September 8, 2025 • 30 mins
Michelle shares why she took a hiatus from her podcast to fully experience planning her daughter's wedding and supporting her son through his senior year of high school.
• Decided to pause her podcast, blog, and social media when life became overwhelming with a job change, moves, planning a wedding, and senior year activities.
• Realized the purpose of healing from bipolar was to be present for these family milestones
• Planning her daughter's wedding became a beautiful healing experience for their relationship
• Practiced mindfulness throughout the wedding day to fully experience every moment
• Used the Mood Cycle Survival Guide tools automatically to manage stress
• Set an aggressive goal to unpack their new home in two weeks while listening to audiobooks instead of binge watching shows
• Discovered that homeschooling her youngest daughter was the right choice for their family
If you're struggling and feeling hopeless, check out Michelle's other podcast episodes, read her blog, or read her book "The Upside of Bipolar: 7 Steps to Heal Your Disorder." Until next time, Upsiders!
FREE Mood Cycle Survival Guide: https://theupsideofbipolar.com/free/
FREE Facebook Group for Moms with Bipolar: https://www.facebook.com/groups/bipolarmomslivingwell
website: https://theupsideofbipolar.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I had a day when I had this realization.
This is why you healed.
I love sharing what I'velearned.
I love helping other people,but the reason that I healed,
the reason that I focused sohard and worked so diligently
for so long, was for my family.
I wanted to be alive for theseevents for my family.
I wanted to be there and bewhole and be present for my
(00:22):
daughter's wedding and my son'syou know senior year of high
school and his graduation.
Hey, welcome to the Upside ofBipolar conversations on the
road to wellness.
I am so excited that youdecided to join me today.
We're a community learning howto live well with bipolar
disorder and we reject that.
The best we can expect islearning how to suffer well with
(00:43):
it.
I'm your host, michelleReitinger of myupsideOfDowncom,
where I help people with bipolardisorder use the map to
wellness to live healthy,balanced, productive lives.
Welcome to the conversation.
Hey, welcome to the Upside ofBipolar.
(01:05):
I am your host, michelleReitinger, and it has been a
minute.
For those of you who areregular listeners, you have
noticed that I have been onhiatus for the past several
months and I'm really excited tobe back and especially excited
to share with you why I put apause on my podcast so in order
to talk about the last fewmonths, it's important to talk
(01:27):
about what's been going on overthe last year.
Little over a year ago, ourfamily moved.
My husband had been out of workfor a little while and was
looking for employment, and itnecessitated a move for our
family.
And I actually did a podcastepisode after that move because
I was excited.
It was the first time I hadmoved without getting manic and
(01:47):
without getting depressedafterwards, and so it was a
really incredible learningexperience.
But we were in kind of atemporary living situation for a
little while and things werestarting to get.
We were starting to get settledin and starting to get into a
rhythm with things.
And then in December we got abig surprise when our oldest
daughter got engaged.
(02:08):
And it was exciting, a littlebit surprising, not surprising
in a bad way.
We love our now son-in-law, herfiance at the time, but we
didn't realize how serious theywere.
You know they were young adultsand weren't spending a lot of
time with us and so we didn'tsee them very often and didn't
realize how serious things hadgotten, and so we were a little
(02:31):
caught off guard when they gotengaged but really excited at
the same time.
And then in January, my husband, up to that point, had been
working some consulting jobs,but in January he got a new job
and it necessitated a move forhim.
I couldn't go at the time.
He needed to move to the townin a different part of our state
(02:52):
where he was going to beworking, because it was too far
for him to be driving back andforth every day.
He tried it for a little bitand after about a week he was
like, yeah, I can't do this.
And so we moved him into anapartment close to where he was
going to be working.
And that made things reallychallenging right away, because
I was now a single parent,making sure I was holding down
(03:16):
the fort, taking care of ourfamily and all of the things
that that entailed, plus tryingto do my podcast and my blog and
all the social media that wasassociated with that and the
Upsiders tribe, which was, ofall of my work, things that's
the highest priority and Istarted to get a little bit
overwhelmed.
I was planning my daughter'swedding and I understand now why
(03:38):
people hire wedding planners.
I will not make that mistakeagain, but I was trying to
manage all of the preparationsfor the wedding.
I have a son who just graduatedfrom high school and so he was
in his senior year.
Having his senior year, he was,you know, captain the
volleyball team and had a lot ofthings going on with volleyball
and I didn't want to miss anyof those things because it was
(04:00):
our last time through that stuffand we wanted to make sure we
were there for him and planningthe wedding and trying to manage
all the day to day things thatwere going on.
And I just started realizing,if I keep up at this pace, this
experience is going to be wasted, and I had a day when I had
this realization.
(04:20):
This is why you healed.
I love sharing what I'velearned, I love helping other
people, but the reason that Ihealed, the reason that I focus
so hard and work so diligentlyfor so long, was for my family.
I wanted to be alive for theseevents for my family.
I wanted to be there and bewhole and be present for my
(04:40):
daughter's wedding and my son's,you know, senior year of high
school and his graduation.
And at the pace that I was goingand all the things that I was
trying to manage at the sametime, it was making things super
stressful.
I could tell I was starting toget irritated really easily, and
I didn't want that to be theexperience that I had with my
daughter.
She's only going to get marriedonce, and I didn't want the
(05:01):
experience I had with herpreparing and planning and
hosting her wedding to be anegative one, and so I made a
very conscious decision.
I talked it over with myhusband and I put everything on
pause, except for the Upsiderstribe, my coaching group.
They don't ever get a pause.
I'm committed 100% to helpingthem, and so I made sure that we
(05:22):
were still having our monthlysuccess sessions with each
individual person and then ourgroup coaching sessions each
week on Wednesday nights, andthey were getting what they
needed from me.
But everything else the podcast, the blog, social media,
everything else went on pausebecause I wanted to make sure
that I was fully present andable to function in a healthy
(05:43):
way for my family, and it wasincredible.
I had some really beautifulexperiences with my daughter and
it was actually a very healingprocess for for us as well.
My daughter and I, over theyears, have been working through
the healing process becausewhen she was young, she was.
She was about four when I washospitalized all those times,
(06:04):
not about four.
She was four when I washospitalized a number of times
and made multiple attempts on mylife, and so she was aware as I
went through the healingprocess.
