As far as I can figure out, I have had at least depression since I can remember. I do know I thought I could suffocate myself with a pillow in third grade. I know all pictures of me when younger show tortured eyes and if I am smiling in them, I see no smile in my eyes. I have a picture of myself at four years old with black circles under my eyes and the look on my face sometimes makes me choke up.
I didn't have very many friends. I felt different. I felt like an outsider. I felt like I belonged nowhere and didn't understand anyone. All I knew was feeling like I wasn't good enough and didn't deserve love. I have struggled with suicidal thoughts for as long as I can remember. This was me younger, and to an extent, me now.
I know that my heritage and my childhood played an important part in finally being diagnosed with bipolar 2 disorder in 2007. I am not really sure when depression became bipolar. I think everyday about the life that I had no choice but to accept. Sometimes I shrug my shoulders and sometimes I stew in the pot of regret and resentfulness.
When I decided to start this blog, I wasn't quite sure where to go with it. I was writing, but felt guilty because I thought I had to be this perfect example of managing bipolar (I am the poster girl for perfectionism). I don't exercise. I often don't eat healthily. I take my meds most days, but not at a specific time. I sleep well, but have one of my mood stabilizers to thank for that. When hypomanic, I purposely embrace it and live in it happily until the agitation becomes too much.
I tend to get irrational at times. I have panic attacks. There are days when I absolutely cannot face a shower, let alone working. Sometimes, the only words I can manage are, "I am tired", and I don't mean lack of sleep. I mean of breathing. I isolate and cut people off. When really down, I struggle with cutting. I can feel like a lost little girl and all I want is my mom and dad. I definitely feel driven to be perfect in everything. Although I have made great strides in improving my self esteem within the last 18 months, I still struggle sometimes. I rarely trust anyone and lose relationships because of it. I lose many relationships because of my bipolar alone. I can't blame people for leaving my life when I can't stand myself. I can be very unforgiving towards myself. Living with bipolar makes me so overwhelmingly tired of life sometimes.
So, yes, the struggle is real and the struggle is daily. I have been struggling more than usual for the last couple months. I plan to ask my psychiatrist if I have somehow transitioned to rapid cycling bipolar the next time I see her. I literally can feel my world bottom out and reset in the same day lately. Sometimes it is triggered and sometimes, it just happens.
With all of the above, I know I am grateful. I can work, so I don't have to worry about many of the things that those of us unable to work do. I have a strong support group that has my back. I have two wonderful children that are my rocks. They set me straight, but support me. They hold me, they hug me, and they let me cry when I need it. Of the few friends I have, they all are positive people that add dramatically to my life in a positive manner. I have a best friend that is amazing. Besides my children, it is the healthiest relationship I have ever had. At the urging of my children, I am learning to become more vulnerable and slowly open up to more people that I think may be trustworthy.
I have really strong feelings that I need to share all of this with you today. I may blog about managing bipolar to a satisfactory life, but I need you to know how closely I am standing shoulder to shoulder with you in trying to do that. Life with bipolar is hard. It is ugly. We are the only ones that truly understand. Everyone else can only try to imagine and any words we use do not do justice to describing depressive and manic/hypomanic episodes. Nobody else understands our daily struggle to breathe and survive. Nobody can truly understand us even though they may want to.
And yet, here we all are. Today's blog is a blog where I can tell you I feel proud to be a survivor. I feel proud to know I am strong, for the most part. Some of it has been my med set. Some of it has been my support group. Some of it has been my children and friends. But some of it has been me. Writing this blog helps me. I see myself in it. I see where I can make changes in my life and take my own advice.
Most of the topics I blog about are very personal to me. I do research, but a lot of it pours willingly from my heart. I know where I want this blog to go. I know what I want it to become. I'm not quite sure how to do it yet, but I will figure it out. I used to think if I could just touch and help one person, it would all be worth it. That doesn't cut it anymore. When I die, I want to feel like I have touched and helped every single person possible.
