Holiday Bliss

Routine!! Routine!! Routine!!

Through nearly 10 years of Bi-polar management, we have learned that if emotional control is going to be maintained, things must remain constant. There can be no out of the ordinary happenings or the emotional swings are drastically amplified. As long as each month is kept filled with routine, the down periods can be measured in minimal days and can be limited to a couple sessions of tears and a couple of fits of rage. This can be managed the removing the bipolar sufferer from the public eye.

Make no mistake about, the patient is the sufferer...

This makes the major holidays VERY tough to manage. Holidays are NOT routine. They involve travel, irregular meals and meal times. They involve tough social situations with people you rarely see. They often invoke unrealistic expectations about the magic of the holiday seasons as portrayed in movies and other media. Inevitably, they involve financial stresses and emotional disappointment.

This is incredibly difficult for a person of normal emotional rhythm, let alone someone whose rhythm is irrational and irregular. The bipolar sufferer loses their emotional safety bar that is "routine" and is left to ride horrid squalls of tsunami like emotional waves like tremendous joy in seeing their family, tremendous sorrow when it never measures up to the expectations, rage when the money seems shorter, pure fury when the plans constantly change and te difficulty of trying to put on a happy face for the public when all these emotions form a tornado in your soul.

Holidays will never be routine so it is about struggling through. It is about the support group bracing for the rage, even outright hatred and learning that the only option, even when they are hurt - and hurt badly is to respond with love. It is our lot in life for choosing to care for these people. They rage! We cannot rage! They react with hatred and we must react with love, no matter it hurts us. It is the only way for the patient to find that safety bar and grasp with all their might to try to pull themselves back to the emotional center.

Hold on and Happy Holidays!!