One of my freinds sleeps eight hours a day, every day. When this pattern is disturbed, even by half an hour, he feels sluggish, under the weather, less creative and able to function. If he sleeps too long he’s unaffected.
Another freind of mine needs seven hours sleep. She’s trained herself into that sleep pattern, and if she oversleeps she feels dopey and not with it all day.
Me? I do perfectly on four hours of sleep a day. I manage ok if I sleep longer, and not too badly if I sleep less - but most nights, all I sleep is four hours a night. Which means, on average, I have two to four hours more productive time than other people do.
Correlations and fact
My point is that ‘normality’ is the setting on appliances - normality in humans only occurs because we’re either working to an expected ‘norm’ - or that expected norm has been formulated because people have reported it as thier experience. When that catalyses, it becomes a norm. Norms are something that can create barriers - or offer a benchmark to kick them down. It’s our choice, as a society.
What do you think? Any sleeping anecdotes you’d like to share?
(head nod to Chris Brogan for bringing up the subject on his blog)
Bi-polar disorder isn’t something that a lot of us consider an asset - but if you look at it from another angle, it’s a mark of something more.
Those of us with mental health problems can count ourselves in esteemed company:
Hugh Laurie
Stephen Fry
Axyl Rose (front man of Guns and Roses)
Virginia Woolfe
Sting (front man of the band Police, and pop star as a solo artist)
Sylvia Plath
As you can see, each person on this tiny list is considered excentric, or has at one point gone off the rails in one way or another - some succumbed to the urges that the illness inspired, and others have fought back. Some are winning, in a public way, and others are working on it as they go.
Mostly though I wanted to highlight that it’s not something that we’re facing alone - and that it affects us no matter where we are in our lives - and where we are in our carreers.
Yep, we made it to five at last!
I missed it too. I was so wrapped up in University that I commented on my personal blog and completely forgot to say something here.
Being five means we’ve managed, roughly, one post every two months. Its not a great record, but its one to beat ;). In all honesty and fairness, I had to remove a lot of posts, because they talked about things that later ended up in my first book Pictures In the Dark. And then I removed some more because the staff that wrote them dropped out of touch and we were updating our pages, and I didn’t feel it right to leave them there.
Speaking of which - its under final revision at the moment, so should be available very soon. And my best freind and adopted sister and I have started another book - called the You Ledger. I’m hoping it’ll be a great companion for those people who enjoy time management books and more.
So happy birthday us!
Ignorance is wonderful isn’t it?
I mean, its really nice to get up in the morning, be depressed and ratty and get a freind demanding to know why I’m taking my ‘PMT’ out on them. I remember that a couple of years ago, I wrote an article that explained, in fairly non-threatening language, what it felt like to be bipolar, and that though being bipolar itself isn’t an excuse for behaving badly *because we can* - it did explain why, occassionally, we didn’t socialise ‘properly’.
And I got to thinking.
I’ve had to explain bipolar disorder for so long in terms that others can relate to that I’ve found that I’ve lost some of my impact. That’s not a good thing.
So just a quick statement.
BIPOLAR DISORDER is not PMT. BUT - if it gives you a reference point to understand how we cope (or don’t in some cases) more the better. Just remember its a reference point. Like PMT, bipolars don’t have an control over how they are feeling - unlike PMT, it doesn’t go away and doesn’t only affect one gender.
I think that if you’re bipolar and that way of looking at it really offends you - that’s your choice, but I would also like to point out that if something is so alien to someone that they assume you are dangerous, crazy or unstable constantly in the first place, its my view that a reference point, no matter how strange, is better than none at all.
And no - at no point did I actually compare bipolar disorder to PMT - you can see the origional article that lead to this post here: What is…
This is a free article reprint.
Please do NOT edit the resource box and ensure all links are intact.
More powerful than I want, I need, I’m dying.
More powerful than even ‘I do’.
Those two words?
Thank you.
“The Secret” is the reason that most people know about the concept of gratitude, but I heard about if for the first time when another member of Ryze, Marilyn Jenett, in about 2004. Three and a half years later and I’m still enacting something I researched after she piqued my interest.
The concept I discovered, following Marilyn’s initial lead, was that all it takes is to say thank you.
I get up in the morning – every morning, with my children. I take care of the breakfast chores, and then I sit down in our dining room, with my diary and I make my gratitude list.
No matter how bad a morning I’m having, no matter how awful the day before.
For example: Continue reading ‘Article - why two words can change YOUR life for the better’
Bi-polarbears is fast approaching its fifth anniversary, though, you wouldn’t think it from looking at the archives. Most of what we’ve removed was down to reading it back and finding it didn’t fit with our updated mantra.
I was reading back over our first newsletters just over four years ago, and wondering whether we were deliberatly naieve, or whether our tone has just updated as we’ve grown up. It was, of course, great information, groundbreaking for back then, but it was also slightly pandering. We wanted to make waves, just quietly.
NOW – I’m shouting from the rooftops wherever I go. You don’t NEED to be cowed, to be held back by whatever disorder you face. I’m back at university this year,raising my kids, living well, and thriving wherever I go. I’m updating my book on Bipolar disorder, and am looking forward to releasing that officially as soon as its finished.
So in this new year, look at what you’re doing, and how you’re living. Adjust the things that don’t work – and move with the things that do.
Happy New Year everyone!
How are you handling your resolutions this year?
If like the majority of the population (of those that actually make resolutions), you find yourself failing in your pledges, for various reasons (good and bad) and you want to try something new, or want to actually manage to make good on your promises, there’s several things you can do.