She was aware of things and itdid a lot of harm to our
relationship and over the pastfive years we've been doing a
lot of work together withindividual therapy and with
(06:24):
therapy together a few times andI've been making conscientious
effort to try and heal thatrelationship and be present for
my daughter.
And so the experience ofplanning her wedding was
incredible.
It was so beautiful, it wassuch a sweet experience for both
of us and I've heard a lot ofhorror stories.
(06:45):
I was actually quite nervousabout planning her wedding
because in the past we've hadsome challenging dynamics,
sometimes between the two of us,and I thought I've heard all
these people talk about howstressful weddings are and how
stressful the planningexperience is, and it wasn't
like that, because I made theconscious choice to step back
from other stressors so that Icould focus and be there for my
(07:06):
daughter and we had some reallyamazing experiences.
Wedding dress shopping was sucha sweet experience, it was just
beautiful and one of myfavorite experiences throughout
this whole process was when shehad her bridles taken.
I don't know if everybody knowsabout bridals I didn't know
about it until a few years agobecause that wasn't a thing when
(07:29):
I was getting married butbridals are usually do them
about a month or a month and ahalf before you get married and
the bride does the first lookwith the groom and they do
pictures.
We went to a beautiful garden,public garden that was doing a
tulip festival at the time, andso we got to be there with the
(07:51):
photographer while they tookpictures of my daughter and her
at that time fiance, and it wasjust amazing.
And during that time I actuallyhad several thoughts about how
grateful I was to be alive andhow grateful I was for all the
work and effort that I put intohealing, because I was able to
be there, fully present for mydaughter, healthy, whole, with a
(08:14):
healthy relationship with her,and it just filled me with
gratitude and I kept thinkinglike this is this is why I did
it all.
This is why I wanted to, wantedto heal was for these kinds of
moments, these experiences withher and with my other family.
And then the wedding itself wasamazing.
We had lots of support fromfamily and friends and spent a
(08:38):
lot of time decorating.
I have a sister-in-law who isso incredibly talented with
interior decorating.
She's not professional, shejust has a knack for it and
loves it and she works so hard.
I was there to support her, butshe did a lot of work putting
together pieces for thereception center that we held it
(09:01):
at and we did a lot of work.
We had, I think, like 14 hoursof decorating the day before.
I just wanted to look beautifulfor my daughter and we had some
incredible support as we wentthrough the wedding day.
And it's funny because I wasreally working hard to practice
mindfulness while I was goingthrough this whole experience.
(09:23):
One of the things thatmindfulness taught me was how
important it is to stay presentwhen I was going through the
healing process.
One of the things I learnedabout myself was that I had
intentionally and I've talkedabout this before, but I
intentionally taught myself todaydream because I was so
uncomfortable in my own head,and I also realized I was really
incredibly uncomfortable withsilence in the past because my
(09:46):
brain was never silent, and sosilence around me may be
uncomfortable because it left mewith only the intrusive
thoughts that were in my head.
And so I, over the years, hadlearned, you know, develop these
coping mechanisms of listeningto podcasts, listening to music,
listening to I always had tohave something playing, and when
I, you know, a lot of times Iwould binge watch shows, you
(10:08):
know, so that I was focused onsomething else, but I was, had
been incredibly uncomfortable inmy own head, and one of the
beautiful things about thehealing process was that I,
especially when I learned how topractice mindfulness meditation
, was that I learned how to benot only comfortable but embrace
silence and embrace just beingpresent in the moment.
(10:29):
And so I intentionally practicemindfulness throughout this
entire process, especially on mydaughter's wedding day, and I
didn't take a single picture thewhole day because I just wanted
so, so much to be able toexperience that entire day fully
and be fully present for all ofit, and it was words fail me it
(10:52):
was absolutely perfect.
It was a perfect day.
It could not have been better,so beautiful, to watch my sweet
daughter and son-in-law getmarried and the joy that they
felt and all of the joy of allof our family.
My husband and I.
We felt so in love with eachother that day and we had so
much fun.
(11:13):
My daughter's in-laws hosted awedding luncheon in their
backyard.
It was very beautiful.
They had worked really hard onthe yard to make sure it was
ready for guests and they hadtables set up and we just got to
enjoy being with each other andsharing.
You know why we loved ourchildren and then at the
(11:33):
reception, we had so much fun.
My daughter loves to dance.
She does country swing dancingall the time, she and her fiance
and so we had really fun musicand just danced the night away
and had such a fun, fun, funnight.
And I was filled filled withgratitude that night for
(11:53):
everybody, and not just for that, you know, for the wedding
reception and the wedding dayitself.
You know I was incrediblyfilled with gratitude for all
the people that had put so mucheffort into helping it to be a
beautiful day for for mydaughter and for our family, but
also for all the people thathave supported me and our family
along this healing path.
You know I kept thinking aboutmy mom and dad and about my
(12:18):
mother and father in law.
You know, about friends andfamily that have been so
supportive of us as we've gonethrough all of the challenges
we've experienced and throughthe healing process, and all of
it culminated on that day.
It was just amazing.
And then, about a month afternot even a month, I'm sorry, it
(12:39):
was actually three weeks.
I was trying to rememberbecause it was a really quick
turnover About three weeks afterour daughter got married, our
son graduated from high schooland so we had all these last
final things going on for him,and then, less than a month
(13:12):
after that, we moved and sowe've had all of these things
happening over the past abouteight months, eight, nine months
that have been major lifechanging experiences, major
shifts for our family, and oneof the things that has that I
was, as I was preparing for thisepisode, that I realized was
how automatic the mood cyclesurvival guide tools are for me.
Now I don't even think aboutthem as the mood cycle survival
guide.
They're just part of the waythat I manage my life.
You know, when I, at thebeginning of the year, when I
(13:34):
started finding myself gettingoverwhelmed with my husband, you
know, starting a new job inanother sitting and moving out,
moving away, and my son havingall of these things happening
for his senior year withvolleyball and senior activities
and my daughter especially mydaughter getting married, and we
had a few things happening withour youngest daughter that that
(13:56):
we needed to work on that youknow.
So there's just a lot ofstressors going on and instead
of like introverting and notbeing able to handle things, my
brain automatically went tothose resources in the mood
cycle survival guide.
