself. I kept, you know, I was taking all the medications doctors were taking, telling me to take, and nothing was working. The other thing that I was dependent on were going to therapists. And that was not. I hated therapy for the first like 10 years after my diagnosis because therapy did not help me. Therapy actually made things worse for me in a lot of ways because about 85% of therapy is just talk therapy. And if you constantly focus on your problems, they start to feel bigger. They start to feel more intense. You start to feel more like a victim, more helpless, more like things are happening to you that you have no control over. And the problems feel bigger and they become bigger in your mind. And I, that's one of the reasons why I hated therapy. I I would go to therapy really consistently whenever my doctors told me to do it. And each time I did it, I remember multiple occasions going and talking to the therapist for 45 minutes about the things I was struggling with. And then, you know, they would, they would give me feedback and and make made me make me feel heard. And then I would leave the session feeling more depressed than when I went in the first place, more discouraged, more frustrated. The things that I was really struggling with, I needed help with. And the tools and the resources that they would suggest to me weren't helpful. I've talked before about one of the most distressing symptoms that I experienced, which has been termed bipolar rage. And I would experience what I now understand is called dissociation. When I would experience triggers for this anger, this rage, I it was, I was on a hair trigger. And the second something happened, and I never even, I didn't always know what was going to trigger it. But the second it happened, I was, I, I was in a rage and I had no control over what was going on anymore. And I felt like I was watching myself do it. And part of me, there's a tiny part of my brain that was like, Stop! Like, don't do this again. But I didn't have control anymore. I was down in the lower part of my brain, I was in fight or flight, and I was, you know, out of control with this anger. And then when it was over, I would feel tremendous shame. So I'd go to the therapist and I would ask for help. And they would tell me things like, take a time out, or count to 10. And I it was so frustrating. Every time I would have a therapist say things like that to me because I kept trying to help them understand, you don't understand. There isn't time between the stimulus and the response to make a decision. There wasn't time for me to think about what was happening or to recognize I was getting angry. It wasn't like that. It wasn't escalating into anger. It was, I turned on a dime. Like the second the trigger happened, I was filled with rage and anger. And I was getting more and more discouraged because the things that I was supposed to be using to help me cope with and manage these symptoms that I had no control over because they were a chemical imbalance weren't helping. In fact, I felt like they were making me worse. And I that was what led to me starting to feel despair. And and so it turned me into a victim. This, this, this diagnosis and the the treatment for it made me turn me into a victim. And the people that I loved the most in the world, my husband and my children were also being victimized by this uh diagnosis and the treatment. For my husband, I was the squeaky will that was always getting the oil. One of the things that's really hard on partners and spouses is the person that you love that you committed your life to is unpredictable. I was unpredictable. I would go for a while, you know, being really happy and and tons of energy and and big ideas and that, and then I would all of a sudden be depressed and I would be dysfunctional and couldn't get out of bed. And and my husband, when you love somebody, you want to help them. So he would try to help me. But the longer this went on, the more he started to feel like he couldn't have needs because he never knew whether or not I had the capacity to meet his needs. I was this queaky whale that was always getting the oil. And one of the things that I have seen in my own that I saw in my own marriage back then, and that I have seen in other people's relationships is that it very frequently turns into a codependent relationship. Very frequently, one partner is constantly trying to save the other partner or fix the other partner or help the other partner or support the other partner, and it can turn into resentment, it can turn into frustration and hurt and anger because you cannot fix somebody else like that, but you're trying. And you feel like you're responsible for the other person. You feel like you you need to help the other person, and so often it happens at great personal emotional sacrifice, it's very unhealthy. The child the children in these situations are absolutely victims. They absolutely become victims because children are dependent on their primary caregivers to develop the capacity to emotionally regulate themselves. And when you are raised by somebody who is dysregulated and unpredictable, it creates anxiety. It can cause, you know, ADHD symptoms, it can cause, you know, there's all kinds of issues that can develop out of this