First and foremost, make sure you know what you actually want. Resolutions shouldn’t be made because you want to sway people, or because they ‘make us look good’ – but should be genuine improvements on your life, and the lives of those around you.
Work out where you want to be in a year – do you want to have cleared debts, moved to a new neighbourhood? Lost weight, improved on a job?
Once you have your overall goal, split it up into managable chunks over your year. If you split it down well enough, and you can achieve each goal, you’ll be garuanteed to reach your projects by year’s end, and possibly reach your goal sooner if you have a breakthrough in your monthly plans. And if you have a setback, its easier to adjust smaller goals than ‘the uber goal of dooooom’(tm).
The final thing to remember about goals is that as long as you are TRYING, even if you don’t reach the main goal you set, you should have at least achieved something of your goal, which will stand you in good stead for achieving anything you go onto later.
I’ve got three resolutions this year:
1) LOSE WEIGHT -I was placed on anti depressants this year, before finding the route cause of my depression, so I came off anti depressants but the weight has been harder to lose. So I would like to lose enough weight to fit back into my dresses.
2)CONTINUE WITH MY STUDIES -I have had a blast in my first term of University, and my tutors have been wonderful, so I’m hoping that will continue this term. I’ve got four essays to hand in when I return, so I’m really looking forward to that.
3)KEEP UP WITH MY IMPORTANT SITES – there are several things I want to keep up with, my books site, my blogs, and here, so I’m making time to write every week.
It’d be great to see what your resolutions are and how you handle them, so let us know!
I’ve had a couple of comments about a post a couple of months back, about the fact that it *seems* I’m saying bipolar disorder is comparitable to PMT. I had another editor friend go back and read it, and she’s told me that’s not how it reads, and that the person that emailed me demanding that I remove it, because I’m adding to the ‘uneducated’ masses is wrong.
And her reaction was exactly what I’m talking about.
Bipolars tend to jump to conclusions. Even *I* do it and I work with words on a daily basis. We don’t always understand that just because we’ve got a perfect grasp of what Bipolar disorder actually *IS* that others need something to reference to.
So - I’m going to explain one myth that I talked about specifically.
Myth: Bipolars have an excuse for ‘bad’ behaviour.
Fact: We are just as in control of our reactions as most others, most of the time. Bipolar disorder isn’t any more of an excuse for rudeness than having a bad day, PMT or sleep problems. Sometimes our control is a bit stretched, especially in times of stress and difficulty, but the fact of the matter remains that we cannot excuse our bad behavior any more than anyone else.
The MYTH is that as bipolars, we can be excused for everything we do, simply because we are bipolar. We can be bad tempered, throw tantrums, beguile, lie, cheat, steal….you get the picture - because we’re bipolar?
And I say NO.
I say that just as people with PMT are expected to operate within the bounds of acceptable human behaviour, on a day to day basis - so are bipolars. Of course, there’s exceptions to the rule - sometimes we’re not ‘behaving badly’. Sometimes we’re out of control - which is why I’ve picked up this myth where I left off.
Being bipolar is sometimes like having a designated driver. We’ shrug into’ that persona, because its the only way to do our ‘every day’ things. We drive ourselves through the day, to the safest places we can find, until there’s nothing left, and we’re on our own again. Its not that we’re drunk, but in control of an imperfect reaction to the world. Which means we CAN be dangerous too. Or just sad. Or too happy to control ourselves properly.
Bipolars ARE just as capable of being ‘normal’ - or within the bounds of what society expects of its inhabitants. But sometimes, just sometimes, we need a designated driver to pull us out. Be that our alteregos, or our personas, or our carers.
In the next couple of months, I’m going to be specifically writing content to support - thank - and explain work with our carers. Because though we’re strong, wonderful, amazing, perfect souls, our carers are ANGELS.
I’m going back to univeristy this Autumn. I’m going back to study Creative writing and Criminology (which has lots of Psych and sociology mixed in!). I’m so excited, but it means I may be a little more scarce than usual. I will, of course, try to do as muc as I can, and if you’d like to help, we’ll be sticking up an Amazon wishlist for my course books and other stuff - I’ve never done this before, so its an experiment of sorts.
IF you do though, and you leave your name and URL - I’ll put you up, credited. :) I’ll post more later though.
Anyway, laters gators!
People with bipolar disorder — or manic depression — suffer from an accelerated shrinking of their brain, researchers at the University of Edinburgh have found.
…”Although we do no yet know the cause of this brain shrinkage, it may be that repeated episodes of illness harm the brain and lead to the decline. Another possibility is that the brain changes are caused by stress or genetic factors, which tend to lead both to more frequent illness episodes and to greater brain loss. Further research will be required.”
[source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070720103036.htm]
Its probaby a very odd thing to reference, but the first thing I thought of was witchdoctors, shrinking our heads.
The post goes on to talk about something I’ve been saying for a while - that lithium (possibly) makes our brains shrink.
Anything that increases certain elements in our blood damage our brains - that damage is sometimes used to control other disorders and health issues, such as epilepsy, and migranes, but in the case of bipolar disorder, I believe this may be a very bad thing.
I believe that stronger, and more in depth studies of bipolar disorder will have to be completed, at which point, we, those of us that have to agree to the treatments, or are placed on them, can choose whether we want to run the risk of damage, shrinkage or anything else that may, or may not come up in the course of our treatment. With informed choice, its possible to build, and rebuild our lives effectively, and survive.
I’d also recommend exploring ‘Stir Crazy’. It looks like its quite a good blog - and we’ve blogrolled it here.
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