You know.
The first one is who is yourteam?
I'm very, I'm very good now atturning to the people that I
(14:18):
that are support.
You know people for help.
I have very good relationships,you know, for example, with the
my, my I call her my Wendy.
I actually interviewed her onmy podcast, I think like a year
and a half ago, but she does allof my like marketing, managing,
and that she's she and I worktogether very closely and and so
(14:41):
I talked to her about you knowwhat I needed from her and and
what my bandwidth was for workyou know I was able to talk with
, have a close family members,that that we support each other
and letting them know.
You know I kind of have a lowbandwidth right now and I'm
these are the priorities and sothese things are going to be
(15:02):
have to take a backseat.
And, and so it was that thatteam.
You know, even when you gothrough the healing process, I
think, just in life, life ingeneral everybody needs support
people.
You provide support for othersand others provide support for
you.
And when you establish healthyboundaries around that support,
it helps us to support eachother and to be there for each
(15:25):
other, because we can't functionentirely on our own.
It really is difficult, and soI was able to automatically
think of who are my supportpeople and what, what do I need
from them and how do I ask in ahealthy way?
And then, of course, you know,the step two of the mood cycle
survival guide is what are myred flags and triggers?
You know what are the thingsthat make things difficult for
(15:49):
me to stay in a healthy,balanced mindset.
And it's not because I havequote unquote bipolar disorder
anymore In fact, I'm going totalk a little bit about that in
a minute but it's because thereare triggers and stressors for
every person.
Every person that lives on thisearth has things that cause
stress for them, that thattrigger anxiety, that trigger
undesirable emotional responses,and so, being aware of those,
(16:13):
you know, number one of them forme is just getting overwhelmed.
If you have too many thingsgoing on, you start to get I
started to get snappy withpeople and really impatient
because I was.
I was feeling overwhelmed, Ihad so many things going on and
that is a normal emotionalresponse and it was just a red
flag.
But you've got too many thingshappening and you need to take a
step back and evaluate, whichis again step three of the mood
(16:40):
cycle survival guide, or whatare your power priorities, what
are the things that matter mostand what things can be?
Can I let go?
And during this time I did notwant to sacrifice the experience
of planning my daughter'swedding and experience, you know
all of those, those once in alifetime opportunities and
experiences with my daughter.
I didn't want to sacrificethose because I was trying to do
too many things in my life, andso the power priorities for me
(17:02):
and that changes.
One of the things I've talkedabout in earlier episodes when
I've talked about the Mood CycleSurvival Guide, is how your
power priorities will changeover time, and so it's important
to kind of evaluate those on aperiodic basis and see where you
are.
And so it's important to kindof evaluate those on a periodic
(17:31):
basis and see where you are.
And for me, the priorities wereI in her little world that
needed some attention and Ineeded to be able to be present
for her.
And, of course, I had theplanning that was going on, and
I had never planned a weddingbefore.
I don't remember my husband andI we almost eloped.
There was very little planningthat went into our marriage.
(17:53):
It was just a little tinyceremony and our family did a
wedding luncheon for us, butthere was no big wedding, and so
I had never gone through thisprocess of planning a wedding
before, and so I didn't reallyknow what I was getting myself
into.
And as I started to feel theweight of all of the things that
had to be done and starting torecognize how much work was
(18:15):
actually going to go into this,that was when I started to step
back and say I'm doing too manythings right now and something
has to give.
And so that's when I evaluatedand identified what my
priorities were, what were mypower priorities and what things
do I need to let go of rightnow so that I can give my best
to those priorities.
And it was.
It was absolutely amazing, thewhole experience, and I know
(18:38):
that I'm using amazing andincredible.
I wish that I had bettervocabulary right now to describe
the experiences that we wentthrough, but but because I had
done all this healing.
Number one, I was able to befully present for my daughter
and and it was a healingexperience for us it was a
beautiful memory, all of itsbeautiful memories.
(18:59):
We don't have any negativememories from this whole
experience.
We didn't have fights.
We didn't have.
There were no meltdowns.
There were times when we haddisagreements about things, but
we were able to handle them in ahealthy way, but there were no
big blowups or damage to therelationship because, number one
, we had done a lot of work onhealing our relationship and,
number two, I had done a lot ofwork on learning how to identify
(19:21):
when I was starting to getsnappy or cranky or having
emotional responses that wereundesirable.
I was able to check myself andrecognize like there's something
going on underneath this.
What do I need to change inorder to get back to where I can
have healthy emotionalresponses to things?
And I think I was in the middleof a thought that required a
(19:42):
second thing, but I apologizebecause that took me off on a
tangent and I don't rememberwhat I was saying, anyway.
But the other thing that hasbeen incredible is our move.
So there was a lot of stressleading up to the move because
we had the wedding and then wehad my sons, you know,
graduating and we had, you know,finding a place to live can be
(20:06):
a very stressful experience andthankfully we had some help with
that and we were able to find areally great place for our
family to move, able to find areally great place for our
family to move.
And I set some prettyaggressive goals for myself with
our move this time, because Ihad already been through a move
once where I didn't trigger, youknow, any hypomania or
depression afterwards, and so Igot much more aggressive about
(20:26):
how I wanted to handle this movebecause I think I realized,
like I feel I'm not going totrigger any, any kind of mood
swings with this move, but Ialso recognized so one of the
things that I learned about whenwe get curious about why we
experience symptoms, it can leadus to some really great insight
into ourselves.
(20:47):
So one of the things that Ilearned about myself with moves
is that when I move, it is a lotof change and a lot of stress
all at one time and in the pastI would hide from that stress in
coping mechanisms.
And one of the things that mytherapist said to me a long time
ago is what is the need you aretrying to fill with this coping
(21:13):
mechanism?
And my main coping mechanismthat I struggled with for a long
time was binge watchingtelevision and I didn't like it
and I don't want this to anybodyto feel like.
If you binge watch somethingfor a weekend because you need a
break, this is not anindictment of that.
This was me becoming totallydysfunctional for for several
weeks, sometimes a month, aftera move, not taking care of
(21:35):
myself, not taking care of myfamily.
That is the kind of bingewatching I'm talking about is
highly unhealthy, but I was.