To balanced and productive days my friends,
Laura
Sunday, November 20, 2016
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
Overcoming Perfectionism
Do you feel that you expect a lot from yourself and always want to achieve the goals you have or say the right thing? This can be good. It can motivate you to perform and try your best. However, it can also be a sign of perfectionism. You may not even realize you are a perfectionist. Today, we will focus on perfectionism, it's definition, causes, what it does to us, and how to overcome it.
WHAT IS PERFECTIONISM?
Perfectionism can be confused with healthy high standards for yourself. It is a rigid belief on how you should act, perform and behave. Comparing perfectionism to healthy high standards is like comparing apples to oranges. Being a perfectionist is destructive because perfection is absolutely impossible. Healthy high standards allows for mistakes and failure. Perfectionism never does, even if you are the only one that perceives your words or actions as wrong. As a perfectionist, you have excessively irrational high standards that do not allow for mistakes and failure. You fixate on what others think of your performance, attitude, words, actions, and beliefs. You become detrimentally self critical of everything you do and say. Where you think being perfect will protect you and gain you love and acceptance, you will actually find that you are the only one that sees yourself as unlovable and unacceptable. You can alienate people with perfectionism, causing you to try harder at being perfect, but never succeeding. It is a vicious cycle.
CAUSES OF PERFECTIONISM
There are several causes of someone becoming a perfectionist. If you had abusive parents that pushed you to always be perfect, you will learn to be a perfectionist. Parents are responsible for nurturing your self worth (a future blog will focus on our self worth and how to improve our beliefs about ourselves) and teaching you have to handle mistakes and failures. However, when they expect nothing less that perfect and/or is accompanied by abusive language, your development is stunted and your self worth will tell you that you are never good enough.
Today's society can cause perfectionism, especially television, movies and social media. Models are thin and beautiful. People tend to portray themselves as very successful on social media. Television and movies show relationships as unrealistic and perfect. You sense of reality soon becomes one of expecting this from your life as the only way to be successful and worthwhile.
Relationships with controlling partners are another way you could become a perfectionist. In a controlling relationship, you are not allowed to have your own thoughts. You bend to the will of your partner, what they think of you and what they expect of you. Your partner will make you feel not good enough if you don't behave in the way they think is important and you will do anything to become accepted by them, even if they demand unrealistic behavior out of you. You will just try harder and harder to become something perfect to them to gain their approval.
Perfectionism can be self imposed and you won't accept anything less than perfect from yourself. This is also directly linked to your self worth. You will feel worthless with each mistake and failure, when in reality, you are worthwhile as a person simply because you are born. Self worth is not something you attain. It is something you are born with, but learn differently due to a host of experiences.
Believe it or not, too much praise from achievements as a child can cause perfectionism. This is especially true when you are made to feel bad about mistakes and failures. You will begin to think you are only acceptable when you succeed. You will think you have to perform to exceptional levels every time you do or say something.
WHAT DOES PERFECTION DO TO YOU?
Perfectionism causes low self esteem, depression and anxiety. It has also been linked to eating disorders and it feeds stress. You are never going to be perfect. It simply isn't possible. You are human like the rest of us. Life as a perfectionist is an endless judgement of your accomplishments, mistakes and failures. You feel like nothing you do is good enough. You will find a way to minimize your accomplishments and never be satisfied. You may feel good at first about something you did, but will eventually find something to find fault in.
Being a perfectionist will paralyze you at times because the task will seem so overwhelming since you expect yourself to complete it perfectly. You will put things off until the last minute. If you think you are procrastinating, it may be that you are exhibiting signs of perfectionism.
Perfectionism will cause you to lose friends. As a perfectionist, you have beliefs on how you should treat people. You have the tendency to try to always be there for them. You answer their phone calls, emails, text messages, etc. quickly. You put them before you regardless of your mental health. When you aren't treated the same way, the friendship will suffer. You will blame yourself for not being worthy of their time. Perfectionism will drain the relationship and cause a strain. Many times, you will eventually lose that friendship.
