March 31, 2026 • 41 mins
I explore why real recovery from bipolar symptoms takes two kinds of work: treating the underlying causes and changing the coping patterns built to survive them. I share practical ways to rebuild emotional health so you can feel deeply, respond wisely, and create relationships with clearer boundaries.
• pathologising human suffering and how labels can end curiosity
• treating symptoms versus identifying root causes of bipolar symptoms
• common drivers like micronutrient insufficiency, medication effects, THC-related psychosis, and trauma
• why you can’t change habits without addressing causes and can’t heal causes without changing habits
• dissociation habits like TV and doomscrolling and how they persist after stability
• mindfulness meditation, breathwork, yoga, and therapy as habit-rewiring tools
• changing negative self-talk with mirror talk and using AI to draft a daily script
• relationship “dance” patterns, repair after reactivity, and the work of building new norms
• boundaries as personal responsibility rather than control of others
• choosing sustained effort over quick fixes and building a supportive environment
If you have any questions about anything I've talked about, I hope you'll send me an email. I would love to hear from you.
If you haven't read my book, I encourage you to get a copy of it, The Upside of Bipolar: 7 Steps to Heal Your Disorder.
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
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theupsideofbipolar/
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SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
You can't do one or the other and and have it be a
lasting have a have a lastingimpact.
You need to do both things.
Our brains are designed toprotect us.
It will try to figure out how tocope with things that we're
struggling with.
And most people will developcoping mechanisms, thoughts and
behavior patterns, but our brainis just trying to survive.
(00:21):
As we heal the sources ofsymptoms, it may become more and
more apparent that we've gotunhealthy thought and behavior
patterns.
But if we don't do anything toactively change those things,
they won't change.
Welcome to the Upside ofBipolar, where we uncover the
true sources of bipolar symptomsand share proven tools for
(00:43):
recovery.
I'm your host, MichelleReitinger, number one
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.
(01:09):
Welcome back to the Upside ofBipolar.
I am your host, MichelleReitinger, and I'm super excited
to do a solo episode todaybecause I have a topic to share
with you that's been on my minda lot recently.
Last week on social media, AngiePeacock, who I interviewed two
episodes back, was sharing avery raw emotional post on
social media.
She was talking about some griefthat she was experiencing.
(01:32):
And while she was sharing this,she was crying.
It was a very raw, realemotional experience that she
was having that was she wassharing with us.
And she was talking about whatwas causing the grief.
She had lost her father lastfall and had recently received
some more information.
And so as she read it, it wasbringing all that grief back up.
But the post wasn't about theloss of her father, really.
(01:56):
It was about her gratitude forbeing able to experience that
grief and experience theemotions because that's one of
the most important aspects ofbeing human, is to be able to
feel emotion.
And Angie hadn't been able toexperience that for a good chunk
of her adult life because shewas in psychiatric treatment.
At one point, she was on like 23different psychiatric drugs and
(02:18):
couldn't feel anything.
And so now she has so muchgratitude and appreciation for
the ability to feel evenuncomfortable emotions like
grief and sadness.
And as I listened to her post, Iwas thinking about what it looks
like to learn how to heal andactually learn how to experience
(02:38):
emotions in a healthy way.
Unfortunately, with ourpsychiatric industry and its
approach to human suffering, wehave pathologized human
suffering.
We have turned depression into apsychiatric disorder.
We have turned, you know,emotional dysregulation into an
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illness that is incurable.
And it's not incurable becausethe underlying issues can't be
solved.
It's incurable because insteadof having curiosity and looking
for the source of those symptomsand then treating those sources
with things that will actuallyhelp you to recover and heal, we
use psychiatric drugs thatdysregulate our brains and
(03:22):
suppress emotional response,which then makes it difficult
and sometimes impossibleimpossible to experience healthy
emotional reactions to things,healthy emotional responses to
things.
But when we are trying to heal,it's important to recognize that
there are two really main piecesthat go into this process.
(03:44):
The first is there needs to becuriosity into the underlying
sources of the symptoms.
What is causing thisdysregulation to occur?
What is causing the emotionalresponse to be extreme or
dysregulated?
So there needs to be curiosityinto the source, and then the
source needs to be treated.
(04:05):
We need to identify what thesources of those symptoms are
and we need to treat them.
But there's another piece to itthat often gets overlooked, and
that is usually by the time weget diagnosed, we have been
living with these symptoms forlong enough, or living with the
sources of the symptoms for longenough that we have developed
unhealthy patterns in our lives,unhealthy coping mechanisms,
unhealthy thought and behaviorpatterns, unhealthy relationship
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patterns.
And so if you do one, which is,you know, like if you were to go
in and identify the sources ofyour symptoms and treat the
sources and resolve those, butyou don't change your habits or
you don't change your patterns,you can continue to have issues
because you have developedunhealthy ways of experiencing
the world and thinking about theworld and interacting with the
(04:52):
world as a result of thesesymptoms and these difficulties
that you're experiencing.
