February 19, 2026 • 43 mins
I explore the gap between bondage and freedom, and how agency survives even when diagnosis and treatment narrow your choices. Through poems, personal turning points, and practical tools, I map a path from helplessness to daily actions that restore control.
• defining agency versus freedom with clear examples
• reframing bipolar from victimhood to informed choice
• choosing life, asking for help, building early warnings
• creating a Mood Cycle Survival Guide with priorities and reboots
• cautious, supported cross‑titration and micronutrients
• understanding med releases and stress triggers
• using trauma‑focused therapy modalities rather than talk alone
• mindfulness, EFT, journaling, yoga, and supportive exercise
• living mindfully, looping recovery, choosing your hard
• curating inputs and joining a pro‑recovery community
If you have any questions, please send me an email: michelle@theupsideofbipolar.com
If you haven't read my book yet grab your copy here: The Upside of Bipolar: 7 Steps to Heal Your Disorder
If you would like support as you go through the recovery process, join us in the Upsiders' Tribe
FREE Mood Cycle Survival Guide: https://theupsideofbipolar.com/free/
The Upside of Bipolar: 7 Steps to Heal Your Disorder: @upsideofbipolar | Linktree
website: https://theupsideofbipolar.com/
email: michelle@theupsideofbipolar.com
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SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
You've got agency.
You've got to do something aboutthis.
But I was recognizing that if Iwas determined to live, that I
had to choose somethingdifferent for myself.
And so that day I went in thehouse and got a notebook and
started writing out what I knewabout what I was struggling
with.
What did I know?
And what kind of help did Ineed?
And what could I do differentlythan what I had been doing
(00:20):
before?
And over time I starteddiscovering things that I could
do for myself.
And that's how the mood cyclesurvival guide developed in the
first place.
Welcome to the Upside ofBipolar, where we uncover the
true sources of bipolar symptomsand share proven tools for
recovery.
I'm your host, MichelleReitinger, number one
(00:42):
international best-sellingauthor of the Upside of Bipolar
Seven Steps to Heal YourDisorder.
In this podcast, I bring yousolo insights from my journey
and guest interviews withleading researchers and experts.
Join us to transform chaos intohope and reclaim your life.
Let's heal together.
(01:06):
Welcome to the Upside ofBipolar.
I am your host, MichelleReitinger, and I have a really
interesting topic that I want todiscuss with you today.
I've talked a little bit aboutthis concept in the past, but I
have a new angle that I recentlystarted pondering based on the
conversation I had with a formeruniversity professor the other
day.
When I was talking to thiswoman, she was talking about the
(01:29):
difference between the conceptsof freedom and bondage on the
one side and agency on theother.
And one of the things that shetalked about is how nobody can
take our agency away.
Nobody can remove our agencyfrom us.
That is something that belongsto us and it cannot be removed
from us.
However, we can lose ourfreedom.
(01:50):
We can lose the ability to act.
We can, you know, there aretimes when we struggle with
being in a form of bondage.
And the way she described it wasusing the analogy of somebody
who was completely bound to achair.
They were in a chair and theywere bound hands and feet and
body, and there was a tapearound their mouths.
(02:11):
So they are in a form ofbondage, physical bondage, but
they still have agency to decidewhat they are going to think and
how they're going to respond tothe situation.
And as I've been pondering this,I actually gave a presentation
for a group on Tuesday, and Iwas thinking about this concept
(02:33):
and the information that Ishared in the presentation.
And it's caused me to reallythink about the importance of
understanding the differencebetween these two concepts.
Because when you are diagnosedwith a mental health disorder
and you are treated usingpsychiatric drugs, it creates a
(02:56):
form of bondage for us.
I used to associate that withlosing your agency because I
believed that I had lost myagency.
I had lost the ability to actfor myself.
But as I've been thinking aboutthis concept, I realized that
that wasn't actually true oraccurate.
What I had lost was my abilityto act.
Like I had had a lot of myfreedom taken away from me by
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the beliefs that developedaround this diagnosis and the
treatment itself that I wasgoing through that was limiting
my ability to act and choose formyself.
But I still had agency.
And one of my favorite poemscame to my mind when I was
thinking about these concepts.
And it's from it's calledInvictus by William Ernest
Henley.
(03:39):
And it says, Out of the nightthat covers me, black as a pit
from pole to pole, I thankwhatever gods may be for my
unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch ofcircumstance, I have not winced
nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings ofchance, my head is bloody, but
unbowed.
(04:00):
Beyond this place of wrath andtears, looms but the horror of
the shade, and yet the menace ofthe years finds and shall find
me unafraid.
It matters not how straight thegate, how charged with
punishments to scroll.
I am the master of my fate.
I am the captain of my soul.
(04:22):
And several years ago I watcheda movie called Invictus that was
talking about the life of NelsonMandela, who was the leader of
South Africa when apartheidfell.
And he has an extraordinarystory because he was unfairly
imprisoned for years.
I think it was over 30.
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It was unjust.
And the prison was an awfulplace.
He was in a tiny little cell andhe was meant to do made to do
hard manual labor all day long,every single day.
And he chose to, even though hewas in a form of bondage, actual
physical bondage, he was inprison.
(05:03):
He recognized that he had theability to choose how he was
going to respond to it.
And when he was freed fromprison, he did not take revenge
on the people who had who hadunfairly imprisoned him.
In fact, when he took over thegovernment, when he won and was
in charge of the government, heintegrated the government.
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He took a lot of actions thatwere making an attempt to help
unify the country after theterrible apartheid suffering
that had gone on for years andyears and years.
And I loved his example becausehe shows us how terrible
suffering doesn't have to takeaway our agency.
We are the ones who have thechoice of how we're going to
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respond to situations.
And when I was going through thehealing process from my bipolar,
I had times when I started tofeel very angry and betrayed by
the system that was supposed tohelp me.
And I every time I would startto feel angry or I would start
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to get upset by it, I keptthinking, well, what good is
this going to do?
I just have to decide what am Igoing to do what am I going to
do now?
So I want to talk a bit about myexperience and because I want to
help you understand thisconcept.
To be fair, I am still workingthrough this concept myself
because it's kind of a new wayof looking at things that I
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really I'm I'm really gratefulfor, this new perspective.
But I recognize that even thoughI didn't fully understand the
concept, I was applying theprinciples in my own life during
my story.
So for the first 12 years aftermy diagnosis, well, the first 10
years after my diagnosis, I wasdoing what everything that I
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thought I had the ability to do.
I was going to every psychiatricappointment.
I took every medication I wasgiven.
I tried to go to therapymultiple times, even though it
felt totally useless to me.
I didn't understand the point ofit.
It didn't ever make me feelbetter.
But I felt like I was doingeverything I could, and my life
was getting progressively worse.
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And I was making choices anddoing things when I was
struggling with my symptoms thatwere causing tremendous harm to
myself, to my family.
And I felt like a victim.
I felt very helpless.
I didn't feel like I had agencyto choose for myself.
Whenever I would experiencesymptoms, I felt like I was
getting yanked onto a rollercoaster and I was just holding
(07:31):
on for dear life until it wasover.
And I started to feel more andmore and more helpless
throughout the entire process.
And I was in a form of bondagebecause, and I didn't understand
it, because I had been told thatI did not have any choice about
my symptoms, that that that Ihad a disorder, that I had a
(07:52):
chemical imbalance, that I had abrain disorder, and that the
symptoms were not my fault andthey and I didn't have any
control over them, and that themedication was meant to help,
that the medication was meant tostabilize and help me to live a,
you know, as normal a life aspossible.
But I didn't understand at thetime that the diagnosis itself
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was a form of bondage, and I'vetalked about that in the past
because it it turns me, turnedme into a victim.
And the treatment itself was aform of bondage.
Because psychotropic medicationsdon't normalize the brain.
They abnormalize the brain.
They were not regulating mybrain.
They were not balancing a brainchemistry issue.
They were dysregulating mybrain.
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They were causing my brain toact in an abnormal way, which
was causing further distress andfurther problems.
And in addition to that, I hadall kinds of side effects that
were accompanying themedication.
And as I've talked about againin the past, those side effects,
quote unquote side effects, wereactually just the effect of the
drug.
That was what the drug was doingto me.
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So when I had drugs that causedpsychosis, that was the effect
of the drug.
When I had a drug that causedmania, that was the effect of
the drug.
When I had a cause when I hadlots of drugs that caused severe
fatigue and sedation, that waswhat the drug was doing to me.
It wasn't a side effect.
That was the actual effect ofthe medication.