because they don't, children don't are not born with the ability to emotionally regulate themselves. They have to be taught how to do that. And that's one of the roles, one of the most important roles of a caregiver, of one of their primary caregivers, their parent, you know, mom or dad, is to help them learn how to regulate their emotions. And so we when you have a dysregulated parent, you end up with dysregulated children. And so we have we have a system, the diagnosis and the system that is is you know the best practices for treating bipolar disorder, it turns people into victims, it turns entire families into victims. My invitation to you today is to choose to stop being a victim. And I want to talk about how you do that. And the first thing that I want you to think about is how important it is to choose to recognize your own personal responsibility in managing your symptoms. This came to me when I was out of my, I had just gotten out of my fourth hospitalization and I was watching my children play, and I had this thought nobody is coming to save you. You have to find a way to save yourself. At that point, I had been in treatment for about 11 years, and the year before was when I had my breakdown and I was hospitalized three times and I had become suicidal. And I had had the experience that I've shared in the past of watching my children play and recognizing that if I ever successfully ended my life, I would ruin my daughter's life. My little four-year-old daughter would believe it was her fault and it would ruin her life. And so I had made a commitment not to die. I had made a commitment to survive for her. But that following year was just surviving. It was just white knuckling it, holding on for dear life, because again, I was a victim to the symptoms. I was a victim to this disorder. And I believed that the best I could expect out of life was learning how to manage well or cope well or or hang on and just do the best I can because I, you know, I have a disorder and I can't do anything about it. But that day after the fourth hospitalization, as I watched my children play and I had this realization, like, you know, these symptoms are coming. You know that that it's going to happen. You know what this cycle looks like. What are you going to do about it? You have to stop being a victim to it because it's not a way to there, it's no way to live. And honestly, I had never, the thought had never occurred to me. Honestly, the thought had never occurred to me that I could do anything about it. One of the things that was so frustrating for me when I was in treatment with traditional psychiatric treatment was how the system tended to get turn people into very t turn people inward and create very create a self-centered person. Because if you're constantly in crisis and you and you believe you can't do anything about it, you're always turning inward. You're always focused inward on your depression or on your anxiety or and and you don't want to be around people and and people have to just understand, right? So we become very self-focused. But I was at war with myself over this because when I would have psychiatrists talk, you know, suggest that, you know, we just need to help your husband understand. You know, it's not your fault. Or, you know, don't worry, your child, you know, children are resilient. That was one of the things that I hated the word most was when I would hear them say, Don't worry, children are resilient. I thought my kids shouldn't have to be resilient when it came to their mom and the way that their mom is behaving. Maybe it's not my fault, but I knew it wasn't my husband's fault, and it absolutely wasn't my children's fault. And I had to figure out a way to help myself. I had to figure out a way to be responsible for myself. And nobody was teaching me how. Not the psychiatrist, not the therapists. I mean, they would teach me coping mechanisms, but they wouldn't really truly teach me how to help myself because in order for this diagnosis to be valid, I could I couldn't have control over myself, right? This this is a chemical imbalance. And it's not possible. The best thing, you know, the most important thing that I can do is take my medication. And if the medication's not working, what then? So as I began to develop this mid-cycle survival guide over time, I that day I started with a journal. I was just trying to write things down, trying to figure out like, what do I know about this? What do I know based on my experience about my mood swings, about my symptoms, about what causes the damage in my life surrounding surrounding these symptoms. And I just started to work through like, how do I, how do I take responsibility for myself? And the first thing that that came up for me is my response team. And I didn't call it a response team at the time, but that's what it turned into was I knew I needed help. I knew there were times when I needed assistance, I needed help. But generally, I didn't acknowledge that need ahead of time. Usually I wasn't thinking about it until I was desperate, until I was in crisis. Largely because I didn't want to need help. Truly, I didn't want to need help all the time in my life. I wanted to be independent. I wanted to take care of myself. I wanted to be a responsible mother and be