And if you don't change thehabits and the patterns, you can
continue to have problems.
The reverse is also true.
If you try to work on changingyour habits and changing your
patterns without addressing theunderlying sources of symptoms,
it can be a futile attempt.
And that's one of the thingsthat I did for a long time
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before I was, you know, ended upin psychiatric treatment and
went through all of thatrigmarole.
I kept trying to fix myselfthrough changing my habits.
So you can't do one or the otherand have it be a lasting, have a
have a lasting impact.
You need to do both things.
So I want to talk about whatthat looks like today because I
(05:35):
think it's important to makesure that we understand that
both sides of this need to beaddressed.
So first, let's talk about thefirst aspect of it, which is
identifying the underlyingsources of symptoms and then
treating those sources.
And I'm not going to spend a tonof time on this because a lot of
my episodes have kind ofaddressed these things, but I
think it's important to kind oftalk about it a little bit at
(05:55):
least to understand clearly whatI'm talking about when I talk
about this first aspect ofhealing.
So when somebody is developingserious symptoms that will lead
to a psychiatric diagnosis,there's something underneath it.
Oftentimes people will say whenI say that, you know, bipolar
disorder is not identifying theunderlying source of symptoms,
and I don't like that diagnosisbecause it ends curiosity into
(06:19):
the sources of the symptoms.
People think I'm saying thatbipolar isn't real.
I hear that all the time.
You know, you're saying thatthis isn't real.
It's very real.
And I think that's not true.
Of course, of course, thesymptoms are real.
There are real symptoms thatyou're struggling with that led
you to go to a psychiatrist inthe first place.
And sometimes they're verysevere.
And that can be very scarybecause you don't understand
(06:39):
what's going on.
You know, a good example wouldbe, you know, somebody that is
experiencing, you know,seemingly out of the blue.
Often there is stuff that leadsup to it, but but often we don't
recognize it until you have anextreme experience.
So somebody experiences apsychotic episode or a manic
episode and does things that arevery out of character for them.
(07:01):
You know, they're they're havingdelusions, they're talking to
people that aren't there,they're seeing things that
aren't there, or they'reengaging in extreme behaviors.
And that can look like, youknow, spending excessive amounts
of money or having delusions ofgrandeur or taking really risk,
doing really risky things thatare out of character for the
person.
So you've got these reallyextreme behaviors that are very
(07:24):
scary, especially for people onthe outside who love them and
are like, what are you doing?
And you want to know what'sgoing on.
And right now, the the generalidea in society is when
somebody's struggling with isyou go to a psychiatrist.
But the problem with that iswhen you go to psychiatrists,
they are going to identify youwith a label based on the
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symptom cluster that you have,and then put you on psychiatric
drugs that suppress attemptingto suppress the symptoms.
They're not treating anunderlying etiology because one
hasn't been identified.
They're just attempting tosuppress the symptoms.
And the problem that this causesis that you stop looking for
answers after that.
You stop looking for why thatoccurred.
(08:08):
You don't look with anycuriosity into anything that
might have led to that episode,led to those symptoms, because
the diagnosis leads you tobelieve that you have been told
why, and you believe that thedrugs are fixing the problem.
But the reality is that there issomething underpinning those
symptoms.
(08:28):
You know, whether it's mania,you know, symptoms of mania,
excessive spending, erraticbehavior, hearing things, seeing
things, or severe depressivesymptoms, like somebody who just
has lost all their motivation.
They are cannot get themselvesout of bed, they are unable to,
you know, even take care ofthemselves.
(08:49):
We want to believe that it's achemical imbalance, which isn't,
it does not exist as anunderlying source of symptoms.
We want to believe that there'ssomething wrong that can be
treated with a pill, becausethat's a simple solution, and it
would, it would solve theproblem without it having to be
our responsibility.
But when you do that, you staysick because you are not
(09:11):
actually treating the underlyingsource of the symptoms because
it hasn't been identified.
So let's talk just briefly aboutwhat some of those symptoms, the
underlying sources of thesymptoms might be.
Some of the most common sourcesof symptoms are, of course,
micronutrient insufficiency.
And I've done episodes on that.
You know, I did athree-interview series with
David Stefan, episodes 70, 71,and 72, that talk about how
(09:37):
micronutrient insufficiency canlead to symptoms, even extreme
symptoms like psychosis andmania, that are caused because
the brain is not getting thebuilding blocks it needs for the
neurotransmitters to function ina healthy way.
You know, those four buildingblocks are vitamins, minerals,
omega-3s, and amino acids.
And if it's not gettingsufficient levels of any of
(09:59):
those, the brain is not gettingwhat it needs to function in a
healthy way.