That was the way that my brainwas trying to cope with the
overwhelming stress that it feltwith the move.
And when we moved to you knowthe last year, I tried to figure
(21:56):
out, you know kind of playedwith.
My brain needs something.
It's feeling overwhelmed andstressed right now.
What can I do to give itsomething to help with that
stress that does not involvebinge watching, because I did
not want to do that again, but Ineeded to give my brain
something to help, because itneeded help.
You know, moving is a verystressful experience for most
people.
I'm super impressed by peoplethat are in the military that
(22:20):
have figured out a way to moveregularly without getting
overwhelmed.
That's highly impressive to me.
But this move, I was wanting tosee if I could do a better job
this time, if I could improveeven more, and so I set a really
aggressive goal for myself withunpacking.
You know, the packing part wasstressful.
(22:41):
It's I don't like.
I don't like moving.
It's not my favorite thing todo, but we we were able to to
get all the packing done and themove, you know, done in one day
, which was our goal, meaninglike everything from one
location to the other.
And then I wanted to try andunpack in two weeks, like
completely unpack my house, getall the boxes unpacked, put away
(23:04):
things put on the wall,everything done in two weeks.
And I discovered that for me, ifI listen to audiobooks, that I
can, that serves the samepurpose and I'm actually able to
be productive at the same time.
And so I did.
My son-in-law turned me on to areally fun trilogy called the
(23:26):
Mistborn Series and it wasshocking to me when I figured
out how many hours of this bookI had listened to.
I think it was like 55 or 60hours of this book.
But I would get up in themorning, go on a walk and then
we would take care of my familyand it was summertime,
(23:48):
thankfully.
So one week I had a niece comeplay with my daughter, come stay
with us and play with mydaughter, and then about a week
and a half later I had my nephewcome.
So I just found a friend for mydaughter and let them play, and
then I went to work on thehouse and it was a really
fulfilling experience because Iwas able to stay focused and
(24:11):
productive and still give mybrain what it needed to function
, to kind of escape a little bitbecause the move was stressful.
It's a stressful experience,but I was able to provide my
brain what it needed so that itcould manage the stress and
still be productive.
And so each day I was able tosit in a room that I had
unpacked or, you know, look atsomething that I had
(24:33):
accomplished that day andacknowledge, yes, this is
stressful and I'm not super, youknow, super big fan of moving,
but I'm managing it and it'sworking.
And so after two weekseverything was unpacked and I
was able to, you know, have apositive summer, the rest of the
summer with my daughter, andnow we are homeschooling.
(24:53):
I didn't think I was ever goingto homeschool again.
I homeschooled my older twochildren until each of them were
in eighth grade, and when myyoungest came along, she's 11.
No, she's eight years youngerthan my son, and by the time she
came along, I was totally burntout.
I was like, yeah, I don't wantto do that again.
But she asked last yearmultiple times if we could do
(25:15):
homeschooling, and at first Ithought I have no interest in
doing that.
But as I thought about it moreespecially through all of the
you know, we were packing andgetting ready to move and I
started thinking about I thoughtmaybe we could do that, and so
I did a little investigation andfound a really great online
school that she loves, and sowe're homeschooling now.
(25:38):
So I think maybe this might beit for today's episode.
I didn't realize that it wasgoing to go.
I was going to talk for thislong, but I don't want it to be
too long, but next, the nextepisode I'm actually going to do
another solo episode because Iwant to talk about something
that I learned through thisexperience.
I'll give you a little preview.
I did write a blog post aboutthis.
It's called Don't Call itBipolar Disorder in scare quotes
(26:01):
, and it's something that hasbeen on my mind a lot during
this past eight months, becauseby labeling bipolar a disorder,
we do a huge disservice for thepeople struggling with these
symptoms, and I don't want toget into this too much right now
because I think this deservesits own episode, but that's what
we're going to talk about nexttime.
So I hope that this update hasbeen helpful.
(26:23):
I'm sorry that I don't have abroader vocabulary.
I feel I feel that the wordsthat I'm using are highly
inadequate to express thegratitude and joy that I've felt
over this past eight months.
Highly inadequate to expressthe gratitude and joy that I've
felt over this past eight months.
And stress, you know, and someoverwhelm, but mostly joy.
You know we've had some reallybeautiful experiences, you know,
even after they got married.
You know we've had fun.
(26:44):
When we moved in for 4th ofJuly, my son-in-law and daughter
came and stayed with us, so wehad all of our family together
for 4th of July for a few daysand it was just so happy.
It's so much fun to see yourchildren moving forward in their
life.
We have a really fantasticson-in-law.
(27:05):
We love him so much and he'ssuch a great addition to our
family.
I know that they are their ownfamily, but he is part of our
family now as well, and so we'reso happy to have him as part of
our family and maybe I'll askand see if they'll agree to let
me share a few of the weddingpictures.
I might see if they'll let medo that, because that would be
(27:25):
really fun to share that witheverybody.
But if anybody has read my bookthe Upside of Bipolar Seven
Steps to Heal your Disorder,this that I'm sharing right now
is the rest of the story.
You know, in the book I talkabout how my daughter she saved
my life.
My desire to be a good mom formy daughter and both of my
(27:48):
daughters and my sons.
That's what saved my life.
That is what finally helped meto recognize that I could not
make any more attempts on mylife and I had to help myself.
I had to figure out a way tosurvive.
I had to figure out not a wayjust to survive, but to thrive,
to heal.
I didn't know that I washealing when I was going through
(28:08):
the healing process.
I was just trying to be abetter mom process.
I was just trying to be abetter mom.
That was what motivated me inthe first place, and I am
forever grateful that I madethat choice, and I hope, if you
are struggling, if you'relistening to this and you're
struggling and feeling hopeless,that you will take a look at my
other podcast episodes, read myblog.
(28:31):
I would highly encourage you toread my book.
I wrote the book because therewas too much information that I
had learned to share in onesitting.
A lot of times, people wouldcome to me and ask for help and
I would try to teach themeverything I knew, and it was a
little bit like drinking througha fire hose.
It was too much information.
You know.
This is information you know,and and studies and everything
(28:53):
that I've gained over 15 years,and trying to share that in one
sitting with somebody was wasvery overwhelming to them, and
so that's why I wrote the book.