You know, at the point where Iwas on seven different
(09:16):
medications and I was feelingtotally numb and struggling to
feel any desire to even keepliving because I couldn't feel
anything, I was in a form ofbondage.
I was in the chair with my armsand legs wrapped and often
feeling like my mouth had beenwrapped up with, you know, a
covering because I would ask forhelp and nobody was helping me.
(09:39):
I didn't, I didn't feel like Ihad any ability to change my
situation.
But the two experiences thatwere turning points for me, and
I've shared them in the past,and I apologize for sharing them
again, but it's necessary inthis context to help you
understand what I'm talkingabout.
There were two experiences thatI had that were turning points
for me that helped reveal to methat I actually did have the
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agency to make choices formyself.
Even though I was bound up in alot of ways, I did have the
ability to think for myself, tomake choices for myself in at
least the way that I was viewingmy situation.
And so, in that little bit offreedom that still remained
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inside my own mind, I made thechoice first to live.
My unwell mind had convinced methoroughly that there was
nothing left to live for.
And that not only that, but thatI was ruining everybody's life
and that everybody would bebetter off if I was gone.
My unwell mind had made these,had convinced me of these
(10:43):
things.
And watching my children playone day and recognizing that if
I ever did successfully end mylife, that I would ruin my
little four-year-old daughter'slife because she would believe
it was her fault and it wouldruin her life, I chose something
different from that pointforward.
I made the decision that I wasgoing to live for her.
I didn't believe my life hadvalue at the time, but I knew
(11:04):
hers didn't.
I wanted her to have a happylife.
And I wanted to give her thebest chance at that.
And I recognized the best chancethat she had was for me to
survive.
And so even though at that pointI had no hope for anything ever
getting better because I hadbeen told bipolar was chronic
and incurable, and I'd have itfor the rest of my life, and
that medication was my bestchance and the medications
weren't helping me, I stillchose to live for her.
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And so I became very determined.
And one of the things that Imade the decision to do was that
if those thoughts of self-harmor ending my life ever did come
back, that I would ask for help.
I would not hide that anymore.
I had hidden it for a long timebecause I was afraid of ending
up in the hospital and I didn'twant to end up in the hospital.
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But I made the decision that ifthose thoughts ever came back,
that I would go back to thehospital because I was going to
stay safe.
I was going to keep myselfalive.
And so I hung on for a year,just hanging on by my
fingernails, and the thoughtsstarted to come back.
And so I asked for help and Iended up in the hospital again.
And then after that fourthhospitalization, I was again
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watching my children play andhad the thought come to me,
nobody is coming to save you.
You have to find a way to saveyourself.
And that had never occurred tome.
I had so thoroughly believedthat I this was beyond my
ability to do anything aboutthat the thought had never
occurred to me that I could doanything about it.
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But in my mind, I startedrecognizing, you've got agency,
you've got to do something aboutthis.
I didn't know the word agency inthat way at that time.
I wasn't thinking that way, butI was recognizing that if I was
determined to live, that I hadto choose something different
for myself.
And so that day I went in thehouse and got a notebook and
started writing out what I whatI knew about what I was
(12:54):
struggling with.
What did I know?
And what kind of help did Ineed?
And what could I do differentlythan what I had been doing
before?
And over time, I starteddiscovering things that I could
do for myself.
And that's how the mood cyclesurvival guide developed in the
first place.
And over the years, as I wentthrough these tools and as I
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started discovering the toolsfor healing and recovery, and I
struggled and I kept havingsymptoms, every time I would
struggle, I would choose to getback up and try again.
So I started recognizing thateven though I was bound up with
a psychiatric diagnosis and Iwas struggling with the
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medications, I didn't reallyunderstand what was limiting my
freedom at the time.
I still had the ability tochoose what I was going to think
and how I was going to approachthis, what I was going to do
about it.
So over the following years, Ibegan to find tools that began
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to liberate me.
Little by little, I wasdiscovering the tools necessary
to liberate me from the bondageI was in.
And the first one, as Imentioned, was the mood cycle
survival guide.
And the thing that's interestingas I look at that and I teach it
to people is we are so convincedin our society that these mental
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health symptoms are the resultof an underlying disease or
etiology that often we don'tthink about the agency we have
to choose for ourselves or theability we have to act or to
take responsibility forourselves.
But as I went through andstarted thinking about case, so
you know, as I went through anddeveloped these steps, I
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recognized, number one, that Ineeded help.
For years I had been embarrassedby the symptoms and the things
that I was struggling with, andI tried to hide it.
And I needed help desperately,but I was afraid to ask for
help.
And so I didn't ask for helpuntil I was in crisis.
And as I developed the moodcycle survival guide, I started
recognizing that's not that'snot helpful or healthy.
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I know now, as I was thinkingabout what do I know, I know
that I need help.
There will be times that I needhelp.
And if I can ask for helpsooner, be humble enough to ask
for it sooner, ask people aheadof time, you know, if they can
assist me, set healthyboundaries around that
assistance, I could start beingrespectful of the people that I
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was asking for help andhopefully not damaging
relationships in the process.
Recognizing that I needed tocreate an early warning system
for myself and stop lettingmyself get yanked onto the
roller coaster without anywarning, but start looking at
things with curiosity, symptomswith curiosity instead of
judgment, and being aware oftriggers and symptoms and red
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flags so that I could dosomething about it sooner, so
that I didn't end up in crisis.
And making sure that Iidentified my power priorities,
taking responsibility for myselfwhen I was struggling
emotionally, and making sure thethings that mattered most were
done, learning how to say no tothings and learning how to make
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choices that were going to behealthy choices to take care of
myself and my family, the thingsthat were my responsibility, my
top priorities, and thenlearning how to reboot my
system, how to get myself backinto a healthy, balanced mental
state.
That was the very first timethat I started unwinding some of
the bondage that I was in.
I started learning how to takeresponsibility for myself
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instead of choosing to letmyself be a victim.
And the second step, the secondtool that I found was the
cross-titration with themicronutrients from true hope.
And this was a very bigunwinding of bondage for me
because I did not understand theeffect that the medication was
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having on me, having on myability to react to things in a
healthy way.
I struggled.
One of the main sources of thebipolar rage that I was
struggling with was thepsychotropic medications that
were dysregulating my emotionalresponse.
But the challenge withpsychotropic drugs is that you
cannot just stop taking themsafely.
It is very dangerous to juststop taking psychotropic
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medications because it changesyour brain chemistry and it can
cause a lot of problems if youjust stop taking your
medication.
It can be life-threatening even.
And so gratefully, I wasintroduced to the micronutrients
in a way that helped me to gothrough a safe cross-titration
process to safely get off of themedication and help my brain
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begin to heal and get thenutrition that it was missing
that was contributing to a lotof my mental health distress.
And that was a very liberatingexperience.
I've shared before on here theday that I woke up and it felt
like it was the first time I wasI was awake in over a decade.
It was, it was so incredible tome to think, oh man, is this
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what healthy people feel like?
When you have been sedated bymedication for 10 years and you
haven't felt awake in 10 years,and all of a sudden your brain
feels awake and alert, it'salmost impossible to describe to
somebody who has never been onpsychotropic drugs or never been
sedated in that way.
But that was just the very firstglimpse of the freedom that I
was working towards.
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And it was a releasing of someof the bonds that were keeping
me stuck, that were keeping mein a form of bondage.
And over time, as I went throughexperiences with med releases,
and I've talked about thisbefore, but just briefly so that
you understand the term ifyou're new here, psychotropic
drugs can stay in your softtissues for up to 10 years,
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according to studies that havebeen done.
And those drugs sit in those,you know, in the soft tissues of
our body.
And when you are under a lot ofstress, you know, emotional
stress, physical stress, I was,I was uh putting myself, my body
under a lot of stress when I wasdoing triathlon training and not
unwittingly causing med releasesin my body.
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But what happens is the stresscauses these pockets of
medication to release into yourbody, and they can cause the
symptoms they were meant toprevent in the first place.
And so over year, over theyears, as I learned more, I
gained more understanding ofwhat was happening in my body
with these med releases, I beganto understand what was
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happening.
So I didn't feel like a victimwhen I experienced those
symptoms.
I was able to be self-awareenough to recognize I had caused
a med release in my body andthen call for help, call my part
of my support system, which wastrue hope, and tell them what
was going on and have them guideme through the process of
helping my body safely navigatethis med release so that in a
couple of days I was feelingfine again.
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And then the third step in thisreleasing myself from bondage
was learning how to use therapyin a healthy and productive way.
And one of the things that'sreally challenging about therapy
is that probably 80, 85% oftherapists are just talk
therapists who do not have anytraining in trauma or how to
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help people over, you know, healfrom trauma.