OVERCOMING PERFECTIONISM
Recognize yourself as a perfectionist. Do it without judgement. Instead, do it with self love. You are giving yourself a wonderful opportunity to improve your quality of life. Become realistic about your thoughts and goals. When you set a goal, try to look for where you may have trouble achieving it and plan for how you will handle the obstacle. If you look for the potential obstacles, you will have an easier time accepting mistakes and failures. If you feel paralyzed by the goal, recognize it as your perfectionism and adjust the goal to something simpler. Start by setting goals that are easily met. Build from there. And if you make a mistake or fail, remember you are imperfect and move on. Healthy high standards allow for mistakes and failure. A person with those kind of standards accepts mistakes and failure and learns from them so they can try again another time. A person with healthy high standards is flexible.
Accept accomplishments. Count it as a victory when you perform well and refuse to look for negatives. If you perform imperfectly, concentrate on where you did well. You will have to take your negative thoughts and work through them instead of believing you have just failed on a grand scale. Mistakes and failures can be a great teacher. To do this, look at what happened. Where could you have acted or approached it differently? Plan to include that the next time you take on a task like the one that you made a mistake or failed at. And, when you do that, celebrate another victory. You just beat perfectionism for once! Practice this and you will overcome perfectionism for the long haul. Some of the greatest achievers in history made many mistakes over and over. The difference between them and you is that they took those mistakes and failures and learned from them instead of beating themselves down over it.
Make it an effort to focus on the bigger picture. Don't get caught up in the small details. If you are critical of something you have said, look at what the overall thought was. Do not look at each word and analyze how it could have been said better. If it is a goal, categorize what are milestones towards the goal and what are small details that do not effect the desired end. This is where you will bog down and become paralyzed. So, focus on the bigger picture and the parts that are crucial to a goal's success.
Be kind to yourself. If someone you love comes to you and discusses their mistake or failure, do you think badly of them? Not likely. You probably are very supportive and think nothing more of what happened. Talk to yourself like you talk to other people. Be your own cheerleader!
To balanced and productive days my friends,
Laura
WHAT IS PERFECTIONISM?
Perfectionism can be confused with healthy high standards for yourself. It is a rigid belief on how you should act, perform and behave. Comparing perfectionism to healthy high standards is like comparing apples to oranges. Being a perfectionist is destructive because perfection is absolutely impossible. Healthy high standards allows for mistakes and failure. Perfectionism never does, even if you are the only one that perceives your words or actions as wrong. As a perfectionist, you have excessively irrational high standards that do not allow for mistakes and failure. You fixate on what others think of your performance, attitude, words, actions, and beliefs. You become detrimentally self critical of everything you do and say. Where you think being perfect will protect you and gain you love and acceptance, you will actually find that you are the only one that sees yourself as unlovable and unacceptable. You can alienate people with perfectionism, causing you to try harder at being perfect, but never succeeding. It is a vicious cycle.
CAUSES OF PERFECTIONISM
There are several causes of someone becoming a perfectionist. If you had abusive parents that pushed you to always be perfect, you will learn to be a perfectionist. Parents are responsible for nurturing your self worth (a future blog will focus on our self worth and how to improve our beliefs about ourselves) and teaching you have to handle mistakes and failures. However, when they expect nothing less that perfect and/or is accompanied by abusive language, your development is stunted and your self worth will tell you that you are never good enough.
Today's society can cause perfectionism, especially television, movies and social media. Models are thin and beautiful. People tend to portray themselves as very successful on social media. Television and movies show relationships as unrealistic and perfect. You sense of reality soon becomes one of expecting this from your life as the only way to be successful and worthwhile.
Relationships with controlling partners are another way you could become a perfectionist. In a controlling relationship, you are not allowed to have your own thoughts. You bend to the will of your partner, what they think of you and what they expect of you. Your partner will make you feel not good enough if you don't behave in the way they think is important and you will do anything to become accepted by them, even if they demand unrealistic behavior out of you. You will just try harder and harder to become something perfect to them to gain their approval.
Perfectionism can be self imposed and you won't accept anything less than perfect from yourself. This is also directly linked to your self worth. You will feel worthless with each mistake and failure, when in reality, you are worthwhile as a person simply because you are born. Self worth is not something you attain. It is something you are born with, but learn differently due to a host of experiences.
