A bipolar review of 2019
2019 was a lot better than 2018.
Firstly, no suicide attempts – big win.
Secondly, I only missed 12 weeks of work, a 60% drop on the previous year. It also felt like the first year I got a handle on understanding my condition. The hardest part of managing bipolar disorder is realising the condition and your personality are inextricably linked.
In order to make other people feel more comfortable around me in 2019, I suppressed a lot of my personality. The parts that are spontaneous, take delight and show enthusiasm have vanished the most. I want 2020 to see these parts resurface.
The second realisation of 2019 was how much work it takes to be stable. Food, exercise, strict bed times, meditation, self-care routines and tracking all the above is draining by itself.
Gathering all the above data and linking it to more qualitative metrics such as my mood, energy levels and wellness is my very own emotional forecasting tool. It’s helped me to learn how important the little details are to staying stable.
A late night equals less time to sleep off my evening sedatives, which means a very sleepy morning, probably without breakfast and makes me more likely to eat poorly throughout the day. Then I feel bloated and drained so I’m less likely to exercise and more likely to record a bad mood and low energy in my tracker. If a few other triggers or stressors happen at the same time, I’m more likely to slip into depression or hypomania. Travel and breaks to my routine seem to have rippling repercussions to my well being.
I’ve also learned that regardless of how good my wellness-stability plan is, I still have natural ebbs and flows to my mood. My natural cycle seems to play out over 12 weeks. 4 weeks of mild hypomania, 3–4 weeks of relative stability and 4 weeks of mild depression.
In 2020, I want to feel less compressed – less like a condition and more like a flawed, but very much alive person. I want to feel alive.
I have always enjoyed plurality in my life, it suits my moods to enjoy different activities and projects throughout my cycle. In 2020 I’m making a stronger effort to make sure that I can enjoy this plurality but also stay focused on what goals are most important for me to achieve.
Last big thing I learned in 2019 – the power of doing things in small chunks. Before taking medication for bipolar, I was always binary in my commitment to a given whim. All or nothing. In 2019, now medicated for nearly 2 years, I tried doing things in small bites. 2 hours of writing, 30 minutes at the gym, 10 minutes of meditation. And it worked. I’ve by no means mastered this, but it’s a positive direction.
The roaring 20s await.