And so when you go to therapy,if you're going to straight talk
therapy, it can make you feelworse.
You're focusing on the problemsand talking about the problems
over and over and over again.
And it kind of focuses you onyour bondage.
And it's interesting because ifwe think about this in terms of
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bondage, you know, the bondagefreedom side versus the agency
side.
If you're sitting in a chair andyou are bound up in your chair
and you're looking down at yourbonds, if you're focusing on
them, it can make you feel likeI don't have any freedom, I
can't choose anything.
But you still have the abilityto choose what you're going to
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think and how you're going torespond to the situation you're
in.
And so it's really critical inthis part of the process to stop
focusing on your bonds.
Stop focusing on the damage andthe pain.
But focus on solutions, focus onbeing proactive in therapy.
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Number one, look for the a goodtherapist, look for somebody who
has the ability to help youidentify underlying sources of
trauma and treat them.
That was one of the things thatI had to learn to do was learn
about treatment modalities fortrauma.
And the ones that I usespecifically were EMDR and art
therapy.
I've used some somatic therapieslike breath work and emotional
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freedom technique, which istapping.
But it's really critical tolearn about the different types
of trauma modalities that areout there, and then find a
competent therapist who iscertified in those trauma
modalities so that you can findsomebody that can actually help
you identify the underlyingsources of your trauma and treat
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them in a way that is going to.
help you recover.
And in my program, and I'vetalked about this in my, I
talked about this in my book.
I talk about it, you know, I'vegot blog posts about it, but
there are things that you can doto be more proactive in your
therapy.
It's really important for you tolearn how to look for sources of
symptoms that might be, youknow, from trauma, that might
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come from unhealthy thought andbehavior patterns, unhealthy
coping mechanisms, and thendecide that you're going to work
with a therapist on those thingsso that you can treat the source
of those things and heal.
You have to be willing to dohomework.
You have to be willing to, youknow, to do the uncomfortable
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work to heal and learn how tolet go of past pain and move
forward.
And this is again another way ofreleasing yourself from bondage.
I know I I do remember there'sone experience a couple of
experiences I'll share reallyquickly with therapy.
One of them was I have I havebeen felt very loyal to my
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family my entire life.
And so when there were thingsthat I struggled with that I had
kind of an underlyingrecognition that there were
things that I had experiencedwith family members that were
unhealthy.
And I'm not I'm not talkingabout abuse or anything like
that, like actual like physicalabuse or sexual abuse.
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I'm talking about just unhealthyways of of interacting that can
be traumatizing for a child,that can be, that can create you
know false beliefs aboutourselves or you know, we can
develop unhealthy thoughts andbehaviors as a result.
And I spent a lot of timetalking about these situations,
but not knowing what to do aboutthem.
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And one of the things thathelped was recognizing that if I
I think I've given this analogyin the past, but if you had
broken a bone and it had healedwrong and you had pain from it
no sorry that's the wronganalogy.
If you break your bone and yougo to the doctor the doctor
might want to know what happenedso that he can properly assess
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that the injury but the doctoris not going to dwell on the
situation that caused the pain.
He's going to to he's going tofocus on the actual injury.
So you don't keep talking to thedoctor about how the injury
occurred once the doctor knowsthen we focus on the actual
injury and that helped me somuch when I was when I was doing
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therapy and working to try andheal these wounds that had come
from unhealthy relationships andunhealthy relationship patterns
because instead of dwelling onthe person in the situation the
focus became the wound and howto treat and heal the wound so
that I could move on with mylife and let go of the pain from
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that situation.
And the other thing that wasreally helpful is it's really
critical to take responsibilityfor yourself.
There was a person online andI've said this before I wish
that I could remember her namebecause I would love to give her
credit for this because this wasnot my idea it was something I
heard from a, I think she was atherapist that she said that
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trauma is a story and healing isa choice.
And that choice is using ouragency to do something about it.
And as we exercise our agency toseek the help necessary to heal
we are again unwrapping more ofthose bonds that are keeping us
stuck.
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The next step in the process wasthe mindfulness meditation which
I cannot say enough about thevalue of mindfulness meditation.
It is the way to help you regainso much of your control over
what's happening in your life Ione of the challenges again with
struggling with these kinds ofsymptoms is that they are
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overwhelming sometimes.
You know the the experiencesthat we have the symptoms that
lead to a label like depressionfor example can feel
overwhelming and like you don'thave like it just feels like it
takes so much effort to doanything.
And so we day after day will layin bed or stay in our pajamas,
not brush your teeth, not brushyour hair, you know, not take
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showers because we are sooverwhelmed by the emotion of
depression like the the symptomsof depression the same thing
will happen when we experienceyou know symptoms of mania, you
know, taking on giganticprojects or spending lots of
money.
You know we feel like compulsiveyou know these behaviors that
grow out of these these symptomsand it can make us feel like we
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don't have any control ofourselves and and we start to
dissociate from ourselves in alot of ways.
I've talked I've shared beforeyou know the one of the worst
symptoms that I struggled withwas the bipolar rage and then
also the really negativeintrusive thoughts that were
just like relentless during youknow times of distress.
And and I had not I didn't likestaying present in my mind and
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my body like I I wouldintentionally force myself to
daydream and and go somewhereelse.
I would imagine that you knowwhat my life could be like or I
would imagine myself somewhereelse and take myself outside of
the situation because I was souncomfortable in the situation I
was in.
And when I first startedpracticing mindfulness
meditation it was veryuncomfortable I did not like it
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because it was trying to keep mepresent in things that I didn't
I had learned to avoid or todissociate from.
But mindfulness meditation onceI really started to work on it
and really started to practicethis, you know, to practice
mindfulness meditation ittotally changed my life I
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learned how to stay present withuncomfortable emotions.
I learned how to stay presentand process things when I was
going through therapy with myyou know with my therapist when
I was doing trauma work I wasable to stay present with the
emotions so I could actuallyprocess the emotion and release
it.
And I had mentioned EFT, youknow the emotional freedom
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technique, the tapping, but thatwas another another avenue for
helping me to process emotionand release the emotions
journaling was a huge help inthis process.
And I often will talk to peopleabout mindfulness meditation or
tapping or both and coupling itwith with journaling because a
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lot of times when we're whenwe're working on mindfulness
meditation one of the thingsthat you do when you're learning
how to ground yourself is beaware of you know where the
thoughts if you have thoughtsthat keep trying to take you
outside of yourself, you want tobe aware of them but then you
want to continually bringyourself back to the present.
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And that's the point ofgrounding is is learning how to
keep yourself present.
But one of the things that Istarted learning how to do was
you know I practice themindfulness meditation grounding
techniques and that consistentlyso that I learn how to stay
present.
But I also started payingattention when I was in just
stressing situations to where mymind was going.
(29:19):
And then after practicing themindfulness the meditation for
you know 10 minutes or so and Iget myself back into the
present, grab my journal andjust write down all of the
thoughts that came into my headand start looking for clues in
those thoughts.
Start looking for you knowthings and they it gave me lots
of information to take to mytherapist.
(29:41):
It's one of the ways that Iactually recognized that there
was some really serious unhealedtrauma that needed to be
addressed when I had a badreaction to my husband one day
was, you know, practicingmindfulness.
I talk about that in my bookactually in the mindfulness
chapter.
But this was another big way ofreleasing the bonds that were
keeping me stuck releasingmyself from bondage by choosing,
(30:05):
using my agency to choose topractice the mindfulness
meditation on a consistent basisand practice taking
responsibility for the thingsthat were happening inside my
mind and my body and learninghow to stay present with it,
looking for clues and theinformation that I was receiving
through my emotions and thethoughts that were coming into
my head.
(30:26):
And this was another way ofagain releasing myself from that
bondage.
When I started working on yogaand exercise one of the things
that was really important was II had a lot of curiosity because
I'd had a couple of experienceswith yoga and with with exercise
when I was running that helpedme to see the value of what I
(30:47):
was doing, but I didn't totallyunderstand how to apply it in a
way that would help me toactually heal.
And this was again continuing topersist in using my agency to
choose into this to choose usingthese tools until I figured out
how they could actually workwith you know help me free
myself from you know these thesebonds that I had been in with my
(31:10):
you know bipolar diagnosis andthe treatment that I had been
going through and the thingsthat had created the symptoms in
the first place.
And and so you know the yogatook the mindfulness practice
into my body.
It helped me to start to becomeaware of indications of distress
(31:32):
in my body become much moreaware of what was happening in
my body and then be able toaddress those things that I was
struggling with in a way thatgave my body what it was asking
for.