able to take care of my home and my family and coach swimming and, you know, all the other things that I like to do. I wanted to be able to do those things without disruption in my life from these symptoms. But at the time, the reality was I did experience those symptoms. So being stubborn and prideful and not acknowledging that I would need help at times wasn't helping me. And so I recognized the first thing I need to do is figure out what help I do need when I'm experiencing the symptoms, who I can ask for that help, and how do I create healthy boundaries around that assistance so that I don't burn bridges. That's one of the most important things. And like I said, you know, the psychiatric treatment I went through turned me into a selfish person in a lot of ways because I was very self-centered. You know, people just need to understand, they just need to help. You know, I just want to, you know, and it and it felt very wrong, but that's what I was being told on a regular basis. And now I was recognizing like I care about my friends, I care about my family, and I want to, I want to have healthy relationships with them. So in order to maintain maintain a healthy relationship when I'm struggling with these symptoms. I have to acknowledge, I have to allow them to have boundaries and I need to set healthy boundaries in the relationships so that, so that we can, so that I don't ruin my relationship every time I'm struggling with symptoms. So that was that was where the response team started to develop. And I'm not going to go into a ton of detail. I I've already gone into some detail there about how that came about. But if you haven't developed a mood cycle survival guide yet, I encourage you to please go go start that now. There's a link in in the show notes here. There's a link in my, you know, on my website. It's a free resource. And anybody who's struggling with these with these symptoms needs to begin here. This is when you choose to stop being a victim and you start taking responsibility for yourself. So that's the first step in the mood cycle survival guide. The first thing that I started recognizing that I needed to do in order to stop being a victim, stop allowing myself to be a victim to these symptoms. The second one was the early warning system. And this is where I started to become self-aware. This was where I started recognizing like I need to identify that I'm starting to experience these these experience these symptoms as early as possible so that I can start managing it better and more effectively and earlier. Instead of waiting until I was like yanked onto the roller coaster, I needed to try and become aware of of that earlier. And one of the keys to that was starting to identify what actually triggers these symptoms. I'd felt like I didn't have any idea what was going on until I was in you know in a cycle, in a mood cycle. But I started recognizing like there are actually things that trigger these symptoms. Sometimes they felt unpredictable but the more I the more I started to look at myself critically and started to track symptoms and energy and mood, I started seeing correlations. I started recognizing how sometimes these symptoms arise, you know, came out of triggers. There were things that triggered them. And by doing that, by by starting to develop this early warning system for myself, I started to recognize like there were triggers I could eliminate you know there were things that I could eliminate that would prevent that trigger from triggering symptoms. And there were other things that I needed to work through with a therapist later. And then the power priorities was the next step, which was learning how to manage emotional resources in an effective way so that I didn't exacerbate symptoms when they occurred. And then the final piece was learning how to reboot my system. So those that four steps were the beginning of me starting to choose not to be a victim any longer to these symptoms. It was me choosing to take responsibility for myself being proactive in managing the symptoms rather than allowing myself to be a victim to them. And that began the path to recovery. That was the very first step on the path to recovery. And that truly is everybody anybody who wants to recover from their symptoms needs to take responsibility for themselves. That's why this is the first step in my coaching program, the Upsider's tribe everyone has to create a mood cycle survival guide for themselves because that's the beginning of changing how you approach these symptoms learning how to be proactive and responsible for yourself. And that leads to the second the second tip for overcoming this victimhood in in with bipolar symptoms, which is changing the way you think about and talk about what you're experiencing. In our program and I've talked about this in the past but I'm going to I'm going to repeat it because it it it has a lot of you know value here. We do not talk about bipolar disorder in my program. It can come up because we've you we're used to using that language but I always you know we always come back to okay we don't talk about bipolar disorder we talk about bipolar symptoms. And the reason that distinction matters is because bipolar disorder that that phrase that that term reinforces this idea that