How The Ocean Can Teach Us to Deal With Bipolar Mood Swings
Ebbing and Flowing with the Tides of Our Mood
Over the years I’ve learned to ride my moods like a wave. Much like the ocean, bipolar mood swings swell and recede depending on the cycle of our lives, and energy surges or subsides, like large waves or calm waters. Inevitably the weather will change and the beautiful, serene waves that calmly rolled in will be exchanged for the dark turbulent waves of storm surf. I will be depressed again, and you will likely be depressed again, but we can learn how to decrease the severity of our symptoms and the duration of the depressive periods. We can do the same thing with hypomania and mania.
Are you fighting the tides? Forcing your boat through heavy waves is high risk – you’ll damage your vessel, and your person, over time. Is it because you feel the need to sail the seas everyday, no matter the weather? Not everyday has to be a banner day.
You are going to experience the ocean and all its facets regardless of whether you force your boat out everyday. The storm the ocean brings always reaches land too – you will get rained on, but you can do it from the comfort of “home.” Give yourself a pass to have bad days, okay days, “bronze days,” if you will. It seems our kindergarten culture of “Gold Star” days has instilled a sick obsession with productivity and perfection that is unhealthy for anyone, period. If you’re balancing mental health, it’s even more unhealthy to hold yourself to Gold Star standards on a daily basis.
As you accumulate more time watching and experiencing the ocean of your bipolar mood swings, you will naturally adapt to a new range of understanding yourself.
Choosing to Adjust to a New Normal with Bipolar Mood Swings
The interesting thing I’ve found about being hypomanic is this: my body tends to adjust to the newfound levels of energy over time. A new normal emerges as months and years go by. The days I question whether I’m hypomanic, or just feeling really great in recovery start to blur.
A similar phenomenon has been happening with my depressive states. They are no longer as dark, nor as intense, or as frequent. The result is a more even-keeled, peaceful life with highs and lows appropriate to what is going on around me. But even then, I have a choice about how to feel. I can take a deep breath and remember how silly it is to be reactive on a little blue planet in some distant corner of the universe. Why bother? Feel good. Choose to feel good. You can do it right now, reading this. Take a deep breath and remember the last time someone made you smile. Sink into that feeling. Or don’t – it’s a choice!
But Jake, What If I’m Feeling TOO Good?
Sure, the risk of mania when you’re feeling hypomanic for an extended period of time is arguably a concern. But I’ll make that argument. There seems to be a lot of caution around treating hypomania and I don’t believe that contributes much of anything but fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Have you been working your plan lately? Sleeping well? Exercising? Being graceful with yourself? Maybe you’ve just been attempting to do these things. That striving energy isn’t lost in the wind. Eventually, you’re going to start feeling better. Efforts are rewarded.
Now I’m not saying to indulge in the whims of your hypomania; stay as the observer of your thoughts and enjoy the feeling of being a little bit up. If it makes you feel uncomfortable to be in a heightened mood, ask yourself “why am I fighting this?” – I’d argue you’re simply just in foreign mood territory — because you don’t often feel this alive, this good, you’re wanting to suppress it. I challenge you to go with the flow of whatever you’re feeling.
If You’re Feeling Good, I Am So Happy For You.
Lean into that pleasant state of mood deliberately, and without fear. It’s normal to have moods. Just because you’re experiencing a heightened or prolonged mood compared to the average person does not make you “sick.” It makes you sensitive at worst, and more authentically: it makes you realistically aware of what a bizarre and extraordinary thing this human experience is.
We’re on a living, breathing, organic spaceship with plants and animals of all kinds and 8 BILLION other people, who we share the biosphere with to stay alive. We breathe invisible gas and drink clear liquid. Microscopic organisms have the power to infect and kill our bodies, and depending on what kind of mushrooms you pick to eat, your results may vary. We walk and drive over the fossils of dinosaurs that have been dead and gone for millions of years. Isn’t that AMAZING?
Meanwhile we live in a society where we’ve normalized spending 40 or more hours a week inside a building without sunlight, sitting, eating processed food that was made in a factory in a different state. That is not normal.
Who’s crazier? The puppets, the puppeteer, or the puppet show?
I find it rare these days to meet someone who hasn’t struggled with some form of “mental illness.” I also find it increasingly obvious that as a whole, we are not investing much in our mental wellness. These are cause and effect situations unfolding in front of everyone’s eyes. Then there’s stigma when it effects the person afflicted with whatever “it” may be.
So… How Do I Find the Zen During Bipolar Mood Swings?
Back to my point about feeling good. Why bother letting yourself feel down in an upside down world? Take a deep breath, let the sunshine hit your face, make yourself a healthy meal. Do something fun, by yourself or with a friend. Remember who you are — a living being milling around on a small planet in a large galaxy. Experiencing a vast cosmic playground, one day at a time. And you have the power to laugh and smile about it, every moment.
Put your energy into having the right attitude. Take another deep breath. Remember the last time someone you love gave you a great hug. Soak up that feeling. Be grateful we get to experience this wild ride. I know it’s hard to do sometimes, I really, really do, and on those really tough days it feels like that’s all the time. But it isn’t – “this too shall pass,” remember?
Why Is It So Easy To Be Hard On Ourselves And So Hard To Be Easy With Ourselves?
I’m going to level with you here: I don’t have the full answer, but I’d venture to say it’s got something to do with this “being human” mystery. What I CAN tell you with certainty, however, is that you are absolutely worth investing time and energy in. You deserve to be treated with kindness, compassion, and love. Don’t let your bipolar mood swings convince you of anything different. Invest in yourself first, and cultivate grace and peace in your self-talk. The importance of being able to sit in a loving space within yourself cannot be overstated. Be your own best friend, tread lightly in that mind of yours, my friend! There’s no space for shame or blame in your inner temple. We have no need for those things now. If you see them on the horizon of your ocean, simply guide them on their way.
Take one more deep breath… and remember what Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl had to say in one of my favorite books, Man’s Search for Meaning: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”