You know I one of the biggestthings for me was learning that
when I was having anxietysymptoms, I could tell the
difference between differenttypes of anxiety that were
(31:53):
triggered by different things.
So for example, and this thishappened through not mindfulness
meditation and yoga those twothings together helped me start
to become the you know aware ofmyself in a way that helped me
start distinguishing betweentrauma responses.
So I have one type of anxietyresponse to trauma, you know, a
(32:14):
trauma response.
And then there are you knowother types of anxiety feelings
that I have that mean my brainis not getting enough
micronutrients.
And so I started to become moresensitive to the different types
of symptoms I was experiencingand what they actually meant as
I became more self-aware withmindfulness practice in yoga.
(32:37):
And one of the things that Ilearned with with exercise was
how to use exercise in a waythat supported my mental health
rather than feeling like I hadto always be training for an
event that was that was me.
I was I had I had learned toexercise through being a
competitive athlete and so thatwas the only way I knew how to
exercise and as I learned as Ilooked with curiosity at
(32:59):
exercise as something that couldhelp me begin to free myself
from this you know mental healthbondage that I was in I started
to learn how exercise couldactually support healing rather
than exacerbate emotional statesthat I was struggling in and by
pushing myself too hard.
And then the last you know oneof the well I shouldn't say the
(33:22):
last I think I've got one otherone but um living mindfully was
something that I started and Idon't mean this is this is an
extension of the mindfulnessmeditation but also an awareness
of what the healing processlooks like.
So in my book and in the in theprogram step seven is uh is
(33:45):
living mindfully andunderstanding what healing
actually looks like.
And I've got this graphic behindme that is representative of the
recovery cycle that helps us torecognize that we will continue
as you go through the healingprocess, you will have times
when you'll experience symptomsand symptoms are not failure,
(34:06):
they are information.
And it's really important tounderstand what that recovery
process looks like so that youdon't feel like you're failing
when you experience symptoms.
Recently I was talking tosomething somebody that I that I
coach and we were talking abouthow when you're depressed, when
you're struggling withdepression everything feels
dark, everything feels heavy itfeels like you know failure.
(34:28):
And then when you come out ofit, all of a sudden the world,
the sun is shining, the world isbright again and you almost it's
almost like you can't rememberwhat it felt like to be
depressed and you think maybeI'll never feel that way again.
And so when you do start to feeldepression coming on again it
can feel like failure.
You start to focus on likekeeping yourself out of the
depression.
And so when you do experience itagain it can feel like you
(34:51):
failed.
But understanding that thesymptoms don't indicate that you
are failing in any way they arejust information and they are
learning points.
They're opportunities for you tolearn to look with curiosity
about what might have caused thesymptom to occur or the symptoms
to occur and use the tools andthe habits for healing that
(35:15):
you've developed over time toaddress the symptom to see if
you can identify the source andthen heal the source.
And again this is anotherunwrapping of these bonds that
you're in because instead ofchoosing to be a victim to the
experience and feeling like youfailed or something, you're
(35:36):
choosing to look at it withcuriosity and not judgment and
and look for clues and look forways to improve and continue
down the path of healing andrecovery.
And one of the other things Italk about in that chapter of
the book is that we have tochoose our hard your life is
already hard.
When we're struggling withmental health challenges our
(35:58):
life is already hard and we cancontinue just suffering or we
can choose like I said at thebeginning that each time we
quote unquote fall down orstruggle or you know whatever
things feel like setbacks or ordifficulty we can choose to sit
down and cry about it or we canchoose to get up and and try
(36:18):
again.
And so that again is us applyingour agency and using our agency
to continue to make choices thatare going to help keep moving us
forward on the path to healingand recovery.
And the last piece of this thatI've been thinking about as I
was thinking about this conceptof the difference between you
know the bondage and freedomversus agency is you have to
(36:42):
really careful about what youchoose to listen to and view
regarding mental health and whoyou choose to to associate with.
When I was going through thisprocess I didn't have the option
of joining a group of peoplethat were recovering because I
didn't even know recovery waspossible.
I didn't know I was recovering.
I was just doing the best Icould to keep my promise to
(37:05):
myself and to my children that Iwas going to survive for them
and I was going to find a way tosave myself because they
deserved a healthy mother and Iwanted to try to be a healthy
mom for them as much as I could.
But I have learned how importantit is to not feed the idea that
you have a chemical imbalancerthat bipolar is chronic and
incurable to not keep giving into this idea that you're a
(37:28):
victim.
You don't have any choice overthese things.
We don't want to spend our timefocusing on people that are have
that have that mindset on socialmedia, on you know podcasts or
even in what you're readingbecause it will keep you stuck
in that mindset too.
It's really important not tolook for validation in your
(37:48):
struggle but it's important tolook for other people who are
trying to do what you want todo.
That's one of the main reasonswhy I started the Upsiders
tribe.
I wanted to create a supportivespace for people who wanted to
recover to get encouragement andsupport and guidance in a place
where people understood whatthey were struggling with.
They understand the kind ofbondage you're in but also how
(38:11):
important it is to exerciseagency to choose something
different for yourself.
And as you're going through therecovery process it's so helpful
to have people that are you knowthere who are in different you
know different parts of therecovery process you know people
who are further down the roadthan you who've already gone
through cross titration or whohave already gone through
therapy and and can encourageyou as you're going through that
(38:35):
struggle to keep moving becauseit does get better and you are
going to get to a place whereyou know you're not going to be
experiencing withdrawal and andover medication symptoms and you
know eventually you'll get to aplace where you don't even
experience med releases anymore.
And you know as you're goingthrough therapy people who can
give you their perspective ondifferent therapy modalities and
(38:57):
and the benefits of those or youknow some therapy modalities
that they tried that didn't workfor them and why it didn't work.
And so you can get support frompeople who have gone who are on
the same road and encouragementwhen you're struggling it's so
important to make sure that youare choosing to expose yourself
to people that are choosing touse their agency to heal and to
(39:20):
recover as you do that you willcontinue to unwind those bonds
that are keeping you in bondageunwind the wrappings unwind the
rope unwind all of the thingsthat are keeping you stuck and
help you liberate yourself byexercising your agency a little
(39:42):
bit at a time at the beginningthere might be nothing more than
just the ability to keepchoosing hope.
And again it's so important tosurround yourself by people that
that know that there's hope.
But I want to encourage you toconsider that there is something
that you can do that yes you maybe experiencing a form of
(40:06):
bondage with your diagnosis andyour symptoms and the treatment
that you're going through butyou still have agency to choose.
You still have the ability tochoose something for yourself to
choose how you're going torespond to the situation.
What are you going to do aboutit?
There's another poem that Iwould like to share as I as I
(40:26):
get to the end here, which isone of my favorites from when I
was younger I used to have itmemorized.
I don't have the whole thingmemorized so I'm going to read
it but it's the road not takenby Robert Frost Two roads
diverged in a yellow wood andsorry I could not travel both
and be one traveller long Istood and looked down one as far
as I could to where it bent inthe undergrowth then took the
(40:49):
other as just as fair and havingperhaps a better claim because
it was grassy and wanted wearthough as for that the passing
there had warned them reallyabout the same and both that
morning equally lay in leaves nostep had trodden black oh I kept
the first for another day, yetknowing how way leads on to way,
(41:09):
I doubted if I should ever comeback I shall be telling this
with a sigh somewhere ages andages hence two roads diverged in
a wood and I I took the one lesstraveled by and that has made
all the difference.
You have the ability to chooseto use your agency exercise your
(41:29):
agency to begin freeing yourselffrom bondage.
You are the master of your fateyou are the captain of your soul
you can choose for yourself.
If you have any questions pleasesend me an email that my email
is linked in the show notes.
I would love to hear from you.
If you haven't read my book yetI encourage you to do so I wrote
(41:51):
that book designed as aself-help book so you can use it
on its own to learn the path tohealing and recovery, learn how
to unwind those bonds fromyourself to release yourself
from bondage.
That if you would like supportas you go through the recovery
process, please reach out andcheck into the Upsiders tribe.
It's a supportive community thatis designed to help teach you
(42:13):
the habits for healing that willaid you in your recovery and
provide a supportive communitythat is going to help you keep
your agency focused on doingsomething about this, on freeing
yourself from bondage.
I encourage you to exercise youragency today to do something to
help yourself.
If you have any questions let meknow and I'll talk to you again
(42:36):
soon.
Until next time Upsiders Bipolaryour journey to recovery matters
and I'm grateful you're here.
For more resources visitwwwpsideofbipolar dot com.