you don't have any control over what's happening to you because it's a disorder right and if you keep using that language you will keep reinforcing in your brain the idea that you don't have control which reinforces a victimhood mentality. It continues to put you back in the victim space, right? And so we don't talk about bipolar disorder we don't say things like I am bipolar. We don't even say I have bipolar we talk about how I have bipolar symptoms. And then to follow that up we say symptoms are information and you are a detective in your life. So this is a mindset shift we have so much we have become so dependent in our society on experts. In fact I one of the things that I regularly get attacked about is you know what's your degree? And I've kind of gotten tired of being asked that question and so I've gotten a little snarky sometimes with it saying well I have a brain and common sense and the ability to read and understand research and apply it. But truly you need to take responsibility for yourself in taking ownership of what you're experiencing. And what I mean by that is become a detective in your own life. Look for the source of your symptoms. They're in your story. That's why when people come to me I always say tell me your story. And in the program we start learning how to look for the clues in the story. I understand what to look for now because I've I've read a lot and I've I have read you know books about trauma and books about you know micronutrients and and micronutrient insufficiency and I've read research on you know that the iatrogenic harm that causes bipolar symptoms and drug-induced bipolar symptoms. And so the more research I've done the easier it is for me to just see this see the sources of the symptoms. When somebody tells me their story I'm like well you've got three obvious sources of symptoms that you've told me already and there may be more. And so that's one of the reasons why there's tremendous value in that mood cycle survival guide in step two of the mood cycle survival guide, your early warning system because as you start recognizing symptoms for what they are, then you can start looking at them with curiosity over judgment and say, hmm, that's interesting. I wonder why I experienced this symptom so regularly and I wonder why I have this symptom when this happens. And then you can start looking for the source. You can start actually identifying this is the source of the symptom. This is why I have this symptom and then you can treat the source and resolve the symptom. But we have been convinced in our society by the psychiatric industry that anxiety is not a fight or flight response. Anxiety is a disorder you know depression is not a the brain's normal reaction to not getting adequate nutrition it is a disorder. Bipolar is not the result of trauma and micronutrient insufficiency. It's a disorder. So when we experience these symptoms, we don't recognize them as clues, we don't recognize them as information. We just think they are indications that our brains are broken and they need drugs to fix them. So you've got to change the way you talk about and think about what you're struggling with. You have to think about it in terms of I don't have bipolar disorder. I have bipolar symptoms. I have symptoms of depression I have symptoms of you know anxiety I have symptoms of mania I have symptoms of psychosis. And then look for the source of the symptoms. And one of the things what we even do more than that is we start breaking down those categories even because one of the other issues that we have with these categories is that everybody who says I have anxiety thinks they're they're struggling with the same thing. And it's not always the same thing. And so it's really important to break that down. What do you mean when you say I feel anxious? What does that look like? Tell me what you feel in your body what happens in your mind you know what what do you tell me about what your response is we start breaking the symptoms down into like or those categories down into actual symptoms. And then that gives us more information about what the source of the symptom might actually be. So that's the second piece to overcoming this victim idea, you know, this victimhood is changing the way we think about and talk about what you're actually experiencing so that it empowers you to recognize there's something I can do about this. I'm not a victim. I don't have to live like this I can do something about it. I can be a detective I can look for the sources I can treat the sources and resolve the symptoms. And the last thing that I want to talk about here is really important. And I talked about it a little bit before but I I I need this needs to have its own conversation. I I probably should do a podcast on this at some point if I haven't one done one already but the how critical it is to set healthy boundaries. It is absolutely essential to have healthy boundaries if you want to have healthy relationships. And when you believe that you don't have any control over these symptoms because it's a disease or disorder it feels like it's impossible to set boundaries. In fact I had a conversation with somebody one time a couple years ago who was talking about supporting a spouse with bipolar and and I was saying you