JR, I am very impressed with your vocabulary and ability to clearly express yourself. A good explanation of your own feelings can go a long way. A good understanding of another's feelings is exceptional. After all, one of the greatest desires of the soul is to be understood.

There is a tangent that I would like to discuss while the subject is here. I believe that within the English language several different languages are borne or expressed. For instance, a musician can speak the language of a musician, and a poet can speak the language of a poet. Although music and rhyme are compatible, the understanding comes from the style of singing and the expressive dynamics in sound, blending words and tones together. On the other hand, for me, the languages of mathematicians and mechanics may as well be a foreign language from remote areas of the world. In other words, we can all speak the language of bipolarity but it is just possible that it takes the right person within this group to say the right words or express the right story to effect someone who's understanding waits for just that specific moment. I call it the "ah ha!" moment. Do you ever feel that tingling feeling that you don't want to go away because two people have made a connection that stimulates the soul? Well, that's my tangent and a few deep thoughts for the moment that probably will influence one, and only one, person, me. It made me feel better, anyway.

Back on topic, I really liked the analogy of the aging people who concentrate more on the movement of walking instead of developing the more interactive thinking involving the world around us. It seems to fit so well with my thoughts about "default conversations" including the weather, traffic, and cliches. To put neuroplasticity to the test, and one of the reasons we don't use much of the brain, is that we need to look beyond hot and cold. For a blind person, hot and cold might be red and blue, or light and dark, or degrees of ultraviolet radiance released from something. That is the type of language that fascinates me. Perspective. Experience. Observation. Growing the brain to invent new conversation and bring ourselves out of the rut of familiarity.

I apologize if many of you can not always follow my thinking pattern. As a musician and an artist, I often am looking for the new song no one has sung, the new invention no one has invented yet, or the new catch phrase that needs to be caught. I am always looking for a new way to catch someone's attention for the cover of a new book both title and design. I am always looking for the photographic moment in nature when a moose or some animal strikes a pose no one has seen. How wonderful life is! What is your goal? What do you have to look forward to? Why is this bipolar disorder keeping you at home to deal with it all the time? Would it be the same if you were driving through a streamlined canyon? Are my rhetorical questions bothering you or are they stimulating enough to break you from habit and explore something grand beyond the disorder to overcome the disorder?

I think it's more than just therapy and pills that we need. We need each other to make memories with. Our family might just be the the correct therapy if at first we could bridal the disorder enough to think clearly and help each other. I am not bipolar but my wife is. I think that was the fist step in her therapy...the dedication of marriage. If she thought that at any time I could just run away from her and leave her to misery and wo, her triggers might engage again. When she knows one of her lines of support will never leave her, that trigger is laid to rest for good. Another line of support is knowledge. Did you know that by simply reading the dictionary from cover to cover you are reading the words, origins, pronunciations, and definitions to all subjects that our, and many, cultures have to offer? That is what stimulates me about vocabulary. Memorize one word a day and you are learning geometry, history, music, practicality, technicality, foreign language, sports, etc., etc.

Well, I better stop for now. Some people usually need to vent on forums like this but I don't feel like one of the "some people," I am who I am and I think that all people have the potential to look back up from their feet and see what stimuli were missing all this time. I also like to say from the language of business, if you can't do it for yourself, hire someone who can. There is a point at which we all need help. I am searching for mine as you are for yours.

With BEST of Regards,

NorthPolar

NorthPolar

Gloria

Love

Gloria

Important thing for you in either case is to take care of yourself. Do something for you. It is easy for us to ride the rollercoaster with them, we have to make an intentional movement toward not riding the wave. Recognise what is happening, what you are capable of doing to help, and leave the rest to God.

God Bless

RED

Feelings are the uneven, multiple weighted scale of balance in any situation. Place any amount of pressure on one side of any feeling and that part of life becomes heavy. I hope this analogy is understandable. I am a person of analogies and complexity. I have a hard time explaining things on a basic level. Imagine a scale with multiple platforms each individually connected to it's equal and opposite platform. Happiness balances with sadness. Without the one, we would not know the other. How would I figure out what true happiness is without the extremity of the sadness to compare it to? The hardship is just the automobile for finding balance.

North

*What are the bipolar and non-bipolar habits of the household?

*What are the triggers leading into a bipolar episode?

*In what way can these triggers be avoided or deflected in to a new direction?

*What reminders linger in my living areas that remind me of these triggers?

*What experiences already have an answer before I make an unwelcome experience out of my bipolar loved one?

*What new experiences are available to me to put in place of the old habits to form new, healthy habits?

Now it may sound that I have said the same thing multiple times throughout this forum. When you believe in something intently, how well do you act upon your knowledge or belief? I, in no way, am trying to be your therapist nor do I have the licensing to claim such. I feel, however, that the strength and research of my beliefs added to the strength and research of each of our beliefs will kindle some very needed information that at least one of us needs.

Again, if any of you continue to find answers to the secrets of the disorder, please let me and all people know of your findings. I am curious to know if there is evidence to back up my theories of improvement. If we, nothing more than, place ease to depression as a stepping stone in the right direction, we have put that step to rest. Professional consultation should never be forgotten when making changes in a lifestyle or a living style.

North

Love

Gloria

I have bipolar disorder. My habits are improving but, they have gone back in forth from being organized, to being complacent, and lazy. From mania, to depression. My boyfriend tend to pick up where, i leave off. But, everything get's done, anyway. I have 4 kids, and i have to do thingd whether, I am depressed, or not. I have sacrificed my own care, though.

My triggers are, When, I feel any threat to the survival of my kids.

If something reminds me of any traumatic event from the past. Traffic, big crowds, sense of abandonment. Financial stress. Not sleeping, doing too many errands, and not taking time out.

If, I let to much stress build up, and don't vent, journal, or do something to vent, I will blow. Too much sugar, too much sugar.

Sometimes, I just cycle anyway.

I try to avoid an episode, by getting out of the situation before, I get to the point of no return. I go outside, and stay outside until, I am okay. I think about something possitive. I communicate my feelings instead of trying to control it. I call my case worker, or a friend. I go for a drive. I have a just in case medication if nothing else works. I try to take care of myself so, I don't have to go there at all. I write, check in with my therapist, eat right, sleep, take a day off from everything if, I am not feeling right.

I try to make my life as stress free as possible. Working out helps, too. Taking walks as well.

At times I will defend my beliefs to the death, and have an episode over them. It can also be a ocd issue as well, and I have gotten so mad...LOL I have recently have applied cognitive therapy to my life.

It helps me look at my beliefs, and thinking, and my reactios to them. It helps me find ways to learn different ways to react to situatios that trigger me. It takes a lot of awareness, and intervention. I have learned, that, I don't have feed the storm.

I can just relax, and let the cycles roll. They will pass if, i don't freak out.