(42:56):
If you're ready to dive deepergrab my book The Upside of
Bipolar seven steps to heal yourdisorder if you're ready to heal
your symptoms join my monthlymembership The Upsiders Tribe to
transform chaos into hope.
Until next time Upsiders
You've got agency.
You've got to do something aboutthis.
But I was recognizing that if Iwas determined to live, that I
had to choose somethingdifferent for myself.
And so that day I went in thehouse and got a notebook and
started writing out what I knewabout what I was struggling
with.
What did I know?
And what kind of help did Ineed?
And what could I do differentlythan what I had been doing
(00:20):
before?
And over time I starteddiscovering things that I could
do for myself.
And that's how the mood cyclesurvival guide developed in the
first place.
Welcome to the Upside ofBipolar, where we uncover the
true sources of bipolar symptomsand share proven tools for
recovery.
I'm your host, MichelleReitinger, number one
(00:42):
international best-sellingauthor of the Upside of Bipolar
Seven Steps to Heal YourDisorder.
In this podcast, I bring yousolo insights from my journey
and guest interviews withleading researchers and experts.
Join us to transform chaos intohope and reclaim your life.
Let's heal together.
(01:06):
Welcome to the Upside ofBipolar.
I am your host, MichelleReitinger, and I have a really
interesting topic that I want todiscuss with you today.
I've talked a little bit aboutthis concept in the past, but I
have a new angle that I recentlystarted pondering based on the
conversation I had with a formeruniversity professor the other
day.
When I was talking to thiswoman, she was talking about the
(01:29):
difference between the conceptsof freedom and bondage on the
one side and agency on theother.
And one of the things that shetalked about is how nobody can
take our agency away.
Nobody can remove our agencyfrom us.
That is something that belongsto us and it cannot be removed
from us.
However, we can lose ourfreedom.
(01:50):
We can lose the ability to act.
We can, you know, there aretimes when we struggle with
being in a form of bondage.
And the way she described it wasusing the analogy of somebody
who was completely bound to achair.
They were in a chair and theywere bound hands and feet and
body, and there was a tapearound their mouths.
(02:11):
So they are in a form ofbondage, physical bondage, but
they still have agency to decidewhat they are going to think and
how they're going to respond tothe situation.
And as I've been pondering this,I actually gave a presentation
for a group on Tuesday, and Iwas thinking about this concept
(02:33):
and the information that Ishared in the presentation.
And it's caused me to reallythink about the importance of
understanding the differencebetween these two concepts.
Because when you are diagnosedwith a mental health disorder
and you are treated usingpsychiatric drugs, it creates a
(02:56):
form of bondage for us.
I used to associate that withlosing your agency because I
believed that I had lost myagency.
I had lost the ability to actfor myself.
But as I've been thinking aboutthis concept, I realized that
that wasn't actually true oraccurate.
What I had lost was my abilityto act.
Like I had had a lot of myfreedom taken away from me by
(03:18):
the beliefs that developedaround this diagnosis and the
treatment itself that I wasgoing through that was limiting
my ability to act and choose formyself.
But I still had agency.
And one of my favorite poemscame to my mind when I was
thinking about these concepts.
And it's from it's calledInvictus by William Ernest
Henley.
(03:39):
And it says, Out of the nightthat covers me, black as a pit
from pole to pole, I thankwhatever gods may be for my
unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch ofcircumstance, I have not winced
nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings ofchance, my head is bloody, but
unbowed.
(04:00):
Beyond this place of wrath andtears, looms but the horror of
the shade, and yet the menace ofthe years finds and shall find
me unafraid.
It matters not how straight thegate, how charged with
punishments to scroll.
I am the master of my fate.
I am the captain of my soul.
(04:22):
And several years ago I watcheda movie called Invictus that was
talking about the life of NelsonMandela, who was the leader of
South Africa when apartheidfell.
And he has an extraordinarystory because he was unfairly
imprisoned for years.
I think it was over 30.
(04:43):
It was unjust.
And the prison was an awfulplace.
He was in a tiny little cell andhe was meant to do made to do
hard manual labor all day long,every single day.
And he chose to, even though hewas in a form of bondage, actual
physical bondage, he was inprison.
(05:03):
He recognized that he had theability to choose how he was
going to respond to it.
And when he was freed fromprison, he did not take revenge
on the people who had who hadunfairly imprisoned him.
In fact, when he took over thegovernment, when he won and was
in charge of the government, heintegrated the government.
(05:25):
He took a lot of actions thatwere making an attempt to help
unify the country after theterrible apartheid suffering
that had gone on for years andyears and years.
And I loved his example becausehe shows us how terrible
suffering doesn't have to takeaway our agency.
We are the ones who have thechoice of how we're going to
(05:47):
respond to situations.
And when I was going through thehealing process from my bipolar,
I had times when I started tofeel very angry and betrayed by
the system that was supposed tohelp me.
And I every time I would startto feel angry or I would start
(06:08):
to get upset by it, I keptthinking, well, what good is
this going to do?
I just have to decide what am Igoing to do what am I going to
do now?
So I want to talk a bit about myexperience and because I want to
help you understand thisconcept.
To be fair, I am still workingthrough this concept myself
because it's kind of a new wayof looking at things that I
(06:29):
really I'm I'm really gratefulfor, this new perspective.
But I recognize that even thoughI didn't fully understand the
concept, I was applying theprinciples in my own life during
my story.
So for the first 12 years aftermy diagnosis, well, the first 10
years after my diagnosis, I wasdoing what everything that I
(06:50):
thought I had the ability to do.
I was going to every psychiatricappointment.
I took every medication I wasgiven.
I tried to go to therapymultiple times, even though it
felt totally useless to me.
I didn't understand the point ofit.
It didn't ever make me feelbetter.
But I felt like I was doingeverything I could, and my life
was getting progressively worse.
(07:10):
And I was making choices anddoing things when I was
struggling with my symptoms thatwere causing tremendous harm to
myself, to my family.
And I felt like a victim.
I felt very helpless.
I didn't feel like I had agencyto choose for myself.
Whenever I would experiencesymptoms, I felt like I was
getting yanked onto a rollercoaster and I was just holding
(07:31):
on for dear life until it wasover.
And I started to feel more andmore and more helpless
throughout the entire process.
And I was in a form of bondagebecause, and I didn't understand
it, because I had been told thatI did not have any choice about
my symptoms, that that that Ihad a disorder, that I had a
(07:52):
chemical imbalance, that I had abrain disorder, and that the
symptoms were not my fault andthey and I didn't have any
control over them, and that themedication was meant to help,
that the medication was meant tostabilize and help me to live a,
you know, as normal a life aspossible.
But I didn't understand at thetime that the diagnosis itself
(08:13):
was a form of bondage, and I'vetalked about that in the past
because it it turns me, turnedme into a victim.
And the treatment itself was aform of bondage.
Because psychotropic medicationsdon't normalize the brain.
They abnormalize the brain.
They were not regulating mybrain.
They were not balancing a brainchemistry issue.
They were dysregulating mybrain.
(08:33):
They were causing my brain toact in an abnormal way, which
was causing further distress andfurther problems.
And in addition to that, I hadall kinds of side effects that
were accompanying themedication.
And as I've talked about againin the past, those side effects,
quote unquote side effects, wereactually just the effect of the
drug.
That was what the drug was doingto me.
(08:54):
So when I had drugs that causedpsychosis, that was the effect
of the drug.
When I had a drug that causedmania, that was the effect of
the drug.
When I had a cause when I hadlots of drugs that caused severe
fatigue and sedation, that waswhat the drug was doing to me.
It wasn't a side effect.
That was the actual effect ofthe medication.
You know, at the point where Iwas on seven different
(09:16):
medications and I was feelingtotally numb and struggling to
feel any desire to even keepliving because I couldn't feel
anything, I was in a form ofbondage.
I was in the chair with my armsand legs wrapped and often
feeling like my mouth had beenwrapped up with, you know, a
covering because I would ask forhelp and nobody was helping me.
(09:39):
I didn't, I didn't feel like Ihad any ability to change my
situation.
But the two experiences thatwere turning points for me, and
I've shared them in the past,and I apologize for sharing them
again, but it's necessary inthis context to help you
understand what I'm talkingabout.
There were two experiences thatI had that were turning points
for me that helped reveal to methat I actually did have the
(10:02):
agency to make choices formyself.
Even though I was bound up in alot of ways, I did have the
ability to think for myself, tomake choices for myself in at
least the way that I was viewingmy situation.
And so, in that little bit offreedom that still remained
(10:23):
inside my own mind, I made thechoice first to live.