know what what what do you do how do you set healthy boundaries in there in your marriage and and her response was you can't have boundaries in a marriage like this like you you know if if they're in crisis you have to help you have to you have to run to their rescue you have to you have to support them you have to take care of them. And every time as she was saying this I could feel my chest getting tight. I was like no that's terrible I don't know that's not right. That is not right. And I'm speaking I am speaking as the the spouse who had bipolar symptoms. I am speaking as the spouse who was was the one who was receiving all the you know coddling and and being you know I I was being told by doctors like you can't help it they just have to understand it does not feel good to hurt people you love. It does not feel good to hurt people you love. And if they do not have healthy if there are not healthy boundaries in the relationship and ways for them to protect themselves it hurts not just the person, you know, not just the spouse, but it hurts the person who is struggling with the symptoms as well because we can see the damage we're doing. And it doesn't help us. It does not help us to to allow us to hurt you. That does not help us it's a critical to learn how to set healthy boundaries in your relationship. And when you have been if you have been struggling in a in a marriage or a relationship with somebody with bipolar symptoms for a long time this is going to take some effort and you're probably going to need some outside help because if there you can have a physical emotional reaction to the idea of setting a boundary with somebody, you know, with your spouse in that situation because you're you'll think, well if I don't help them, if I don't take care of them when they're like this, then then what are they going to do? Or what will it do to my relationship? Or there's a lot of fear. You have you have conditioned yourself to believe that if you don't fix the problem that something terrible is going to happen. And so you keep going back for more pain and keep allowing them to inflict more pain on you because you're afraid of what will happen if you set a boundary. But I promise you that you are not saving your relationship by doing that. You are doing more damage to it. And I'll explain that a little bit when you are in a relationship with somebody who is dysregulated emotionally and you try to fix them you try to help them fix themselves it will build it will develop into resentment on their part and on your part. For them you're constantly trying to you're what you're constantly trying to do and trying to help them is making them feel like you see them as broken and that they need to be fixed and that they they need to be helped and they they need to be you know they can't do for themselves right which will they will feel resentful they will start to feel resentful towards you and you will start to resent them because you keep coming back and you know fixing you know trying to fix things and it's not getting any better. It just keeps happening over and over again and truly you can't fix them. The only person who can fix themselves is themselves in a healthy relationship I am responsible for myself you are responsible for yourself and then we are accountable to each other but we are not responsible for each other we can't be and it's not healthy to be I am responsible for for my own healing. I am responsible for my own recovery it is if you want to support each other then you need to set boundaries around that support. You need to recognize what your job is and what your job isn't. And that's one of the things we actually talk about in the Mood Cycle survival guide. So the at the the very first step, the response team your significant other, if you are in a relationship, it is critical for them to have a role in your support but it's also as as critical just as critical to make sure there are healthy boundaries set around that support. And I am not going to give a ton of advice on here about that because I have experience in my own relationship with my husband and my children and I've worked with therapists on learning how to set healthy boundaries in other in other instances but I am not an expert on boundaries and I'm not an expert on you. I'm not an expert on your unique situation. But I would highly encourage people to get a book on boundaries and read about it. Go to a therapist who hasn't you know who's an expert on setting boundaries but learn it's a it's a skill that you need to develop. It's not something that is going to come intuitively especially if you've been working if you've been living in a codependent relationship for a long time this is like a muscle that has either never existed or completely atrophied. And so you have to exercise that muscle you have to get clear on how to set a healthy boundary and then you have to apply it and it's super uncomfortable when you first start doing it. When I first started working on understanding and applying healthy boundaries in my relationships it was extraordinarily uncomfortable. And I felt a lot of anxiety doing it and I messed up lots of times. But I would promise you that as you start to set healthy boundaries and understand what that looks like, it will