I wrote my book to teach peoplewhat I've learned, so that you
can find your own path tohealing.
(29:14):
Record another episode and we'llput another episode up next
week.
I'm really excited to sharewhat I've learned and some of
the new insights that I'vegained.
That will hopefully help eachof you on your own path to
healing.
Until next time, outsiders.
Hey, thanks for joining ustoday.
(29:35):
If you're ready to start onyour path to wellness with
bipolar, go to myupsideofdowncomand get your free mood cycle
survival guide four steps tosuccessfully navigate bipolar
mood swings.
If you're ready for more, checkout the map to wellness.
Until next time, upsiders.
I had a day when I had this realization.
This is why you healed.
I love sharing what I'velearned.
I love helping other people,but the reason that I healed,
the reason that I focused sohard and worked so diligently
for so long, was for my family.
I wanted to be alive for theseevents for my family.
I wanted to be there and bewhole and be present for my
(00:22):
daughter's wedding and my son'syou know senior year of high
school and his graduation.
Hey, welcome to the Upside ofBipolar conversations on the
road to wellness.
I am so excited that youdecided to join me today.
We're a community learning howto live well with bipolar
disorder and we reject that.
The best we can expect islearning how to suffer well with
(00:43):
it.
I'm your host, michelleReitinger of myupsideOfDowncom,
where I help people with bipolardisorder use the map to
wellness to live healthy,balanced, productive lives.
Welcome to the conversation.
Hey, welcome to the Upside ofBipolar.
(01:05):
I am your host, michelleReitinger, and it has been a
minute.
For those of you who areregular listeners, you have
noticed that I have been onhiatus for the past several
months and I'm really excited tobe back and especially excited
to share with you why I put apause on my podcast so in order
to talk about the last fewmonths, it's important to talk
(01:27):
about what's been going on overthe last year.
Little over a year ago, ourfamily moved.
My husband had been out of workfor a little while and was
looking for employment, and itnecessitated a move for our
family.
And I actually did a podcastepisode after that move because
I was excited.
It was the first time I hadmoved without getting manic and
(01:47):
without getting depressedafterwards, and so it was a
really incredible learningexperience.
But we were in kind of atemporary living situation for a
little while and things werestarting to get.
We were starting to get settledin and starting to get into a
rhythm with things.
And then in December we got abig surprise when our oldest
daughter got engaged.
(02:08):
And it was exciting, a littlebit surprising, not surprising
in a bad way.
We love our now son-in-law, herfiance at the time, but we
didn't realize how serious theywere.
You know they were young adultsand weren't spending a lot of
time with us and so we didn'tsee them very often and didn't
realize how serious things hadgotten, and so we were a little
(02:31):
caught off guard when they gotengaged but really excited at
the same time.
And then in January, my husband, up to that point, had been
working some consulting jobs,but in January he got a new job
and it necessitated a move forhim.
I couldn't go at the time.
He needed to move to the townin a different part of our state
(02:52):
where he was going to beworking, because it was too far
for him to be driving back andforth every day.
He tried it for a little bitand after about a week he was
like, yeah, I can't do this.
And so we moved him into anapartment close to where he was
going to be working.
And that made things reallychallenging right away, because
I was now a single parent,making sure I was holding down
(03:16):
the fort, taking care of ourfamily and all of the things
that that entailed, plus tryingto do my podcast and my blog and
all the social media that wasassociated with that and the
Upsiders tribe, which was, ofall of my work, things that's
the highest priority and Istarted to get a little bit
overwhelmed.
I was planning my daughter'swedding and I understand now why
(03:38):
people hire wedding planners.
I will not make that mistakeagain, but I was trying to
manage all of the preparationsfor the wedding.
I have a son who just graduatedfrom high school and so he was
in his senior year.
Having his senior year, he was,you know, captain the
volleyball team and had a lot ofthings going on with volleyball
and I didn't want to miss anyof those things because it was
(04:00):
our last time through that stuffand we wanted to make sure we
were there for him and planningthe wedding and trying to manage
all the day to day things thatwere going on.
And I just started realizing,if I keep up at this pace, this
experience is going to be wasted, and I had a day when I had
this realization.
(04:20):
This is why you healed.
I love sharing what I'velearned, I love helping other
people, but the reason that Ihealed, the reason that I focus
so hard and work so diligentlyfor so long, was for my family.
I wanted to be alive for theseevents for my family.
I wanted to be there and bewhole and be present for my
(04:40):
daughter's wedding and my son's,you know, senior year of high
school and his graduation.
And at the pace that I was goingand all the things that I was
trying to manage at the sametime, it was making things super
stressful.
I could tell I was starting toget irritated really easily, and
I didn't want that to be theexperience that I had with my
daughter.
She's only going to get marriedonce, and I didn't want the
(05:01):
experience I had with herpreparing and planning and
hosting her wedding to be anegative one, and so I made a
very conscious decision.
I talked it over with myhusband and I put everything on
pause, except for the Upsiderstribe, my coaching group.
They don't ever get a pause.
I'm committed 100% to helpingthem, and so I made sure that we
(05:22):
were still having our monthlysuccess sessions with each
individual person and then ourgroup coaching sessions each
week on Wednesday nights, andthey were getting what they
needed from me.
But everything else the podcast, the blog, social media,
everything else went on pausebecause I wanted to make sure
that I was fully present andable to function in a healthy
(05:43):
way for my family, and it wasincredible.
I had some really beautifulexperiences with my daughter and
it was actually a very healingprocess for for us as well.
My daughter and I, over theyears, have been working through
the healing process becausewhen she was young, she was.
She was about four when I washospitalized all those times,
(06:04):
not about four.
She was four when I washospitalized a number of times
and made multiple attempts on mylife, and so she was aware as I
went through the healingprocess.
She was aware of things and itdid a lot of harm to our
relationship and over the pastfive years we've been doing a
lot of work together withindividual therapy and with
(06:24):
therapy together a few times andI've been making conscientious
effort to try and heal thatrelationship and be present for
my daughter.
And so the experience ofplanning her wedding was
incredible.
It was so beautiful, it wassuch a sweet experience for both
of us and I've heard a lot ofhorror stories.