And it starts to you start toexperience symptoms.
Similar to what would happen ifsomebody were stopped eating
protein, their body, you know,the muscles would start to break
down.
The brain is not getting what itneeds to function in a healthy
way.
And so micronutrientinsufficiency is a very, very
(10:22):
common source of symptoms.
Many people in our society justaren't eating in healthy ways.
And even people who are eatingin healthy ways might not be
getting adequate levels of thesenutrients in order to support
their brain and, you know, theirbrain's health.
Another one is unfortunatelymedication.
And it can be, you know, drugs,but it can be psychiatric drugs.
(10:44):
It can be drugs used to treatother things in the body.
It's really interesting.
Gabapentin is a drug that isused for neurological issues,
but it's also used forpsychiatric issues and it
affects your brain.
It affects your emotionalresponse to things.
It can cause severe depressionand it's it causes dependency.
And so if somebody starts takingthese drugs, or marijuana is a
(11:07):
big one now that we're startingto recognize, the potency of the
THC and marijuana, I believeit's a THC in marijuana is so
high now that it is very commonnow for people to experience
psychosis as a result of smokingweed.
There are a lot of differentmedications, some psychiatric,
some just, you know, for otheruses in the body, that can cause
psychiatric symptoms.
(11:29):
And because we have pathologizedthe symptoms, because when
somebody comes in with feelingdepressed and difficulty getting
out of bed and difficultyfunctioning, instead of somebody
looking through and identifying,well, you're taking this drug
and that's a side effect of thisdrug, most doctors will just
send you to a psychiatrist.
The psychiatrist will not lookat the source, the drug as the
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source of the symptoms.
They will just give you adiagnosis of depression and put
you on antidepressants.
And antidepressants, ironically,can lead to mania.
And instead of peoplerecognizing, you know, the
doctors recognizing that theycaused mania by using
antidepressants, they say, oh,it revealed that you have
bipolar, and then they give youmore drugs.
(12:14):
So psychiatric drugs can be, andany kind of medication can be a
source of symptoms.
And there are people who havehad trauma in their lives.
That is a very common source ofsymptoms for depression, bipolar
anxiety.
You know, when we talked, Imentioned Angie Peacock at the
beginning of the episode.
I interviewed her a coupleepisodes back, and she had very
(12:35):
clear sources of symptoms withher the trauma from her
experience as a as a in themilitary.
She's a veteran.
They had like very traumaticexperiences they went through.
She experienced, you know,assault and show there that was
a very serious source of trauma.
You know, there were all kinds.
She had, she was wounded, shewas injured.
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I mean, there's all theseissues.
She had physical gut healthissues, and nobody asked about
those things and looked at themwith curiosity and identified,
oh, this is the source of yourtrauma.
We need to treat these things inorder to help you heal these
actual sources of trauma.
She was just diagnosed with apsychiatric disorder and put on
(13:16):
psychotropic drugs that didn'tsolve the underlying source of
the problems and made thingsworse.
So the first thing is that wehave you have to identify what
is the source of the symptoms,what is causing these symptoms
to occur.
And those things need to betreated.
You need to treat the source ofthe symptoms.
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And when I talk about this in mycoaching group, we we look, we
talk about it looking at thesources, you know, looking at
the symptoms with curiosity,over, you know, not judgment,
we're looking at it withcuriosity.
We don't talk about bipolardisorder, we talk about bipolar
symptoms, and we becomedetectives.
You start to become a detectivein your life and start to learn
how to look for the sources ofthe symptoms, and then we then
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we talk about the tools andresearch that will help you
identify the proper things thatwill help you address the
underlying sources of thesymptoms.
If you have micronutrientinsufficiency, we're going to
use specialized micronutrientssince they're going to help your
brain get what it needs tofunction in a healthy way.
If you have trauma, we talkabout the different tools, you
know, how to use therapy in away that will help you actually
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heal, you know, how to usemindfulness meditation in a way
that helps you become moreself-aware and identify these
issues that need to be addressedand processed so that you can
heal the trauma, reprocess it,heal it.
If you have, if you'restruggling because you've had
drug cause, you know, symptomsthat are caused by medication,
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most often that needs to beaddressed through micronutrients
and very safe taperingprotocols.
So it's important, critical foryou to identify the underlying
sources of the symptoms andtreat them.
That that is not the end of thestory.
Because we, our brains aredesigned to protect us and it
(15:04):
will try to figure out how tocope with things that we're
struggling with.
And most people will developcoping mechanisms, thoughts and
behavior patterns.
You know, we have things thatwe, you know, relationship
patterns that we engage in thatoften are not healthy and often
exacerbate the situation, butour brain is just trying to
(15:26):
survive.
It's trying to protect us.
And as we heal the sources ofsymptoms, it may become more and
more apparent that we've gotunhealthy thought and behavior
patterns.