My unwell mind had convinced methoroughly that there was
nothing left to live for.
And that not only that, but thatI was ruining everybody's life
and that everybody would bebetter off if I was gone.
My unwell mind had made these,had convinced me of these
(10:43):
things.
And watching my children playone day and recognizing that if
I ever did successfully end mylife, that I would ruin my
little four-year-old daughter'slife because she would believe
it was her fault and it wouldruin her life, I chose something
different from that pointforward.
I made the decision that I wasgoing to live for her.
I didn't believe my life hadvalue at the time, but I knew
(11:04):
hers didn't.
I wanted her to have a happylife.
And I wanted to give her thebest chance at that.
And I recognized the best chancethat she had was for me to
survive.
And so even though at that pointI had no hope for anything ever
getting better because I hadbeen told bipolar was chronic
and incurable, and I'd have itfor the rest of my life, and
that medication was my bestchance and the medications
weren't helping me, I stillchose to live for her.
(11:27):
And so I became very determined.
And one of the things that Imade the decision to do was that
if those thoughts of self-harmor ending my life ever did come
back, that I would ask for help.
I would not hide that anymore.
I had hidden it for a long timebecause I was afraid of ending
up in the hospital and I didn'twant to end up in the hospital.
(11:48):
But I made the decision that ifthose thoughts ever came back,
that I would go back to thehospital because I was going to
stay safe.
I was going to keep myselfalive.
And so I hung on for a year,just hanging on by my
fingernails, and the thoughtsstarted to come back.
And so I asked for help and Iended up in the hospital again.
And then after that fourthhospitalization, I was again
(12:12):
watching my children play andhad the thought come to me,
nobody is coming to save you.
You have to find a way to saveyourself.
And that had never occurred tome.
I had so thoroughly believedthat I this was beyond my
ability to do anything aboutthat the thought had never
occurred to me that I could doanything about it.
(12:32):
But in my mind, I startedrecognizing, you've got agency,
you've got to do something aboutthis.
I didn't know the word agency inthat way at that time.
I wasn't thinking that way, butI was recognizing that if I was
determined to live, that I hadto choose something different
for myself.
And so that day I went in thehouse and got a notebook and
started writing out what I whatI knew about what I was
(12:54):
struggling with.
What did I know?
And what kind of help did Ineed?
And what could I do differentlythan what I had been doing
before?
And over time, I starteddiscovering things that I could
do for myself.
And that's how the mood cyclesurvival guide developed in the
first place.
And over the years, as I wentthrough these tools and as I
(13:17):
started discovering the toolsfor healing and recovery, and I
struggled and I kept havingsymptoms, every time I would
struggle, I would choose to getback up and try again.
So I started recognizing thateven though I was bound up with
a psychiatric diagnosis and Iwas struggling with the
(13:41):
medications, I didn't reallyunderstand what was limiting my
freedom at the time.
I still had the ability tochoose what I was going to think
and how I was going to approachthis, what I was going to do
about it.
So over the following years, Ibegan to find tools that began
(14:02):
to liberate me.
Little by little, I wasdiscovering the tools necessary
to liberate me from the bondageI was in.
And the first one, as Imentioned, was the mood cycle
survival guide.
And the thing that's interestingas I look at that and I teach it
to people is we are so convincedin our society that these mental
(14:23):
health symptoms are the resultof an underlying disease or
etiology that often we don'tthink about the agency we have
to choose for ourselves or theability we have to act or to
take responsibility forourselves.
But as I went through andstarted thinking about case, so
you know, as I went through anddeveloped these steps, I
(14:44):
recognized, number one, that Ineeded help.
For years I had been embarrassedby the symptoms and the things
that I was struggling with, andI tried to hide it.
And I needed help desperately,but I was afraid to ask for
help.
And so I didn't ask for helpuntil I was in crisis.
And as I developed the moodcycle survival guide, I started
recognizing that's not that'snot helpful or healthy.
(15:09):
I know now, as I was thinkingabout what do I know, I know
that I need help.
There will be times that I needhelp.
And if I can ask for helpsooner, be humble enough to ask
for it sooner, ask people aheadof time, you know, if they can
assist me, set healthyboundaries around that
assistance, I could start beingrespectful of the people that I
(15:31):
was asking for help andhopefully not damaging
relationships in the process.
Recognizing that I needed tocreate an early warning system
for myself and stop lettingmyself get yanked onto the
roller coaster without anywarning, but start looking at
things with curiosity, symptomswith curiosity instead of
judgment, and being aware oftriggers and symptoms and red
(15:54):
flags so that I could dosomething about it sooner, so
that I didn't end up in crisis.
And making sure that Iidentified my power priorities,
taking responsibility for myselfwhen I was struggling
emotionally, and making sure thethings that mattered most were
done, learning how to say no tothings and learning how to make
(16:14):
choices that were going to behealthy choices to take care of
myself and my family, the thingsthat were my responsibility, my
top priorities, and thenlearning how to reboot my
system, how to get myself backinto a healthy, balanced mental
state.
That was the very first timethat I started unwinding some of
the bondage that I was in.
I started learning how to takeresponsibility for myself
(16:36):
instead of choosing to letmyself be a victim.
And the second step, the secondtool that I found was the
cross-titration with themicronutrients from true hope.
And this was a very bigunwinding of bondage for me
because I did not understand theeffect that the medication was
(16:56):
having on me, having on myability to react to things in a
healthy way.
I struggled.
One of the main sources of thebipolar rage that I was
struggling with was thepsychotropic medications that
were dysregulating my emotionalresponse.
But the challenge withpsychotropic drugs is that you
cannot just stop taking themsafely.
It is very dangerous to juststop taking psychotropic
(17:19):
medications because it changesyour brain chemistry and it can
cause a lot of problems if youjust stop taking your
medication.
It can be life-threatening even.
And so gratefully, I wasintroduced to the micronutrients
in a way that helped me to gothrough a safe cross-titration
process to safely get off of themedication and help my brain
(17:39):
begin to heal and get thenutrition that it was missing
that was contributing to a lotof my mental health distress.
And that was a very liberatingexperience.
I've shared before on here theday that I woke up and it felt
like it was the first time I wasI was awake in over a decade.
It was, it was so incredible tome to think, oh man, is this
(18:00):
what healthy people feel like?
When you have been sedated bymedication for 10 years and you
haven't felt awake in 10 years,and all of a sudden your brain
feels awake and alert, it'salmost impossible to describe to
somebody who has never been onpsychotropic drugs or never been
sedated in that way.
But that was just the very firstglimpse of the freedom that I
was working towards.
(18:21):
And it was a releasing of someof the bonds that were keeping
me stuck, that were keeping mein a form of bondage.
And over time, as I went throughexperiences with med releases,
and I've talked about thisbefore, but just briefly so that
you understand the term ifyou're new here, psychotropic
drugs can stay in your softtissues for up to 10 years,
(18:42):
according to studies that havebeen done.
And those drugs sit in those,you know, in the soft tissues of
our body.
And when you are under a lot ofstress, you know, emotional
stress, physical stress, I was,I was uh putting myself, my body
under a lot of stress when I wasdoing triathlon training and not
unwittingly causing med releasesin my body.
(19:04):
But what happens is the stresscauses these pockets of
medication to release into yourbody, and they can cause the
symptoms they were meant toprevent in the first place.
And so over year, over theyears, as I learned more, I
gained more understanding ofwhat was happening in my body
with these med releases, I beganto understand what was
(19:24):
happening.
So I didn't feel like a victimwhen I experienced those
symptoms.
I was able to be self-awareenough to recognize I had caused
a med release in my body andthen call for help, call my part
of my support system, which wastrue hope, and tell them what
was going on and have them guideme through the process of
helping my body safely navigatethis med release so that in a
couple of days I was feelingfine again.
(19:47):
And then the third step in thisreleasing myself from bondage
was learning how to use therapyin a healthy and productive way.
And one of the things that'sreally challenging about therapy
is that probably 80, 85% oftherapists are just talk
therapists who do not have anytraining in trauma or how to
(20:07):
help people over, you know, healfrom trauma.
And so when you go to therapy,if you're going to straight talk
therapy, it can make you feelworse.
You're focusing on the problemsand talking about the problems
over and over and over again.
And it kind of focuses you onyour bondage.
And it's interesting because ifwe think about this in terms of
(20:29):
bondage, you know, the bondagefreedom side versus the agency
side.
If you're sitting in a chair andyou are bound up in your chair
and you're looking down at yourbonds, if you're focusing on
them, it can make you feel likeI don't have any freedom, I
can't choose anything.
