Lemonade, anyone?

As I write this it is almost Christmas.  I'd really prefer to writing about fun ways to celebrate the Christmas season with your family.

But right now I am more about survival than celebration.

We got thrown some lemons in November . . .maybe you've heard the saying "When life hands you lemons, make lemonande'?

I was really disappointed by the lemons.  I had my own personal ideas about how things were supposed to go and they did not include lemons.

I have friends who are dealing with their own lemons:  one friend is recovering from a massively invasive surgery;  another has to find housing NOW in a town that doesn't really seem to have any place for her to live.  A third friend is very ill during her pregnancy and dealing with extended family that make things worse, not better.

The longer I live, the more I realize that we all have to learn to deal with lemons.

For a while I dealt with my lemons by stuffing them into a cupboard.  Lemon bothering me?  Pick it up, chuck it in the cupboard.  Then one day all the lemons fell out of the cupboard and some of them were pretty gross from their time in the cupboard and not much fun to clean up.

So now I am trying hard not to stuff lemons in the cupboard, but since it was such a habit for such a long time, I still put lemons in the cupboard sometimes . . .

But this is what I am trying to do with my lemons:

1.  Bring them to God.  I try to read my Bible and pray every morning.  For awhile I was really good at this.  Then I got whacked in the head really hard by some lemons and decided that my Bible reading and prayer was not working so I stopped doing it.  But I read this book by Phillip Yancy on prayer and I found out that I'm not the only person who has prayed and not gotten any warm fuzzy feelings from God.  He spoke about quite a few people who prayed for years before they got the warm fuzzies.  One lady prayed for 20 years, faithfully before God really showed Himself to her.  Now I don't understand that, but I am going to keep reading my Bible and praying anyway because I believe it is the right thing to do.

2.  Talk to my husband about my fears.  I did this yesterday morning.  It helped.  I was not dramatic and I find that talking about things in a vague matter is unhelpful.  I try to be very specific about what is bothering me and I try to bring it up when he is somewhat relaxed and receptive to talking about "stuff".  Many times I find that I am imaging the very worst case scenarios and he is able to bring things into a better light and then I'm able to be a much nicer mom and wife because I can give the people I love my full attention instead of only part of my attention because the other part is mulling over the trainwreck that I am afraid our lives will become . . .because I am imaging the worst case scenario.

3.  I am trying to take care of myself physically.  I need to be more intentional in this area but I'm making baby steps.  Hubby and I found a really great nutritional supplement and I notice a big difference on the days when I use it and on the days when I don't.

4.  After I do those three things I feel like I should just do what I'm supposed to do that day.  So I dive into my work for the day and I give it my best . . .today part of that to-do-list is concentrating on Christmas and how to celebrate it!

And that, my friends, is my recipe for making lemonade out of lemons.

~ Be well,

Jennifer

Three Qualities that Keep Me Alive and Stable

Before I get started, let me say that I am very fortunate that my doctor was able to find a magic drug that fixed my brain chemistry.  Not everyone is that fortunate, but I pray that someday everyone will have access to brain chemistry that lets them be in control of their brain the way they need to be to make decisions,  to understand what's going on in their heads and to flourish.

1. Acceptance.  I had to accept that I have bipolar II and that I have to have help to stay stable.
2. Dedication.  I have to keep working at staying healthy.
3. Vision.  I have a vision of what I'd like my life to look like and that motivates me to stay stable.

Acceptance. How did I get to the point where I accepted that I have bipolar II?  I think it took reading a lot about bipolar and joining a bipolar support site for me to be educated to the point that I understood what bipolar is.  Eventually I realized that yes, I feel the same way as other people who carry this label.  If I hadn't accepted that I had the disorder, I wouldn't have sought help and I might have become discouraged to the point of hopelessness.

Dedication.  I had to decide that I was dedicated to staying well.  For awhile it was easier to beat myself up than to build myself up ( I had worn some very destructive thought patterns into my brain), but the more I learned about what felt good and what didn't . . .the more I became determined that I didn't have to live in the gray place if I had the meds that would allow my brain to function.  I could obviously choose to think whatever I wanted when my brain wasn't broken.  I could still be negative with a brain that could concentrate.  I had to make a conscious choice that I was going to be positive and do positive things even when I woke up and was in a bad mood.   There was the temptation to believe that it was okay to be blue because I had bipolar BUT no, it is NOT okay because it can spiral out of control.    It's probably even more important for mentally ill people to guard their thoughts than it is for "normal" people.  I began to realize that I could allow myself to stay in that bad place and sink even lower, or I could choose to think on positive things and get myself busy and distracted so that the bad thoughts were banished.

Vision.  The thing about getting to the point that you no longer want to live is this:  you realize that you could "go there" again if you let yourself.  I had to make a conscious choice that I never wanted to get to that place again.  Part of that was dedication, but another part of that was vision.  I needed to think about the future and what I want to see in the future.  For me that involves goals like wanting to help my girls pick out their wedding dresses.  I want to hold my grandbabies.  When my second episode hit I had a baby.  I wanted to live for my fourth baby.  Instead of beating myself up and driving myself to a overdose, I told my husband what was happening and I made myself be around other people until the medicine kicked in and I started to feel like myself again, even though I was not my normal competent self and I felt self-conscious around other people.  But my vision made me be around people because that is what I needed to do to be healthy.  I was determined that my baby would know her mother.  I knew that if I didn't get help my baby wouldn't have the mother she needed.   So vision saved me.

So what qualities have kept me alive and allowed me to be stable?  Acceptance of the disease, dedication to staying well, and a vision of what I'd like the future to look like.