But if we don't do anything toactively change those things,
they won't change.
They're not going to resolve ontheir own because they're
well-worn pathways.
Our brain has learned to respondto certain situations in a
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certain way because we havedeveloped habits, relationship
habits, emotional habits, youknow, patterns of coping or not
coping with situations.
So I'm going to give you someexamples.
The first one is from mypersonal life, one of the coping
mechanisms that I developed whenI was quite young with dealing
(16:07):
with depression and anxiety wastrying to escape through
watching television.
And I've talked about this alot, but it's helpful to kind of
understand what I'm talkingabout here in context.
So when I would experiencedepression or difficult
situations like abuse, cope, oneof my main coping mechanisms was
TV and movies.
And when I would do that, Iwould escape.
(16:28):
It was a form of dissociationfor me.
I would escape into these moviesand television shows and kind of
lose myself in them.
And so over the years, I kepttrying to stop myself from
engaging in these behaviors.
I wasn't resolving theunderlying issues because I
didn't understand them.
I had a psychiatric diagnosisand I didn't look anymore for
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the sources of my symptomsbecause I believed I'd been told
what was going on.
I believed I had a chemicalimbalance and I was taking the
medication that was supposed tofix it.
But I kept trying to go in andchange the behaviors.
I went to addiction recoveryprograms because I thought I was
addicted to TV.
And I would, I, at one point Ibought a device called the Power
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Cup that I put, I plugged thesource of the power for the TV
into it, and then I would lockit to try and prevent myself
from getting into the televisionand give, you know, give myself
one more thing that I would haveto do in order to, in order to,
you know, watch television.
And it wasn't effective becausethe the reason that had
developed, the reason I haddeveloped this coping mechanism
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was this unprocessed trauma.
And the un you know, I didn'thave the proper nutrition in my
brain to help my brain functionin a healthy way.
I had sources of symptoms and Iwas on medication that were
suppressing my emotionalresponse.
I had all of these issues that Iwas trying to cope with with
television, and I was trying tostop the behavior without
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resolving the sources ofsymptoms.
And so over time, I, as Istarted going through the
healing process, I startedgetting my brain what it needed
to function in a healthy way.
I, you know, I got off themedications safely through a
safe titration protocol and goton the micronutrients.
My brain started to heal fromall the damage from the
medications and from theelectric convulsive therapy.
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And then I started learning howto use mindfulness meditation
and I started learning how touse therapy in a way that would
help me heal.
But the habit was still there.
And so periodically, I would gothrough long periods of time
sometimes when I wouldn't feelthe need to engage in watching
(18:38):
lots of television.
But I had developed theemotional habit of coping with
distress through television.
And as social media became athing, it kind of evolved into
social media.
So scrolling through YouTube andscrolling through social media
was another form of dissociationthat I had.
So even though I was resolvingthe sources of the trauma and
(19:00):
the and the micronutrientinsufficiency and all that, I
had was working on resolvingthose sources, I still had an
emotional habit.
Anytime I would feel emotionaldistress or discomfort, I would
go to this habit.
And it was very frustrating forme to try and figure out like,
why do I keep craving this?
Why do I keep wanting to dothis?
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And I had to figure out how tochange the habit.
I had to learn how to changewhat I did when I experienced
those emotions.
And mindfulness meditation wasactually a big piece of this.
Number one, it was it waslearning how to be more aware of
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the source of the discomfortthat was causing the craving for
better work, you know, better,you know, I guess that's a good
way to say it, like the theemotional need to dissociate and
and you know, scroll or watchshows or you know, watch social
media.
But I had to, I had to dosomething, I had to come up with
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a different way to manage thosethings or a different way to
respond to those things.
And so this is where the habitsfor healing come in.
We talk about those in myprogram all the time.
We talk about you knowdeveloping habits for healing.
And this is really the latterpart of the program.
You know, if you if you've readmy book, it's you know, the
starting with mindfulnessmeditation, mindfulness
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meditation, yoga.
Um and yoga includes breathwork, you know, doing pranayama
practices, breathing practices,exercise, learning how to use
exercise in a healthy way.
And then the last piece of it islearning how to live mindfully,
learning how to become aware ofthe negative, you know, the
unhealthy thought and behaviorpatterns that have developed,
the unhealthy coping mechanisms,these habits that developed
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around your around you to helptry and support you when you
were struggling with unhealthyemotional responses and
dysregulation.
But now you have to change thehabits, you have to change the
behaviors, you have to changethe way you respond to distress
and the way you respond tothese, you know, to difficult
circumstances.
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And also that it has to do withour how we how we interact in
relationships.
When you have relationshippatterns that develop while you
are struggling with emotionalhealth, you know, while you're
struggling with symptoms ofdepression or mania or anxiety,
you develop unhealthy ways ofinteracting with people.