But you still have the abilityto choose what you're going to
(20:50):
think and how you're going torespond to the situation you're
in.
And so it's really critical inthis part of the process to stop
focusing on your bonds.
Stop focusing on the damage andthe pain.
But focus on solutions, focus onbeing proactive in therapy.
(21:13):
Number one, look for the a goodtherapist, look for somebody who
has the ability to help youidentify underlying sources of
trauma and treat them.
That was one of the things thatI had to learn to do was learn
about treatment modalities fortrauma.
And the ones that I usespecifically were EMDR and art
therapy.
I've used some somatic therapieslike breath work and emotional
(21:37):
freedom technique, which istapping.
But it's really critical tolearn about the different types
of trauma modalities that areout there, and then find a
competent therapist who iscertified in those trauma
modalities so that you can findsomebody that can actually help
you identify the underlyingsources of your trauma and treat
(21:58):
them in a way that is going to.
help you recover.
And in my program, and I'vetalked about this in my, I
talked about this in my book.
I talk about it, you know, I'vegot blog posts about it, but
there are things that you can doto be more proactive in your
therapy.
It's really important for you tolearn how to look for sources of
symptoms that might be, youknow, from trauma, that might
(22:23):
come from unhealthy thought andbehavior patterns, unhealthy
coping mechanisms, and thendecide that you're going to work
with a therapist on those thingsso that you can treat the source
of those things and heal.
You have to be willing to dohomework.
You have to be willing to, youknow, to do the uncomfortable
(22:43):
work to heal and learn how tolet go of past pain and move
forward.
And this is again another way ofreleasing yourself from bondage.
I know I I do remember there'sone experience a couple of
experiences I'll share reallyquickly with therapy.
One of them was I have I havebeen felt very loyal to my
(23:08):
family my entire life.
And so when there were thingsthat I struggled with that I had
kind of an underlyingrecognition that there were
things that I had experiencedwith family members that were
unhealthy.
And I'm not I'm not talkingabout abuse or anything like
that, like actual like physicalabuse or sexual abuse.
(23:29):
I'm talking about just unhealthyways of of interacting that can
be traumatizing for a child,that can be, that can create you
know false beliefs aboutourselves or you know, we can
develop unhealthy thoughts andbehaviors as a result.
And I spent a lot of timetalking about these situations,
but not knowing what to do aboutthem.
(23:51):
And one of the things thathelped was recognizing that if I
I think I've given this analogyin the past, but if you had
broken a bone and it had healedwrong and you had pain from it
no sorry that's the wronganalogy.
If you break your bone and yougo to the doctor the doctor
might want to know what happenedso that he can properly assess
(24:13):
that the injury but the doctoris not going to dwell on the
situation that caused the pain.
He's going to to he's going tofocus on the actual injury.
So you don't keep talking to thedoctor about how the injury
occurred once the doctor knowsthen we focus on the actual
injury and that helped me somuch when I was when I was doing
(24:35):
therapy and working to try andheal these wounds that had come
from unhealthy relationships andunhealthy relationship patterns
because instead of dwelling onthe person in the situation the
focus became the wound and howto treat and heal the wound so
that I could move on with mylife and let go of the pain from
(24:56):
that situation.
And the other thing that wasreally helpful is it's really
critical to take responsibilityfor yourself.
There was a person online andI've said this before I wish
that I could remember her namebecause I would love to give her
credit for this because this wasnot my idea it was something I
heard from a, I think she was atherapist that she said that
(25:18):
trauma is a story and healing isa choice.
And that choice is using ouragency to do something about it.
And as we exercise our agency toseek the help necessary to heal
we are again unwrapping more ofthose bonds that are keeping us
stuck.
(25:39):
The next step in the process wasthe mindfulness meditation which
I cannot say enough about thevalue of mindfulness meditation.
It is the way to help you regainso much of your control over
what's happening in your life Ione of the challenges again with
struggling with these kinds ofsymptoms is that they are
(26:01):
overwhelming sometimes.
You know the the experiencesthat we have the symptoms that
lead to a label like depressionfor example can feel
overwhelming and like you don'thave like it just feels like it
takes so much effort to doanything.
And so we day after day will layin bed or stay in our pajamas,
not brush your teeth, not brushyour hair, you know, not take
(26:24):
showers because we are sooverwhelmed by the emotion of
depression like the the symptomsof depression the same thing
will happen when we experienceyou know symptoms of mania, you
know, taking on giganticprojects or spending lots of
money.
You know we feel like compulsiveyou know these behaviors that
grow out of these these symptomsand it can make us feel like we
(26:48):
don't have any control ofourselves and and we start to
dissociate from ourselves in alot of ways.
I've talked I've shared beforeyou know the one of the worst
symptoms that I struggled withwas the bipolar rage and then
also the really negativeintrusive thoughts that were
just like relentless during youknow times of distress.
And and I had not I didn't likestaying present in my mind and
(27:12):
my body like I I wouldintentionally force myself to
daydream and and go somewhereelse.
I would imagine that you knowwhat my life could be like or I
would imagine myself somewhereelse and take myself outside of
the situation because I was souncomfortable in the situation I
was in.
And when I first startedpracticing mindfulness
meditation it was veryuncomfortable I did not like it
(27:34):
because it was trying to keep mepresent in things that I didn't
I had learned to avoid or todissociate from.
But mindfulness meditation onceI really started to work on it
and really started to practicethis, you know, to practice
mindfulness meditation ittotally changed my life I
(27:56):
learned how to stay present withuncomfortable emotions.
I learned how to stay presentand process things when I was
going through therapy with myyou know with my therapist when
I was doing trauma work I wasable to stay present with the
emotions so I could actuallyprocess the emotion and release
it.
And I had mentioned EFT, youknow the emotional freedom
(28:16):
technique, the tapping, but thatwas another another avenue for
helping me to process emotionand release the emotions
journaling was a huge help inthis process.
And I often will talk to peopleabout mindfulness meditation or
tapping or both and coupling itwith with journaling because a
(28:38):
lot of times when we're whenwe're working on mindfulness
meditation one of the thingsthat you do when you're learning
how to ground yourself is beaware of you know where the
thoughts if you have thoughtsthat keep trying to take you
outside of yourself, you want tobe aware of them but then you
want to continually bringyourself back to the present.
(28:58):
And that's the point ofgrounding is is learning how to
keep yourself present.
But one of the things that Istarted learning how to do was
you know I practice themindfulness meditation grounding
techniques and that consistentlyso that I learn how to stay
present.
But I also started payingattention when I was in just
stressing situations to where mymind was going.
(29:19):
And then after practicing themindfulness the meditation for
you know 10 minutes or so and Iget myself back into the
present, grab my journal andjust write down all of the
thoughts that came into my headand start looking for clues in
those thoughts.
Start looking for you knowthings and they it gave me lots
of information to take to mytherapist.
(29:41):
It's one of the ways that Iactually recognized that there
was some really serious unhealedtrauma that needed to be
addressed when I had a badreaction to my husband one day
was, you know, practicingmindfulness.
I talk about that in my bookactually in the mindfulness
chapter.
But this was another big way ofreleasing the bonds that were
keeping me stuck releasingmyself from bondage by choosing,
(30:05):
using my agency to choose topractice the mindfulness
meditation on a consistent basisand practice taking
responsibility for the thingsthat were happening inside my
mind and my body and learninghow to stay present with it,
looking for clues and theinformation that I was receiving
through my emotions and thethoughts that were coming into
my head.
(30:26):
And this was another way ofagain releasing myself from that
bondage.
When I started working on yogaand exercise one of the things
that was really important was II had a lot of curiosity because
I'd had a couple of experienceswith yoga and with with exercise
when I was running that helpedme to see the value of what I
(30:47):
was doing, but I didn't totallyunderstand how to apply it in a
way that would help me toactually heal.
And this was again continuing topersist in using my agency to
choose into this to choose usingthese tools until I figured out
how they could actually workwith you know help me free
myself from you know these thesebonds that I had been in with my
(31:10):
you know bipolar diagnosis andthe treatment that I had been
going through and the thingsthat had created the symptoms in
the first place.
And and so you know the yogatook the mindfulness practice
into my body.
It helped me to start to becomeaware of indications of distress
(31:32):
in my body become much moreaware of what was happening in
my body and then be able toaddress those things that I was
struggling with in a way thatgave my body what it was asking
for.
You know I one of the biggestthings for me was learning that
when I was having anxietysymptoms, I could tell the
difference between differenttypes of anxiety that were
(31:53):
triggered by different things.