Believe it or not, too much praise from achievements as a child can cause perfectionism. This is especially true when you are made to feel bad about mistakes and failures. You will begin to think you are only acceptable when you succeed. You will think you have to perform to exceptional levels every time you do or say something.
WHAT DOES PERFECTION DO TO YOU?
Perfectionism causes low self esteem, depression and anxiety. It has also been linked to eating disorders and it feeds stress. You are never going to be perfect. It simply isn't possible. You are human like the rest of us. Life as a perfectionist is an endless judgement of your accomplishments, mistakes and failures. You feel like nothing you do is good enough. You will find a way to minimize your accomplishments and never be satisfied. You may feel good at first about something you did, but will eventually find something to find fault in.
Being a perfectionist will paralyze you at times because the task will seem so overwhelming since you expect yourself to complete it perfectly. You will put things off until the last minute. If you think you are procrastinating, it may be that you are exhibiting signs of perfectionism.
Perfectionism will cause you to lose friends. As a perfectionist, you have beliefs on how you should treat people. You have the tendency to try to always be there for them. You answer their phone calls, emails, text messages, etc. quickly. You put them before you regardless of your mental health. When you aren't treated the same way, the friendship will suffer. You will blame yourself for not being worthy of their time. Perfectionism will drain the relationship and cause a strain. Many times, you will eventually lose that friendship.
OVERCOMING PERFECTIONISM
Recognize yourself as a perfectionist. Do it without judgement. Instead, do it with self love. You are giving yourself a wonderful opportunity to improve your quality of life. Become realistic about your thoughts and goals. When you set a goal, try to look for where you may have trouble achieving it and plan for how you will handle the obstacle. If you look for the potential obstacles, you will have an easier time accepting mistakes and failures. If you feel paralyzed by the goal, recognize it as your perfectionism and adjust the goal to something simpler. Start by setting goals that are easily met. Build from there. And if you make a mistake or fail, remember you are imperfect and move on. Healthy high standards allow for mistakes and failure. A person with those kind of standards accepts mistakes and failure and learns from them so they can try again another time. A person with healthy high standards is flexible.
Accept accomplishments. Count it as a victory when you perform well and refuse to look for negatives. If you perform imperfectly, concentrate on where you did well. You will have to take your negative thoughts and work through them instead of believing you have just failed on a grand scale. Mistakes and failures can be a great teacher. To do this, look at what happened. Where could you have acted or approached it differently? Plan to include that the next time you take on a task like the one that you made a mistake or failed at. And, when you do that, celebrate another victory. You just beat perfectionism for once! Practice this and you will overcome perfectionism for the long haul. Some of the greatest achievers in history made many mistakes over and over. The difference between them and you is that they took those mistakes and failures and learned from them instead of beating themselves down over it.
Make it an effort to focus on the bigger picture. Don't get caught up in the small details. If you are critical of something you have said, look at what the overall thought was. Do not look at each word and analyze how it could have been said better. If it is a goal, categorize what are milestones towards the goal and what are small details that do not effect the desired end. This is where you will bog down and become paralyzed. So, focus on the bigger picture and the parts that are crucial to a goal's success.
Be kind to yourself. If someone you love comes to you and discusses their mistake or failure, do you think badly of them? Not likely. You probably are very supportive and think nothing more of what happened. Talk to yourself like you talk to other people. Be your own cheerleader!
To balanced and productive days my friends,
Laura
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
Identifying And Successflly Managing Triggers
The brain is designed to rationalize. It is responsible for taking a thought or situation and leading you to a rational reaction or behavior. It is an amazing organ. A diseased brain though, like one with bipolar, can sometimes have trouble processing and reacting to negative situations. One of the reasons is that events or people cause us to react differently than we normally do and upsets our balance. Triggers cause us to respond in an irrational reactive way, instead of a rational proactive way. They put us into a survival mode which we have needed in the past to cope with a situation.