You know, especially if you havea spouse or you know, close
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loved ones, family members, youwill develop relationship
habits.
You will develop relationshippatterns with them.
And as you heal, you know, we itwould be nice if as you heal
that you would justautomatically switch those
things, but that's not the case.
We have developed habits and youhave to change the habits.
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So The reason why I'm talkingabout this is a lot of times we
don't think about that piece ofit.
We focus so much on healing theunderlying sources of our
symptoms that we don't thinkabout how we need to work on
changing our habits, changingthe way that we respond to
things, change, you know,identifying unhealthy thought
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and behavior patterns so that wecan change the way our brain
thinks about things.
Something that I shared recentlythat I've been working on is
I've had old thought patternsstart to pop back up, old ways
of thinking about myself.
And it's not because of, youknow, I've worked through the
trauma.
I've worked through the traumathat were was the source of
those thoughts and behaviors andthe way that I view myself.
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But I have spent, you know, I'malmost 52 years old.
I've spent probably over 40years with these thoughts that
have developed and over timeand, you know, from early
childhood bullying and then, youknow, abuse in my first marriage
and, you know, unhealthyrelationships that I that I had.
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Over the years, I developedthese habits of thinking about
myself in a certain way.
And when you're going throughdifficulty, when you're going
through difficult circumstances,it's very common for those
thoughts to come back up.
It's very common for you tostart thinking those things
again.
And so recently I started, youknow, struggling with some of
those thoughts of, you know,self-doubt and not liking
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myself, you know, things likethat.
And I didn't understand why, youknow, I thought, what do I do
about this?
I don't understand why this iscoming back up because I sealed
I healed the source of thetrauma.
You know, I healed that trauma.
So why why are these thoughtscoming up in my mind now?
And uh I did a breath worksession with um my fantastic, I
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actually should have her on.
She's an amazing somatictherapist.
She's she does breath work uh inyoga.
Her name is Abby Da.
And she and it's so interestingbecause we don't often think
about the habit of how we think.
The way that we think aboutthings and the way that our
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brain reacts to things in ourmind is developed over, you
know, through habit.
And if we don't do somethingconscientiously to change things
in the way that we think aboutthings, it will continue with
the habits that we've developedover our lifetime.
And so I ended up writing amirror talk.
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She calls it mirror talk scriptfor myself.
I used AI.
This is a really cool tool.
We are actually talking theother night in our in our tribe
Zoom about the the I the waysthat we can use the AI tools to
help challenge some of ournegative thought and behavior
patterns.
It was pretty cool.
I'm still exploring that, so I'mnot ready to necessarily talk
about it on here.
(24:50):
But it was, I did that, I didthis with my uh, I will share
how I came up with this Mir Talkscript for myself.
But I I started by telling AIabout my experiences in my
childhood and the negativethoughts that developed out of
those experiences, and thenpresented what I wanted to
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believe about myself and the wayI wanted to talk to myself.
And that was that was a littlebit hard for me because when you
when you are used to hearingyour brain tell you certain
things about yourself, it'sreally hard to challenge those
thoughts sometimes, especiallyif they're seated deeply in our
emotion and we've lived withthem for our entire lives.
But I I used things that like Ihave a very good relationship
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with my mom, and she sees me ina different way sometimes than I
see myself.
And so I thought, well, I likethe way my mom sees me and I
want to believe that thosethings are true.
And so I put those things intoAI and I said, these are the
things I want to believe aboutmyself.
And it gave me, and I said then,and I told it, please give me,
you know, 90-second mirror talkscript for me to use to tell
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myself these things every day.
And so I it pulled it, it gaveme this really cool mirror talk
script.
I only had to change a couplethings in it.
And the reason I changed them isbecause I didn't like the way it
worded things.
But I changed them and starteddoing 90 seconds of mirror talk
with myself every day, lookingat myself in the mirror and
saying these things.
And I hope that you'll hear whatI'm saying and understand that
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what we say to ourselves hastremendous power to affect the
way we bel we see ourselves andthe way we believe what we
believe about ourselves.
And we develop thought patternsoften, especially if you've been
struggling with mental healthchallenges.
We develop unhealthy thoughtpatterns based on coping with
these unhealthy experiences,these trauma or our brains not
(26:42):
functioning in healthy ways.
And even if we resolve thesource of the trauma, we can
still struggle with how we feelabout ourselves because those
thought patterns haven't beenchallenged or changed.
You have to conscientiouslychange the way you think about
yourself.
And so doing something likemirror talk is a way to change
your habit, the habit of how youthink about, you know, what you
(27:04):
think about and how you thinkabout yourself and what you say
to yourself in your own mind.
And I have to tell you, evenafter just a few weeks of doing
this mirror talk, it has changedhow I feel about myself.
It has changed the way I seemyself.