So for example, and this thishappened through not mindfulness
meditation and yoga those twothings together helped me start
to become the you know aware ofmyself in a way that helped me
start distinguishing betweentrauma responses.
So I have one type of anxietyresponse to trauma, you know, a
(32:14):
trauma response.
And then there are you knowother types of anxiety feelings
that I have that mean my brainis not getting enough
micronutrients.
And so I started to become moresensitive to the different types
of symptoms I was experiencingand what they actually meant as
I became more self-aware withmindfulness practice in yoga.
(32:37):
And one of the things that Ilearned with with exercise was
how to use exercise in a waythat supported my mental health
rather than feeling like I hadto always be training for an
event that was that was me.
I was I had I had learned toexercise through being a
competitive athlete and so thatwas the only way I knew how to
exercise and as I learned as Ilooked with curiosity at
(32:59):
exercise as something that couldhelp me begin to free myself
from this you know mental healthbondage that I was in I started
to learn how exercise couldactually support healing rather
than exacerbate emotional statesthat I was struggling in and by
pushing myself too hard.
And then the last you know oneof the well I shouldn't say the
(33:22):
last I think I've got one otherone but um living mindfully was
something that I started and Idon't mean this is this is an
extension of the mindfulnessmeditation but also an awareness
of what the healing processlooks like.
So in my book and in the in theprogram step seven is uh is
(33:45):
living mindfully andunderstanding what healing
actually looks like.
And I've got this graphic behindme that is representative of the
recovery cycle that helps us torecognize that we will continue
as you go through the healingprocess, you will have times
when you'll experience symptomsand symptoms are not failure,
(34:06):
they are information.
And it's really important tounderstand what that recovery
process looks like so that youdon't feel like you're failing
when you experience symptoms.
Recently I was talking tosomething somebody that I that I
coach and we were talking abouthow when you're depressed, when
you're struggling withdepression everything feels
dark, everything feels heavy itfeels like you know failure.
(34:28):
And then when you come out ofit, all of a sudden the world,
the sun is shining, the world isbright again and you almost it's
almost like you can't rememberwhat it felt like to be
depressed and you think maybeI'll never feel that way again.
And so when you do start to feeldepression coming on again it
can feel like failure.
You start to focus on likekeeping yourself out of the
depression.
And so when you do experience itagain it can feel like you
(34:51):
failed.
But understanding that thesymptoms don't indicate that you
are failing in any way they arejust information and they are
learning points.
They're opportunities for you tolearn to look with curiosity
about what might have caused thesymptom to occur or the symptoms
to occur and use the tools andthe habits for healing that
(35:15):
you've developed over time toaddress the symptom to see if
you can identify the source andthen heal the source.
And again this is anotherunwrapping of these bonds that
you're in because instead ofchoosing to be a victim to the
experience and feeling like youfailed or something, you're
(35:36):
choosing to look at it withcuriosity and not judgment and
and look for clues and look forways to improve and continue
down the path of healing andrecovery.
And one of the other things Italk about in that chapter of
the book is that we have tochoose our hard your life is
already hard.
When we're struggling withmental health challenges our
(35:58):
life is already hard and we cancontinue just suffering or we
can choose like I said at thebeginning that each time we
quote unquote fall down orstruggle or you know whatever
things feel like setbacks or ordifficulty we can choose to sit
down and cry about it or we canchoose to get up and and try
(36:18):
again.
And so that again is us applyingour agency and using our agency
to continue to make choices thatare going to help keep moving us
forward on the path to healingand recovery.
And the last piece of this thatI've been thinking about as I
was thinking about this conceptof the difference between you
know the bondage and freedomversus agency is you have to
(36:42):
really careful about what youchoose to listen to and view
regarding mental health and whoyou choose to to associate with.
When I was going through thisprocess I didn't have the option
of joining a group of peoplethat were recovering because I
didn't even know recovery waspossible.
I didn't know I was recovering.
I was just doing the best Icould to keep my promise to
(37:05):
myself and to my children that Iwas going to survive for them
and I was going to find a way tosave myself because they
deserved a healthy mother and Iwanted to try to be a healthy
mom for them as much as I could.
But I have learned how importantit is to not feed the idea that
you have a chemical imbalancerthat bipolar is chronic and
incurable to not keep giving into this idea that you're a
(37:28):
victim.
You don't have any choice overthese things.
We don't want to spend our timefocusing on people that are have
that have that mindset on socialmedia, on you know podcasts or
even in what you're readingbecause it will keep you stuck
in that mindset too.
It's really important not tolook for validation in your
(37:48):
struggle but it's important tolook for other people who are
trying to do what you want todo.
That's one of the main reasonswhy I started the Upsiders
tribe.
I wanted to create a supportivespace for people who wanted to
recover to get encouragement andsupport and guidance in a place
where people understood whatthey were struggling with.
They understand the kind ofbondage you're in but also how
(38:11):
important it is to exerciseagency to choose something
different for yourself.
And as you're going through therecovery process it's so helpful
to have people that are you knowthere who are in different you
know different parts of therecovery process you know people
who are further down the roadthan you who've already gone
through cross titration or whohave already gone through
therapy and and can encourageyou as you're going through that
(38:35):
struggle to keep moving becauseit does get better and you are
going to get to a place whereyou know you're not going to be
experiencing withdrawal and andover medication symptoms and you
know eventually you'll get to aplace where you don't even
experience med releases anymore.
And you know as you're goingthrough therapy people who can
give you their perspective ondifferent therapy modalities and
(38:57):
and the benefits of those or youknow some therapy modalities
that they tried that didn't workfor them and why it didn't work.
And so you can get support frompeople who have gone who are on
the same road and encouragementwhen you're struggling it's so
important to make sure that youare choosing to expose yourself
to people that are choosing touse their agency to heal and to
(39:20):
recover as you do that you willcontinue to unwind those bonds
that are keeping you in bondageunwind the wrappings unwind the
rope unwind all of the thingsthat are keeping you stuck and
help you liberate yourself byexercising your agency a little
(39:42):
bit at a time at the beginningthere might be nothing more than
just the ability to keepchoosing hope.
And again it's so important tosurround yourself by people that
that know that there's hope.
But I want to encourage you toconsider that there is something
that you can do that yes you maybe experiencing a form of
(40:06):
bondage with your diagnosis andyour symptoms and the treatment
that you're going through butyou still have agency to choose.
You still have the ability tochoose something for yourself to
choose how you're going torespond to the situation.
What are you going to do aboutit?
There's another poem that Iwould like to share as I as I
(40:26):
get to the end here, which isone of my favorites from when I
was younger I used to have itmemorized.
I don't have the whole thingmemorized so I'm going to read
it but it's the road not takenby Robert Frost Two roads
diverged in a yellow wood andsorry I could not travel both
and be one traveller long Istood and looked down one as far
as I could to where it bent inthe undergrowth then took the
(40:49):
other as just as fair and havingperhaps a better claim because
it was grassy and wanted wearthough as for that the passing
there had warned them reallyabout the same and both that
morning equally lay in leaves nostep had trodden black oh I kept
the first for another day, yetknowing how way leads on to way,
(41:09):
I doubted if I should ever comeback I shall be telling this
with a sigh somewhere ages andages hence two roads diverged in
a wood and I I took the one lesstraveled by and that has made
all the difference.
You have the ability to chooseto use your agency exercise your
(41:29):
agency to begin freeing yourselffrom bondage.
You are the master of your fateyou are the captain of your soul
you can choose for yourself.
If you have any questions pleasesend me an email that my email
is linked in the show notes.
I would love to hear from you.
If you haven't read my book yetI encourage you to do so I wrote
(41:51):
that book designed as aself-help book so you can use it
on its own to learn the path tohealing and recovery, learn how
to unwind those bonds fromyourself to release yourself
from bondage.
That if you would like supportas you go through the recovery
process, please reach out andcheck into the Upsiders tribe.
It's a supportive community thatis designed to help teach you
(42:13):
the habits for healing that willaid you in your recovery and
provide a supportive communitythat is going to help you keep
your agency focused on doingsomething about this, on freeing
yourself from bondage.
I encourage you to exercise youragency today to do something to
help yourself.
If you have any questions let meknow and I'll talk to you again
(42:36):
soon.
Until next time Upsiders Bipolaryour journey to recovery matters
and I'm grateful you're here.
For more resources visitwwwpsideofbipolar dot com.
(42:56):
If you're ready to dive deepergrab my book The Upside of
Bipolar seven steps to heal yourdisorder if you're ready to heal
your symptoms join my monthlymembership The Upsiders Tribe to
transform chaos into hope.
Until next time Upsiders
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