(06:45):
I was actually quite nervousabout planning her wedding
because in the past we've hadsome challenging dynamics,
sometimes between the two of us,and I thought I've heard all
these people talk about howstressful weddings are and how
stressful the planningexperience is, and it wasn't
like that, because I made theconscious choice to step back
from other stressors so that Icould focus and be there for my
(07:06):
daughter and we had some reallyamazing experiences.
Wedding dress shopping was sucha sweet experience, it was just
beautiful and one of myfavorite experiences throughout
this whole process was when shehad her bridles taken.
I don't know if everybody knowsabout bridals I didn't know
about it until a few years agobecause that wasn't a thing when
(07:29):
I was getting married butbridals are usually do them
about a month or a month and ahalf before you get married and
the bride does the first lookwith the groom and they do
pictures.
We went to a beautiful garden,public garden that was doing a
tulip festival at the time, andso we got to be there with the
(07:51):
photographer while they tookpictures of my daughter and her
at that time fiance, and it wasjust amazing.
And during that time I actuallyhad several thoughts about how
grateful I was to be alive andhow grateful I was for all the
work and effort that I put intohealing, because I was able to
be there, fully present for mydaughter, healthy, whole, with a
(08:14):
healthy relationship with her,and it just filled me with
gratitude and I kept thinkinglike this is this is why I did
it all.
This is why I wanted to, wantedto heal was for these kinds of
moments, these experiences withher and with my other family.
And then the wedding itself wasamazing.
We had lots of support fromfamily and friends and spent a
(08:38):
lot of time decorating.
I have a sister-in-law who isso incredibly talented with
interior decorating.
She's not professional, shejust has a knack for it and
loves it and she works so hard.
I was there to support her, butshe did a lot of work putting
together pieces for thereception center that we held it
(09:01):
at and we did a lot of work.
We had, I think, like 14 hoursof decorating the day before.
I just wanted to look beautifulfor my daughter and we had some
incredible support as we wentthrough the wedding day.
And it's funny because I wasreally working hard to practice
mindfulness while I was goingthrough this whole experience.
(09:23):
One of the things thatmindfulness taught me was how
important it is to stay presentwhen I was going through the
healing process.
One of the things I learnedabout myself was that I had
intentionally and I've talkedabout this before, but I
intentionally taught myself todaydream because I was so
uncomfortable in my own head,and I also realized I was really
incredibly uncomfortable withsilence in the past because my
(09:46):
brain was never silent, and sosilence around me may be
uncomfortable because it left mewith only the intrusive
thoughts that were in my head.
And so I, over the years, hadlearned, you know, develop these
coping mechanisms of listeningto podcasts, listening to music,
listening to I always had tohave something playing, and when
I, you know, a lot of times Iwould binge watch shows, you
(10:08):
know, so that I was focused onsomething else, but I was, had
been incredibly uncomfortable inmy own head, and one of the
beautiful things about thehealing process was that I,
especially when I learned how topractice mindfulness meditation
, was that I learned how to benot only comfortable but embrace
silence and embrace just beingpresent in the moment.
(10:29):
And so I intentionally practicemindfulness throughout this
entire process, especially on mydaughter's wedding day, and I
didn't take a single picture thewhole day because I just wanted
so, so much to be able toexperience that entire day fully
and be fully present for all ofit, and it was words fail me it
(10:52):
was absolutely perfect.
It was a perfect day.
It could not have been better,so beautiful, to watch my sweet
daughter and son-in-law getmarried and the joy that they
felt and all of the joy of allof our family.
My husband and I.
We felt so in love with eachother that day and we had so
much fun.
(11:13):
My daughter's in-laws hosted awedding luncheon in their
backyard.
It was very beautiful.
They had worked really hard onthe yard to make sure it was
ready for guests and they hadtables set up and we just got to
enjoy being with each other andsharing.
You know why we loved ourchildren and then at the
(11:33):
reception, we had so much fun.
My daughter loves to dance.
She does country swing dancingall the time, she and her fiance
and so we had really fun musicand just danced the night away
and had such a fun, fun, funnight.
And I was filled filled withgratitude that night for
(11:53):
everybody, and not just for that, you know, for the wedding
reception and the wedding dayitself.
You know I was incrediblyfilled with gratitude for all
the people that had put so mucheffort into helping it to be a
beautiful day for for mydaughter and for our family, but
also for all the people thathave supported me and our family
along this healing path.
You know I kept thinking aboutmy mom and dad and about my
(12:18):
mother and father in law.
You know, about friends andfamily that have been so
supportive of us as we've gonethrough all of the challenges
we've experienced and throughthe healing process, and all of
it culminated on that day.
It was just amazing.
And then, about a month afternot even a month, I'm sorry, it
(12:39):
was actually three weeks.
I was trying to rememberbecause it was a really quick
turnover About three weeks afterour daughter got married, our
son graduated from high schooland so we had all these last
final things going on for him,and then, less than a month
(13:12):
after that, we moved and sowe've had all of these things
happening over the past abouteight months, eight, nine months
that have been major lifechanging experiences, major
shifts for our family, and oneof the things that has that I
was, as I was preparing for thisepisode, that I realized was
how automatic the mood cyclesurvival guide tools are for me.
Now I don't even think aboutthem as the mood cycle survival
guide.
They're just part of the waythat I manage my life.
You know, when I, at thebeginning of the year, when I
(13:34):
started finding myself gettingoverwhelmed with my husband, you
know, starting a new job inanother sitting and moving out,
moving away, and my son havingall of these things happening
for his senior year withvolleyball and senior activities
and my daughter especially mydaughter getting married, and we
had a few things happening withour youngest daughter that that
(13:56):
we needed to work on that youknow.
So there's just a lot ofstressors going on and instead
of like introverting and notbeing able to handle things, my
brain automatically went tothose resources in the mood
cycle survival guide.
You know.
The first one is who is yourteam?
I'm very, I'm very good now atturning to the people that I
(14:18):
that are support.
You know people for help.
I have very good relationships,you know, for example, with the
my, my I call her my Wendy.
I actually interviewed her onmy podcast, I think like a year
and a half ago, but she does allof my like marketing, managing,
and that she's she and I worktogether very closely and and so
(14:41):
I talked to her about you knowwhat I needed from her and and
what my bandwidth was for workyou know I was able to talk with
, have a close family members,that that we support each other
and letting them know.
