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Mental health

Bipolar and a routine built entirely around meals

Started 16 March 2025 · 17 replies · 175 hearts · read 3.7k times

TamzinPoole, UK · 16 March 2025
1.3 years ago

Bipolar and a routine built entirely around meals — putting it in its own thread so it does not get lost in the check-in.

I have been sitting on this for a month.

What I would find useful is knowing whether anybody else has felt this way about it, because from inside my own head it seems like an unreasonable reaction.

Not asking anyone to fix this. Mostly saying it out loud somewhere it will be read kindly, which I have not managed anywhere else.

Thanks. Saying it here first has made the idea of saying it to somebody else considerably less impossible.

58

AikoOsaka, JP
#1

Something practical: I made a written list of what my early warning signs are, while I was well, and gave a copy to one person.

8me too 5

SaoirseKilkenny, IE
#2

The hardest part was that I felt I should be pleased and I was not, and the gap between those two things was itself distressing.

11

IlyaAlmaty, KZ
#3

What I did not expect was how much of my mood had been tied to a constant background effort, and how odd it felt when that effort stopped.

10

JonahFacilitatorCork, Ireland
#4

Facilitator note: nothing in this circle is treatment and nothing here is advice. The people who know your history are the ones to speak to.

23

PippaTruro, UK
#5

Jonah — yes, and the bit that took me longest to accept was the next part.

The thing that helped least was being told it was probably the medication, before anybody had looked at anything else in my life.

5

LeniLeipzig, DE
#6

I kept a one-word mood note daily for a year and the pattern was clear over a season and completely invisible over a week.

10

CormacWaterford, IE
#7

I would say plainly that if things have got dark, this is a thread to leave and a person to ring. We are company and we are not the right help for that.

6

HeddaCopenhagen, DK
#8

Mine improved over about five months, alongside sleep improving, and I genuinely cannot separate the two.

8me too 6

FitzLimerick, IE
#9

Reading and nodding. Nothing to add, and I wanted you to know somebody had read it.

10

JunoBrighton, UK
#10

What worked for me was keeping the small structures going even when they felt pointless. Getting dressed, going outside, writing two lines.

7

BronteHaworth, UK
#11

That is a very clear way of putting something I have never been able to put clearly.

11

TallisEly, UK
#12

The support around me improved dramatically once I told people what would actually help, rather than expecting them to guess.

4

BramwellNottingham, UK
#13

What Tallis described happened to me too, in a slightly different order.

I found it useful to separate what I could raise with a prescriber from what belonged in therapy, because I had been taking everything to the wrong door.

10

BryherIsles of Scilly, UK
#14

My experience is that this is discussed far too little and I am grateful this circle exists rather than it being folded into a general one.

13me too 5

MargueriteQuebec City, CA
#15

Nothing here is medical advice and on this subject that matters. If you are struggling, please talk to somebody qualified, and our support resources page lists the kinds of service worth finding.

7

JonahFacilitatorCork, Ireland
#16

Facilitator note: a couple of replies have described what worked for them, which is welcome, and none of it is a plan for anybody else.

23

LeifTrondheim, NO
#17

I had to accept that some of this was seasonal and would have happened regardless, and that acceptance stopped me looking for a cause that was not there.

9