A while ago, I made up the word bipolarian to mean someone with bipolar disorder.
There's nothing wrong with "people with bipolar disorder." But it takes a lot of characters, and sounds too much like person-first language.
Bipolarian amuses me because it sounds like "planarian." Cut our heads in half, and we'll become one body ruled by two heads. Seems appropriate.
Here's a plushie two-headed planarian. Aww, such a cutie
I literally cannot overstate how important creative hobbies are when dealing with mental illness. If you can’t draw, there are coloring books. If you can’t write a novel, you can write in short journaling bursts. If you can’t sing in the shower, you can listen to music. Sometimes with mental illness it feels like we have this dark presence inside of us that is bumping around in our brain and organs, causing problems. It helps immensely to let it out.
for my fellow psychotics who struggle with thinking someone is in their house, a method I’ve found that really works are these guys:
i put them on my front door and anytime it opens they ring. that way if i think someone has broken in or i see someone who isn’t there i can think back to if the bells have rung, and if they haven’t i can assure myself it’s not real. obviously it’s not fool proof, like if you are prone to auditory hallucinations, but it has really helped me calm down in time to avoid major psychotic breaks. it’s a real lifesaver
nonpsychotics encouraged to rb
Even if you don't think/know that you have [disorder] (or even if you know you don't!) you're allowed to use coping strategies meant for or associated with that disorder. You can use ADHD tips for your poor memory. You can stim even if you're not autistic (stimming has a lot of overlap between disorders honestly). You can use chronic fatigue tips if you have depression. You're not stealing resources. If it helps you, it helps you, whether you were the target audience or not
i talk a lot of shit for someone who has to take 6 pills a day so they dont blow their brains out
I think people need to get better at saying “maybe, maybe not” or “do I really need an answer?” when faced with uncertainty. this is something that gets taught to people with OCD, but I think the masses would benefit
“what kind of attraction am I feeling?” would it be the end of the world if that question didn’t have an answer?
“am I allowed to identify as x when I’m not sure if it applies to me?” maybe! who cares!
literally. you can apply the “fuck around and find out” method to anything
continuously feeling the need to hunt for answers is going to eat you up inside. take it from me. your life gets so much easier when you let yourself be unsure
this is so petty but i hate how bipolar is treated like one of the big scary disorders but never talked about as one. people on here will talk about ending the demonization of ‘scary disorders’ like personally disorders and schizophrenia and did but not include bipolar despite being seen and treated by the general public as a ‘scary’ disorder. I had a mental health advocate tell me bipolar doesn’t count because it’s a mood disorder and therefor treated the same as gad and depression and i just. have you met a bipolar? listened to our symptoms? have you listened to doctors talk about us? our abuse rates? our suicide and alcoholism rates? the distain the public has for us? just include us in your positivity and advocacy please. im not asking for much
listen to me. thoughts do not have moral weight. a thought will never hurt anyone. the actions you take because of a thought can hurt yourself or other people, but the thought itself is powerless and there is no such thing as thought crime.
"but i have thoughts about being violent towards people! towards children! surely that makes me dangerous!" are you being violent? for real? with your actions? if not, then you are not actually hurting anyone
"but i have thoughts that are offensive and hurtful! they're bigoted, or they're horribly rude, or they're invalidating to others! i'm a horrible person." and what are you doing with those thoughts, exactly? are you taking bigoted actions, or saying those rude things, or taking steps to actually invalidate people? no? well then. no one is getting hurt. and in the meantime, if it really bothers you, doing things like helping unlearn your biases (both against minorities and just, like, against furries and theatre kids and shit) might help some of those thoughts go away, but sometimes you just get shitty thoughts.
"but i have horrific thoughts about sex!" are you hurting people. are you forcing people to do things they don't consent to. or are you just playing the upsetting possibility in your mind over and over again, and acting like that's even remotely the same thing?
thought. crime. is. not. real. OCD. is. hell. (and anything else that may cause intrusive thoughts.) but it does not define you. your thoughts will always, always come secondary to your actions. you're gonna be fine.
dam…….. that website “you feel like shit” (it’s like a questionnaire / troubleshooting guide for when you feel like shit) really works………………….. im not even all the way thru it and i even half-assed a lot of the suggestions and i already feel loads better