And I'm going to keep doing itfor a long time after this.
I don't know if I'll ever stopbecause I'm understanding now
how powerful it is toconscientiously change the
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habits that I have in the waythat I talk about myself and
think about myself in my mind.
The same thing is true for, youknow, as I mentioned before,
relationships.
So when we interact withsomebody, we have habits of the
way we interact with them.
And especially people that areclose to us and anybody who's
been with us through, you know,if we're struggling with
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emotional, our emotional healthor our mental health, there are
there are habits that develop inthe relationship based on often
unhealthy ways that we interact.
And one of the things that I seeregularly in people that I'm
coaching are very unhealthyrelationships because when one
(28:10):
partner is unhealthy, therelationship, even if one
partner is healthy and onepartner is unhealthy, you can
end up with a super unhealthyrelationship because the
unhealthy partner is interactingin unhealthy ways.
And you develop habits in yourrelationship.
And as the unhealthy partnerheals, that is not automatically
going to change the relationshipbecause you still have to change
(28:34):
the patterns in therelationship.
You have to change the patternsof how you interact with each
other.
And I'll I'll give you anexample of my youngest and I.
I have when I when my older twochildren were were younger, when
they were little, I was very Iwas struggling a lot with my
mental health.
And I for and I've talked beforeabout you know struggling with
(28:57):
the quote unquote bipolar rage.
You know, I would have this likehair trigger and I would get I
would dissociate and get veryangry and yell and and that and
I worked for years to overcomethose issues.
I worked for years to addressthe underlying sources of the
symptoms and then you knowworked on practicing
mindfulness, learning how to beaware when I started to get
upset, give myself space to makechoices about how I interacted
(29:21):
with my kids.
And it took a lot of time and alot of effort.
And the one that I that was thebiggest struggle, honestly, was
my oldest, because she and I haddeveloped relationship habits.
And so we it it created, youknow, one of the one of the ways
that I've heard it described,these kinds of relationship
habits are is like a dance.
(29:43):
And you you know the stepsreally well and you just do them
without even thinking about it.
And in order to change thedance, you have one at least one
of the partners has to changethe steps.
You have to change the way youinteract with each other.
Man, it took a lot of work overthe years.
And now with my youngest, everyonce in a while, you know,
(30:05):
especially if I'm I'm having aday where I'm really tired or,
you know, real you know, reallyworn out emotionally or
something, those little oldhabits try to work their way
back in.
So I might start to get, I don'tget angry, I don't yell anymore,
but you know, I might getagitated and stressed and, you
know, kind of speak sharply.
But I have developed new habitsnow.
So even if I start to do that, Icatch myself very quickly and I
(30:28):
think and I immediatelyapologize and say, I'm so sorry,
I shouldn't have said that or Ishouldn't have reacted that way.
And and so she and I havedeveloped new habits.
You know, she was when she waslittle, I was still going
through the healing process.
So she experienced a little bitof, you know, kind of the
unhealthy patterns.
But thankfully, I had done somuch work with my older two in
(30:48):
changing the relationship habitsthat by the time I got to my
youngest, I had developed newrelationship habits.
I had developed new ways ofinteracting, I had developed new
ways of handling stress.
And so it's really critical toconscientiously work on
identifying these unhealthybehavior patterns, the unhealthy
(31:11):
relationship patterns, and thenactively work to change them.
And there are, you know, you canyou can work with a therapist to
do these things.
You know, a lot of times it'shard to understand how to
establish healthy boundaries ina relationship if you don't
understand what healthyboundaries look like or don't
even understand what boundariesare.
I've talked about this inprevious episodes, but I feel
(31:32):
like since I brought it up, Iprobably should say something
about it here.
But the simplest way tounderstand what boundaries are
was something that my therapisttaught me.
And I I loved it because foryears she had talked about, she
and other therapists and otherpeople had talked about
boundaries, and I didn't everadmit to anybody that I didn't
really know what they weretalking about until I finally
was in a session and I reallywanted to understand what my
(31:54):
therapist was saying.
And I stopped her and I said,Can you explain to me what
boundaries are?
I don't think I understand whatthat is.
And she described it as theboundaries of a country, the
borders of a country.
So the borders of a countrydefine the space that that is
that country.
And within the borders, thegovernment, you know, the people
(32:15):
are responsible for the care ofthe people inside there, the
care of the land, you know, allof the, you know, deciding
what's appropriate there, whatwhat is going to be acceptable
there, and and what is going tobe allowed within the borders.
And but they are not responsiblefor what is happening in other
(32:35):
borders.
They are not, it's not theirprerogative to tell another
country what to do or how tobehave, right?
They're responsible forthemselves, and the other
countries are responsible forthemselves.
And you can have treaties, youcan have, you know, cooperative
relationships with othercountries, but ultimately, you
(32:57):
know, this country isresponsible for themselves,
country A is responsible forthemselves, and country B is
responsible for themselves.