WHAT IS A TRIGGER?
A trigger is where words or situations cause us to react negatively. It causes us to flashback to something traumatic in life. It can slide us right into a depressive state. And, it can also sometimes cause a manic/hypomanic state. When it happens, we are immediately thrown back to memories of the original event. Triggers are specific to your history and can happen due to something you see, smell, or hear too.
Triggers are deceptive. It is only with recognition, self assessment, practice and patience to learn about our triggers first so that we can then identify them and seek another course of reaction and behavior. When they happen and we are unaware we have been triggered, we justify our reaction and behavior even when it makes no sense or is irrational. We often do not recognize the root of the trigger unless we follow recognition, self assessment, practice and patience. Because a trigger is associated with a negative past event, we tend to blame everything on anything but our past. We once again become the victim of our trauma. I have been in a few verbally abusive relationships in the past. I didn't understand how traumatic those were to my balance and self esteem. I blamed everything else and not the trigger. What I really needed to do was understand what had happened to me, work through it, and make the choice to leave anything abusive.
IDENTIFYING TRIGGERS
Recognizing The Moment
This will be the most difficult portion of your journey to identifying and successfully managing your triggers. Look for instances when you suddenly become anxious, resentful or angry, retreat into your shell, hopeless, or feel a flight or fright reaction. You may also have trouble breathing, your heart may race, your muscles may tense, or you may feel your stomach knot up. At first, you will trigger for seemingly unknown reasons. You may go through the entire event before you recognize that you were triggered. I also went through a traumatic experience a couple of years ago during work and suddenly found myself becoming extremely anxious every time I was supposed to work. I was unable to work for over a year. It was only later that I finally realized that working triggered me because. Every time I tried to work, my body went into flight or fight mode.
By recognizing the moment, you may find that you know you can react differently to the trigger in the future. The amount of freedom you will find in that is amazing! It will be a positive growth experience and you should be really proud of yourself. If this doesn't happen, no sweat. You will grow just from recognizing the moment and following the below steps. Remember, you are in control. You are powerful. You are no longer the victim!
Self Assessment
Triggers are very personal as we all have different experiences. A detailed look at yourself will get you in touch with your feelings. Write down the situation as soon as you recognize you were triggered (a future blog will focus on the benefits of a journal in managing bipolar). What was the event? Was there anything that happened preceding the event that could be used in the future as a warning sign. What feelings did you experience in the moment? How did you react? What do you really need in the future? Needs are not bad. Do not judge your need. You have a right to expecting to be treated in a way that fulfills your basic needs (like respect). Is this a true need, or are you taking things too personally? Once you document it, write down your action plan to detail what you plan to do when it happens again. What are the consequences for a person that does not respect your needs?
Your plan will vary depending on the trigger. Can you simply walk away from the situation? Is it the type of relationship where you can discuss the trigger with the person and they will work to avoid what triggers you? Do you need to cut ties with a person to avoid triggers because they are not willing to work with you? Do not be afraid to do this. You are your own champion. You deserve family and friends that support your efforts to remain balanced. You do not deserve to be a victim of negative situations over and over again.
Be prepared to revisit your action plans. As you become better and better at successfully reacting to a trigger, your action plans may change. An example is your action plan may include giving a person another chance no matter what the trigger is and who the person triggering is. Confidence in yourself and the freeing effect of stopping the trigger will make you more confident in responding to the trigger and your action plan may change.
Practice And Patience
Yes, practice makes better. And you will have to practice identifying and successfully managing triggers your entire life. You have triggers now, and may identify new triggers on your journey of life. This is while you need to document your triggers and your action plans for them.
Set out on this task with the firm belief that you need to give yourself time to conquer your triggers. Be patient with yourself. When you document your triggers and plans, write the action plan with the statement, "I will.." Include reasons why you deserve to take action. Remember, you deserve the basic human right of being respected. And do not expect perfection on your part. Do not expect perfection on the other parties in your life either. If you trigger with words, you need to realize that the person is used to saying things to you and it may take them time to respond to your action plan. Remember, if they don't respond, you have the right to cut them out of your life.