You know I kind of have a lowbandwidth right now and I'm
these are the priorities and sothese things are going to be
(15:02):
have to take a backseat.
And, and so it was that thatteam.
You know, even when you gothrough the healing process, I
think, just in life, life ingeneral everybody needs support
people.
You provide support for othersand others provide support for
you.
And when you establish healthyboundaries around that support,
it helps us to support eachother and to be there for each
(15:25):
other, because we can't functionentirely on our own.
It really is difficult, and soI was able to automatically
think of who are my supportpeople and what, what do I need
from them and how do I ask in ahealthy way?
And then, of course, you know,the step two of the mood cycle
survival guide is what are myred flags and triggers?
You know what are the thingsthat make things difficult for
(15:49):
me to stay in a healthy,balanced mindset.
And it's not because I havequote unquote bipolar disorder
anymore In fact, I'm going totalk a little bit about that in
a minute but it's because thereare triggers and stressors for
every person.
Every person that lives on thisearth has things that cause
stress for them, that thattrigger anxiety, that trigger
undesirable emotional responses,and so, being aware of those,
(16:13):
you know, number one of them forme is just getting overwhelmed.
If you have too many thingsgoing on, you start to get I
started to get snappy withpeople and really impatient
because I was.
I was feeling overwhelmed, Ihad so many things going on and
that is a normal emotionalresponse and it was just a red
flag.
But you've got too many thingshappening and you need to take a
step back and evaluate, whichis again step three of the mood
(16:40):
cycle survival guide, or whatare your power priorities, what
are the things that matter mostand what things can be?
Can I let go?
And during this time I did notwant to sacrifice the experience
of planning my daughter'swedding and experience, you know
all of those, those once in alifetime opportunities and
experiences with my daughter.
I didn't want to sacrificethose because I was trying to do
too many things in my life, andso the power priorities for me
(17:02):
and that changes.
One of the things I've talkedabout in earlier episodes when
I've talked about the Mood CycleSurvival Guide, is how your
power priorities will changeover time, and so it's important
to kind of evaluate those on aperiodic basis and see where you
are.
And so it's important to kindof evaluate those on a periodic
(17:31):
basis and see where you are.
And for me, the priorities wereI in her little world that
needed some attention and Ineeded to be able to be present
for her.
And, of course, I had theplanning that was going on, and
I had never planned a weddingbefore.
I don't remember my husband andI we almost eloped.
There was very little planningthat went into our marriage.
(17:53):
It was just a little tinyceremony and our family did a
wedding luncheon for us, butthere was no big wedding, and so
I had never gone through thisprocess of planning a wedding
before, and so I didn't reallyknow what I was getting myself
into.
And as I started to feel theweight of all of the things that
had to be done and starting torecognize how much work was
(18:15):
actually going to go into this,that was when I started to step
back and say I'm doing too manythings right now and something
has to give.
And so that's when I evaluatedand identified what my
priorities were, what were mypower priorities and what things
do I need to let go of rightnow so that I can give my best
to those priorities.
And it was.
It was absolutely amazing, thewhole experience, and I know
(18:38):
that I'm using amazing andincredible.
I wish that I had bettervocabulary right now to describe
the experiences that we wentthrough, but but because I had
done all this healing.
Number one, I was able to befully present for my daughter
and and it was a healingexperience for us it was a
beautiful memory, all of itsbeautiful memories.
(18:59):
We don't have any negativememories from this whole
experience.
We didn't have fights.
We didn't have.
There were no meltdowns.
There were times when we haddisagreements about things, but
we were able to handle them in ahealthy way, but there were no
big blowups or damage to therelationship because, number one
, we had done a lot of work onhealing our relationship and,
number two, I had done a lot ofwork on learning how to identify
(19:21):
when I was starting to getsnappy or cranky or having
emotional responses that wereundesirable.
I was able to check myself andrecognize like there's something
going on underneath this.
What do I need to change inorder to get back to where I can
have healthy emotionalresponses to things?
And I think I was in the middleof a thought that required a
(19:42):
second thing, but I apologizebecause that took me off on a
tangent and I don't rememberwhat I was saying, anyway.
But the other thing that hasbeen incredible is our move.
So there was a lot of stressleading up to the move because
we had the wedding and then wehad my sons, you know,
graduating and we had, you know,finding a place to live can be
(20:06):
a very stressful experience andthankfully we had some help with
that and we were able to find areally great place for our
family to move, able to find areally great place for our
family to move.
And I set some prettyaggressive goals for myself with
our move this time, because Ihad already been through a move
once where I didn't trigger, youknow, any hypomania or
depression afterwards, and so Igot much more aggressive about
(20:26):
how I wanted to handle this movebecause I think I realized,
like I feel I'm not going totrigger any, any kind of mood
swings with this move, but Ialso recognized so one of the
things that I learned about whenwe get curious about why we
experience symptoms, it can leadus to some really great insight
into ourselves.
(20:47):
So one of the things that Ilearned about myself with moves
is that when I move, it is a lotof change and a lot of stress
all at one time and in the pastI would hide from that stress in
coping mechanisms.
And one of the things that mytherapist said to me a long time
ago is what is the need you aretrying to fill with this coping
(21:13):
mechanism?
And my main coping mechanismthat I struggled with for a long
time was binge watchingtelevision and I didn't like it
and I don't want this to anybodyto feel like.
If you binge watch somethingfor a weekend because you need a
break, this is not anindictment of that.
This was me becoming totallydysfunctional for for several
weeks, sometimes a month, aftera move, not taking care of
(21:35):
myself, not taking care of myfamily.
That is the kind of bingewatching I'm talking about is
highly unhealthy, but I was.
That was the way that my brainwas trying to cope with the
overwhelming stress that it feltwith the move.
And when we moved to you knowthe last year, I tried to figure
(21:56):
out, you know kind of playedwith.
My brain needs something.
It's feeling overwhelmed andstressed right now.
What can I do to give itsomething to help with that
stress that does not involvebinge watching, because I did
not want to do that again, but Ineeded to give my brain
something to help, because itneeded help.
You know, moving is a verystressful experience for most
people.
I'm super impressed by peoplethat are in the military that
(22:20):
have figured out a way to moveregularly without getting
overwhelmed.
That's highly impressive to me.