And that is what boundaries are.
Boundaries are recognizing I amresponsible for myself.
I am accountable for mybehavior.
I am responsible for myself-care.
I am responsible for the choicesthat I make, and I am not
(33:20):
responsible for controllingsomebody else's behavior or, you
know, with the exception, ofcourse, of children.
Like I am responsible for takingcare of my children.
But at the same time, you know,I want to be respectful of my
kids.
I want to be respectful of theirautonomy as a person, you know.
So I want to teach my childrenhealthy boundaries as they grow.
(33:41):
But one thing that happens veryfrequently in relationships with
people that are struggling withtheir mental health is in
erosion of boundaries.
You know, there's especiallywhen we have psychiatric
diagnosis that make us believethat we have a disease, you
know, a bipolar disorder is adisease or a chemical imbalance
that they don't have any controlover.
(34:03):
If you believe that, thenthey're not responsible for the
bad behavior that they engage inwhen they're struggling with a
manic episode or a depressiveepisode, you know, as they call
it.
And so then what do you do withsomebody that you love that's
struggling with those things?
You want to help them.
And so boundaries get destroyedin these relationships.
There's a lot of codependency inthese relationships.
(34:25):
And something that I have seenhappen is a struggle to learn
how to have healthy boundariesin those relationships,
especially as the partner istrying to heal.
Because there weren't healthyboundaries in the first place.
And so, in order to change therelationship and change the
(34:46):
patterns, you have and change,you know, change the way that
you interact with each other andand help to create a healthy
relationship, you have to changethe habits.
You have to change the way thatyou interact with each other,
you have to change the way thatyou talk to each other, think
about each other, interact witheach other, and that requires
(35:06):
effort.
It requires consistent anddetermined effort.
Just like I had to learn tochange the way that my brain was
thinking about myself.
You have to wait, change the waythat you talk to each other and
the way you interact with eachother.
You have to stop reacting andstart and start responding.
You have to, you know, learnwhat healthy boundaries look
(35:27):
like and then learn how to havehealthy boundaries in the
relationship.
So the reason why I brought thisup is I've I've seen this, I've
recognized it in myself, andthen I've also seen it in other
people as I've gone through, youknow, I've coached people in the
in the upsiders tribe, and alsoas I've you know observed other
people that are asking for help,but don't really know what that
(35:48):
looks like, what help would looklike, is it's important to have
both pieces in the healingprocess.
You have to identify theunderlying sources of your
symptoms and then treat theunderlying sources using
research-based integrated toolsthat will help to actually
address and heal the underlyingsources of the problem of the
(36:10):
symptoms.
So healing needs to occur.
But part of the healing processis then changing the thoughts
and behaviors and copingmechanisms that developed as a
result of these of the unhealthyemotional responses and symptoms
that you were struggling with inthe first place.
You cannot do one without theone without the other if you
(36:33):
really want to recover.
And it's not an overnightprocess.
That's the other thing that Ithink is really hard for people
to understand sometimes is thathealing takes time.
We have a society that wantsthings to be done quickly.
We don't have very longattention spans.
We've been convinced by thepsychiatric industry and the
medical industry, frankly, thatall you need is a pill and
(36:54):
that's gonna make everythingbetter.
And so, even a lot of the peoplewho are looking for more
holistic approaches to recoverywant a quick fix.
Like, you know, people want tojust know like, can I take the
micronutrients and theneverything is going to be
better?
Yes, it will help make thingsbetter, but that's not the only
piece.
(37:14):
You can't just take somemicronutrients and all of a
sudden all your problems goaway.
It's really important to look atboth sides of this equation.
You have to identify theunderlying sources of the
symptoms, treat the underlyingsource with patience, because
healing takes time, and you haveto address the unhealthy
patterns, unhealthy thought andbehavior patterns, unhealthy
(37:35):
coping mechanisms, unhealthyrelationship patterns that have
developed out of the emotionalstruggle that you've been
experiencing for years, often.
So I I hope that this ishelpful.
It should be hopeful.
It should help you feel hopebecause there is something you
can do about this.
(37:55):
You don't have to struggle forthe rest of your life.
That's good news.
You know, a lot of times one ofthe things that is so sad to me
when somebody is struggling withthis is that they just don't
feel like they can put theeffort in, the sustained effort
necessary to heal.
But as I mentioned at the veryend of my book, your life is
(38:18):
already hard.
You can choose the hard thatkeeps you stuck and keeps you
struggling, and you willcontinue to be stuck and
struggle.
Or you can choose the hard thatis the work that will eventually
lead to healing and recovery.