Be picky with who you practice on. Pick an trigger and action plan with someone you feel positive will respond. Success will boost your confidence. When you trigger, the following should be first on your action plan:
WHAT IS A TRIGGER?
A trigger is where words or situations cause us to react negatively. It causes us to flashback to something traumatic in life. It can slide us right into a depressive state. And, it can also sometimes cause a manic/hypomanic state. When it happens, we are immediately thrown back to memories of the original event. Triggers are specific to your history and can happen due to something you see, smell, or hear too.
Triggers are deceptive. It is only with recognition, self assessment, practice and patience to learn about our triggers first so that we can then identify them and seek another course of reaction and behavior. When they happen and we are unaware we have been triggered, we justify our reaction and behavior even when it makes no sense or is irrational. We often do not recognize the root of the trigger unless we follow recognition, self assessment, practice and patience. Because a trigger is associated with a negative past event, we tend to blame everything on anything but our past. We once again become the victim of our trauma. I have been in a few verbally abusive relationships in the past. I didn't understand how traumatic those were to my balance and self esteem. I blamed everything else and not the trigger. What I really needed to do was understand what had happened to me, work through it, and make the choice to leave anything abusive.
IDENTIFYING TRIGGERS
Recognizing The Moment
This will be the most difficult portion of your journey to identifying and successfully managing your triggers. Look for instances when you suddenly become anxious, resentful or angry, retreat into your shell, hopeless, or feel a flight or fright reaction. You may also have trouble breathing, your heart may race, your muscles may tense, or you may feel your stomach knot up. At first, you will trigger for seemingly unknown reasons. You may go through the entire event before you recognize that you were triggered. I also went through a traumatic experience a couple of years ago during work and suddenly found myself becoming extremely anxious every time I was supposed to work. I was unable to work for over a year. It was only later that I finally realized that working triggered me because. Every time I tried to work, my body went into flight or fight mode.
By recognizing the moment, you may find that you know you can react differently to the trigger in the future. The amount of freedom you will find in that is amazing! It will be a positive growth experience and you should be really proud of yourself. If this doesn't happen, no sweat. You will grow just from recognizing the moment and following the below steps. Remember, you are in control. You are powerful. You are no longer the victim!
Self Assessment
Triggers are very personal as we all have different experiences. A detailed look at yourself will get you in touch with your feelings. Write down the situation as soon as you recognize you were triggered (a future blog will focus on the benefits of a journal in managing bipolar). What was the event? Was there anything that happened preceding the event that could be used in the future as a warning sign. What feelings did you experience in the moment? How did you react? What do you really need in the future? Needs are not bad. Do not judge your need. You have a right to expecting to be treated in a way that fulfills your basic needs (like respect). Is this a true need, or are you taking things too personally? Once you document it, write down your action plan to detail what you plan to do when it happens again. What are the consequences for a person that does not respect your needs?
Your plan will vary depending on the trigger. Can you simply walk away from the situation? Is it the type of relationship where you can discuss the trigger with the person and they will work to avoid what triggers you? Do you need to cut ties with a person to avoid triggers because they are not willing to work with you? Do not be afraid to do this. You are your own champion. You deserve family and friends that support your efforts to remain balanced. You do not deserve to be a victim of negative situations over and over again.
Be prepared to revisit your action plans. As you become better and better at successfully reacting to a trigger, your action plans may change. An example is your action plan may include giving a person another chance no matter what the trigger is and who the person triggering is. Confidence in yourself and the freeing effect of stopping the trigger will make you more confident in responding to the trigger and your action plan may change.
Practice And Patience
Yes, practice makes better. And you will have to practice identifying and successfully managing triggers your entire life. You have triggers now, and may identify new triggers on your journey of life. This is while you need to document your triggers and your action plans for them.