improve your relationships dramatically because when you start each person starts taking responsibility for themselves then it's easier to come together and start trusting each other. That's one of the things that was I I had to learn with my children is I had to learn how to respect their boundaries to allow them to have boundaries and teach them how to have boundaries I had to I had to learn how to have boundaries for myself healthy boundaries for myself and then I had to learn how to I think I maybe I already said this but you have to learn how to respect each other's boundaries and when you start all taking responsibility for yourself then you can then you can start to trust each other. You earn back the trust that has been damaged in the relationship. When I would do things that would hurt you know my husband or my children I would apologize and I would take responsibility for it without equivocation. I didn't blame anybody else I didn't blame my bipolar disorder. I would acknowledge I did something that caused pain and I'm so sorry. And this is what I'm doing to try and fix it. And I didn't I didn't even expect them to accept my apology. I just said I'm going to try better I try harder I'm going to do better. And then I just kept showing up I kept coming back and showing up and and showing them that I meant it that I was accepting responsibility for myself that I was not choosing to be a victim any longer and that helped my children to learn how to not be victims. It helped you know it it just it improves your relationships. It's very uncomfortable at first but then things get better. It's so important for us to make sure that we choose not to be a victim. It is a choice. I had I heard this really incredible quote one time I wish I could find the lady that said it because I would love to interview her on my podcast. But she was a therapist of some kind and I was it was a while ago and I was scrolling through social media and I don't know if I followed her or not if I didn't it was kind of a mistake but I I cannot remember who it was. So I apologize that I can't tell you who said this because but it's not my it is not my saying it's somebody else's saying but they said trauma is a story healing is a choice and I want to adopt that into you know they're bipolar bipolar disorder is a diagnosis healing is a choice the diagnosis does not give you answers about why you're experiencing these symptoms and it can turn you into a victim if you choose to let it but you can choose not to let it turn you into victim. You can choose to heal it's not comfortable but it is absolutely worth it one of the things that I say in my uh at the end of my book in one of the chapters is uh I think it's chapter 11 or 12. I apologize that I can't remember the exact chapter but it's on the Living Mindfully chapter or no I think it's the final chapter. Sorry um but it is choose your hard your life is already hard. If you're struggling with bipolar symptoms or if you have a loved one struggling with bipolar symptoms your life is already hard and it will continue to be hard. As long as you keep living the way that you're living it will continue to be hard so your life is already difficult. It's already hard so you can choose the hard that keeps you stuck indefinitely in this struggle or you can choose the hard that leads to healing you can choose the hard that leads to recovery you can choose the hard that leads to healthy relationships and a balanced mind and the ability to live your life the way you want to live it healing is absolutely possible. You don't have to be a victim to these symptoms for the rest of your life bipolar disorder is not identifying an underlying condition it is just identifying a cluster of symptoms symptoms have information you can choose to become a detective in your life look for the sources of your symptoms and treat those sources using a research-based integrated approach that leads to healing and recovery so my question for you is are you going to choose to be a victim or are you going to choose to heal? Let me know in the comments I would love to hear from you. If you're ready to heal and you want to know more about the Upsiders tribe make sure you send me an email I'll have my email linked down below and you can set up a 30 minute complimentary Zoom where we can talk about your specific situation and I can tell you whether or not the Upsiders tribe is a good fit for you. If you haven't read my book make sure you read That. I talk about my own recovery journey and the steps that I took to recovery. It's designed as a self-help book, so you could use that on your own. But I want to ask you to think about that. Are you going to choose to continue to be a victim or do you want to choose to heal? The choice is yours. Have a great day. I look forward to hearing from you, hopefully. Until next time, outsiders. Thanks for joining me on the Upside of Bipolar. Your journey to recovery matters, and I'm grateful you're here. For more resources, visit www.theupsideofbipolar.com. If you're ready to dive deeper, grab my book, The Upside of Bipolar: Seven Steps to Heal Your Disorder. If you're ready to heal your symptoms, join my monthly membership, The Upsiders Tribe, to transform chaos into hope. Until next time, Upsiders.