But this move, I was wanting tosee if I could do a better job
this time, if I could improveeven more, and so I set a really
aggressive goal for myself withunpacking.
You know, the packing part wasstressful.
(22:41):
It's I don't like.
I don't like moving.
It's not my favorite thing todo, but we we were able to to
get all the packing done and themove, you know, done in one day
, which was our goal, meaninglike everything from one
location to the other.
And then I wanted to try andunpack in two weeks, like
completely unpack my house, getall the boxes unpacked, put away
(23:04):
things put on the wall,everything done in two weeks.
And I discovered that for me, ifI listen to audiobooks, that I
can, that serves the samepurpose and I'm actually able to
be productive at the same time.
And so I did.
My son-in-law turned me on to areally fun trilogy called the
(23:26):
Mistborn Series and it wasshocking to me when I figured
out how many hours of this bookI had listened to.
I think it was like 55 or 60hours of this book.
But I would get up in themorning, go on a walk and then
we would take care of my familyand it was summertime,
(23:48):
thankfully.
So one week I had a niece comeplay with my daughter, come stay
with us and play with mydaughter, and then about a week
and a half later I had my nephewcome.
So I just found a friend for mydaughter and let them play, and
then I went to work on thehouse and it was a really
fulfilling experience because Iwas able to stay focused and
(24:11):
productive and still give mybrain what it needed to function
, to kind of escape a little bitbecause the move was stressful.
It's a stressful experience,but I was able to provide my
brain what it needed so that itcould manage the stress and
still be productive.
And so each day I was able tosit in a room that I had
unpacked or, you know, look atsomething that I had
(24:33):
accomplished that day andacknowledge, yes, this is
stressful and I'm not super, youknow, super big fan of moving,
but I'm managing it and it'sworking.
And so after two weekseverything was unpacked and I
was able to, you know, have apositive summer, the rest of the
summer with my daughter, andnow we are homeschooling.
(24:53):
I didn't think I was ever goingto homeschool again.
I homeschooled my older twochildren until each of them were
in eighth grade, and when myyoungest came along, she's 11.
No, she's eight years youngerthan my son, and by the time she
came along, I was totally burntout.
I was like, yeah, I don't wantto do that again.
But she asked last yearmultiple times if we could do
(25:15):
homeschooling, and at first Ithought I have no interest in
doing that.
But as I thought about it moreespecially through all of the
you know, we were packing andgetting ready to move and I
started thinking about I thoughtmaybe we could do that, and so
I did a little investigation andfound a really great online
school that she loves, and sowe're homeschooling now.
(25:38):
So I think maybe this might beit for today's episode.
I didn't realize that it wasgoing to go.
I was going to talk for thislong, but I don't want it to be
too long, but next, the nextepisode I'm actually going to do
another solo episode because Iwant to talk about something
that I learned through thisexperience.
I'll give you a little preview.
I did write a blog post aboutthis.
It's called Don't Call itBipolar Disorder in scare quotes
(26:01):
, and it's something that hasbeen on my mind a lot during
this past eight months, becauseby labeling bipolar a disorder,
we do a huge disservice for thepeople struggling with these
symptoms, and I don't want toget into this too much right now
because I think this deservesits own episode, but that's what
we're going to talk about nexttime.
So I hope that this update hasbeen helpful.
(26:23):
I'm sorry that I don't have abroader vocabulary.
I feel I feel that the wordsthat I'm using are highly
inadequate to express thegratitude and joy that I've felt
over this past eight months.
Highly inadequate to expressthe gratitude and joy that I've
felt over this past eight months.
And stress, you know, and someoverwhelm, but mostly joy.
You know we've had some reallybeautiful experiences, you know,
even after they got married.
You know we've had fun.
(26:44):
When we moved in for 4th ofJuly, my son-in-law and daughter
came and stayed with us, so wehad all of our family together
for 4th of July for a few daysand it was just so happy.
It's so much fun to see yourchildren moving forward in their
life.
We have a really fantasticson-in-law.
(27:05):
We love him so much and he'ssuch a great addition to our
family.
I know that they are their ownfamily, but he is part of our
family now as well, and so we'reso happy to have him as part of
our family and maybe I'll askand see if they'll agree to let
me share a few of the weddingpictures.
I might see if they'll let medo that, because that would be
(27:25):
really fun to share that witheverybody.
But if anybody has read my bookthe Upside of Bipolar Seven
Steps to Heal your Disorder,this that I'm sharing right now
is the rest of the story.
You know, in the book I talkabout how my daughter she saved
my life.
My desire to be a good mom formy daughter and both of my
(27:48):
daughters and my sons.
That's what saved my life.
That is what finally helped meto recognize that I could not
make any more attempts on mylife and I had to help myself.
I had to figure out a way tosurvive.
I had to figure out not a wayjust to survive, but to thrive,
to heal.
I didn't know that I washealing when I was going through
(28:08):
the healing process.
I was just trying to be abetter mom process.
I was just trying to be abetter mom.
That was what motivated me inthe first place, and I am
forever grateful that I madethat choice, and I hope, if you
are struggling, if you'relistening to this and you're
struggling and feeling hopeless,that you will take a look at my
other podcast episodes, read myblog.
(28:31):
I would highly encourage you toread my book.
I wrote the book because therewas too much information that I
had learned to share in onesitting.
A lot of times, people wouldcome to me and ask for help and
I would try to teach themeverything I knew, and it was a
little bit like drinking througha fire hose.
It was too much information.
You know.
This is information you know,and and studies and everything
(28:53):
that I've gained over 15 years,and trying to share that in one
sitting with somebody was wasvery overwhelming to them, and
so that's why I wrote the book.
I wrote my book to teach peoplewhat I've learned, so that you
can find your own path tohealing.
(29:14):
Record another episode and we'llput another episode up next
week.
I'm really excited to sharewhat I've learned and some of
the new insights that I'vegained.
That will hopefully help eachof you on your own path to
healing.
Until next time, outsiders.
Hey, thanks for joining ustoday.
(29:35):
If you're ready to start onyour path to wellness with
bipolar, go to myupsideofdowncomand get your free mood cycle
survival guide four steps tosuccessfully navigate bipolar
mood swings.
If you're ready for more, checkout the map to wellness.
Until next time, upsiders.
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