Set out on this task with the firm belief that you need to give yourself time to conquer your triggers. Be patient with yourself. When you document your triggers and plans, write the action plan with the statement, "I will.." Include reasons why you deserve to take action. Remember, you deserve the basic human right of being respected. And do not expect perfection on your part. Do not expect perfection on the other parties in your life either. If you trigger with words, you need to realize that the person is used to saying things to you and it may take them time to respond to your action plan. Remember, if they don't respond, you have the right to cut them out of your life.
Be picky with who you practice on. Pick an trigger and action plan with someone you feel positive will respond. Success will boost your confidence. When you trigger, the following should be first on your action plan:
- Breathe - Take a deep breath in though your nose. Count slowly to three. Release the breath slowly through your mouth. Repeat this until you can feel yourself beginning to calm down.
- Clear your mind - If your response is flight, or you feel nervous, engage yourself in positive thought and conversation. Tell yourself you can do this. You deserve this. You are powerful. You are in control. Judging yourself is not allowed. Mind reading is not allowed. You do not know how the person is going to react. That is why it is best picking someone you are positive will respond. If you have no one in your life like that, pick the person you feel is most likely to respond.
- Accept the challenge - You are now at the go part of ready, set go. Don't back out. Don't apologize. Don't justify yourself. Speak in a clear and firm voice. Be serious. When you are serious, your voice will naturally deepen. Their human brain will recognize that you are being serious. Tell them the trigger and follow it with what behavior you expect from them in the future. You owe them no more information than the trigger and the expected future behavior. Then, depending on the person, you may want to tell them the consequences of not responding to you the way you need.
To balanced and productive days my friends,
Laura
Thursday, November 3, 2016
Setting And Living With Your Boundaries Successfully
Boundaries. What are they and what do they do for us? Why do we need them? The short answer is they are an unselfish form of self care that will protect our mental health. They are the guidelines or rules for how we treat ourselves and how we expect others to treat us. They are fair, appropriate, your right, not manipulative or controlling and may mean a compromise; they are give and take in a healthy relationship.
With bipolar, our mental health should always be paramount in our life. This involves self care and with boundaries, we can focus more time and energy to that. Unhealthy boundaries are based on fear and require more energy as we have to deal with situations that make us uncomfortable, resentful and/or angry.
TYPES OF BOUNDARIES
Internal
Internal boundaries are the rules we must follow ourselves as sometimes we can be our own worst enemy. Healthy internal boundaries require that we know ourselves, what we feel, and what our responsibility is towards our own body and mind. Low self esteem makes it harder to maintain our own internal boundaries. We have issues with believing we deserve things, like taking care of our body or mind. During a depressive state, we tend to ignore boundaries because we can only focus on the pain of depression. During a manic/hypomanic episode, we will ignore them all together thinking we know better or can slide by because we don't need them.
External
External boundaries are the rules we set for how we expect to be treated. More specifically, they are the rules to teach others how to treat us. Not only should we expect fair treatment, we need it to successfully manage our mental health. Healthy external boundaries is simply asking a person to treat you with respect.
Low self esteem also plays a part in external boundaries. With low self esteem, we may not realize how we deserve to be treated. We also may not think we deserve to be treated with respect. During a depressive state, we need healthy boundaries and when they are followed, it helps our depressive state.
SETTING HEALTHY BOUNDARIES
Not only are healthy boundaries set to teach others how we want to interact with us, they are set for how we interact with people in return. Healthy boundaries allow respect towards both parties, yourself and others. Some boundaries are obvious. If you find yourself uncomfortable with a situation, resentful or angry with a person, you have an opportunity to set a boundary to alleviate that from happening.
Setting boundaries can be difficult with people that are already in our lives. They are accustomed to treating us in a certain way, and we have never expressed or been respected if we voice that their actions are unacceptable. Therefore, you may meet resistance and negativity to an external boundary at first.
To set a boundary, examine your life. What bothers you that people do? What compromises your self care? How do you wish to be treated? How should you treat yourself to take care of your mental health?
Then write it down. Decide what the boundaries are, how you will relate them, and what are the consequences of not respecting your boundary.
Now you are ready to set the boundary. You can choose to set the boundary before anything happens that makes you uncomfortable, resentful and/or angry; you can also decide to wait until it happens again. I personally prefer picking a time when both parties are in a comfortable situation. Emotions, especially ours, are heightened when something negative happens that effects our well being. The delivery of your boundary won't come out as well as you want nor will the reception be as well received. The consequences of not respecting your boundaries are up to you. It can be anything from the fact that you tell someone you can't interact with them until they respect your boundary to going as far as cutting them out of your life. It never means you give up and allow unhealthy behavior.
Loose Boundaries
Without realizing it, you have boundaries in your life already. The problem is, a loose boundary makes you a doormat and allows everyone to treat you how they want. Have you heard of the saying, "Give an inch, take a mile"? That describes a loose boundary. With a loose boundary, you may as well not have a boundary at all as you are not setting standards on how you are treated.
Soft Boundaries
A soft boundary is when you are confused as to what you let or not let happen in your life. It makes you a target for manipulation. If you can't take an honest look at yourself and allow yourself to love what and who you are, you will most likely set a soft boundary. Setting a boundary is not about keeping everyone else happy. It is about you respecting what you need, and your relationships respecting what you need also.
Conditional Boundaries
Once you have set boundaries, you must live them. You can't abide by them part time. Setting a rule and then only following it randomly, for whatever reason, will confuse individuals and will not teach them what you need and expect. If you don't set a rule and live by it, you cannot expect your boundaries to be respected. Conditional boundaries are also when you only maintain your boundaries with certain people. Just because a person holds a certain position in your life should not mean you can't expect them to respect your boundaries.
Rigid Boundaries
A rigid boundary creates a solid brick wall between you and the relationships you allow in your life. It prevents intimacy with people. It usually stems from bad experiences of abuse that have shaped you as a person and is the type of boundary that stems from fear the most. If you have been abused, you are more likely to realize you have loose boundaries and try to replace them with rigid boundaries.
A WORD ON HEALTHY BOUNDARIES
Healthy boundaries set the stage for how you allow yourself and others to treat you. They do not include negativity about yourself or others. A healthy boundary meets your needs without being unrealistically demanding. You have to decide what you need. Do off color jokes make you uncomfortable? You have the right to ask that they not be told around you. Do you have someone in your life that will press you to talk when you are trying to process something and you just can't talk about it? You have a right to processing time. Are you taking your medications sporadically. You can't manage bipolar without a set schedule to always take your medications. Does someone make negative and condescending remarks to or about you? Not only can you not allow that with bipolar, but you unequivocally deserve the basic right of respect. Does someone in your life guilt you into doing something you don't want to do. You have the right to say no and for that answer to be respected. Does someone in your life take their anger out on you? You deserve not to be used as a scapegoat.
LIVING SUCCESSFULLY WITH BOUNDARIES
Now that you have communicated your boundaries, you will need to know how to be successful with them. Being successful is made up of many parts. It is:
- self awareness
- honesty
- determination
- will
- assertiveness
- follow through
- patience
You have to know yourself and be honest with yourself about what you need. Love yourself and tell people in your life what your boundaries are. It will allow greater intimacy in your relationships because each of you will have a deeper respect for the other. It is only going to be determination and strong will that allows you to be assertive and follow through. What exactly does follow through entail though?
Each boundary should have a consequence, or a follow through, when not respected. Do you state the consequence once and follow through with enforcing that consequence with the first offense? Or, do you display patience and try to work with a person because you feel the person is trying to respect your boundaries? Only you can answer that and it may depend on what type of person and situation you are dealing with.
You will also need patience with yourself. Setting and living with boundaries is a learning process for you too. Don't feel like you have failed if you set a boundary and don't follow through. Believe me, that person will give you another opportunity to react to them pushing your boundaries. You also need to be forgiving of yourself if your boundaries become conditional and you aren't consistent. Setting and living boundaries is hard, but like most things, the more you practice, the better you become.
Be aware that your boundaries can change. You change every day. You may find more tolerance for some things and less tolerance for others, necessitating a change in boundaries. So do a self assessment every once in awhile.
To balanced and productive days my friends,
Laura
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