And it I again, I mentionedthis, I've mentioned this in
previous episodes, but it is soimportant to make sure that you
(38:40):
are surrounding yourself byinfluences that are going to
encourage you through that hardthat leads to healing, that are
going to encourage you, youknow, yes, this is hard right
now, but it does get better.
I've seen, I've seen healthy,I've seen recovery, and and I
promise you it's worth theeffort.
Surround yourself with peoplewho are on the same journey,
(39:03):
with people that are goingthrough similar things, who
understand what you're goingthrough and what it feels like
and the struggle that you'reexperiencing, but also
understand that there's hope onthe other side of it, that it
does lead, you know, this effortthat you're putting in does lead
to recovery.
It does lead to better things.
Make sure that you're listeningto uplifting podcasts, things
(39:23):
that are encouraging you, thatare giving you insights and
helping you to learn more abouthow to think in healthy ways and
how to respond in healthy waysand the tools that you can use
to help change the way youinteract with the world world.
Make sure that you're fillingyour life with good things that
will help encourage you asyou're struggling through the
(39:45):
trenches sometimes, through thehealing process, because we
already have enough bad in theworld.
We already have enoughdiscouragement in our own heads.
Now it's already hard enoughthere.
We need sources of support andencouragement that are going to
help keep us moving towardshealing and recovery.
If you have any questions aboutanything I've talked about, I
(40:06):
hope you'll send me an email.
I would love to hear from you.
And make sure that you, ifyou're new to the podcast, check
out the earlier episodes.
I've got lots of great episodesthat talk about, you know,
sources of symptoms, tools thatwill help you with, you know,
recovery.
There's some really greatepisodes that can help you along
this path.
If you haven't read my book, Iencourage you to get a copy of
(40:27):
it, The Upside of Bipolar, sevensteps to heal your disorder.
And if you're ready to startyour healing journey, check out
the link in the show notes thattalks about the upsiders tribe.
Thanks for joining me on theUpside of Bipolar.
Your journey to recoverymatters, and I'm grateful you're
(40:49):
here.
For more resources, visitwww.theupsideofbipolar.com.
If you're ready to dive deeper,grab my book, The Upside of
Bipolar, seven steps to healyour disorder.
If you're ready to heal yoursymptoms, join my monthly
membership, The Upsiders Tribe,to transform chaos into hope.
Until next time, Upsiders
You can't do one or the other and and have it be a
lasting have a have a lastingimpact.
You need to do both things.
Our brains are designed toprotect us.
It will try to figure out how tocope with things that we're
struggling with.
And most people will developcoping mechanisms, thoughts and
behavior patterns, but our brainis just trying to survive.
(00:21):
As we heal the sources ofsymptoms, it may become more and
more apparent that we've gotunhealthy thought and behavior
patterns.
But if we don't do anything toactively change those things,
they won't change.
Welcome to the Upside ofBipolar, where we uncover the
true sources of bipolar symptomsand share proven tools for
(00:43):
recovery.
I'm your host, MichelleReitinger, number one
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.
(01:09):
Welcome back to the Upside ofBipolar.
I am your host, MichelleReitinger, and I'm super excited
to do a solo episode todaybecause I have a topic to share
with you that's been on my minda lot recently.
Last week on social media, AngiePeacock, who I interviewed two
episodes back, was sharing avery raw emotional post on
social media.
She was talking about some griefthat she was experiencing.
(01:32):
And while she was sharing this,she was crying.
It was a very raw, realemotional experience that she
was having that was she wassharing with us.
And she was talking about whatwas causing the grief.
She had lost her father lastfall and had recently received
some more information.
And so as she read it, it wasbringing all that grief back up.
But the post wasn't about theloss of her father, really.
(01:56):
It was about her gratitude forbeing able to experience that
grief and experience theemotions because that's one of
the most important aspects ofbeing human, is to be able to
feel emotion.
And Angie hadn't been able toexperience that for a good chunk
of her adult life because shewas in psychiatric treatment.
At one point, she was on like 23different psychiatric drugs and
(02:18):
couldn't feel anything.
And so now she has so muchgratitude and appreciation for
the ability to feel evenuncomfortable emotions like
grief and sadness.
And as I listened to her post, Iwas thinking about what it looks
like to learn how to heal andactually learn how to experience
(02:38):
emotions in a healthy way.
Unfortunately, with ourpsychiatric industry and its
approach to human suffering, wehave pathologized human
suffering.
We have turned depression into apsychiatric disorder.
We have turned, you know,emotional dysregulation into an
(02:59):
illness that is incurable.
And it's not incurable becausethe underlying issues can't be
solved.
It's incurable because insteadof having curiosity and looking
for the source of those symptomsand then treating those sources
with things that will actuallyhelp you to recover and heal, we
use psychiatric drugs thatdysregulate our brains and
(03:22):
suppress emotional response,which then makes it difficult
and sometimes impossibleimpossible to experience healthy
emotional reactions to things,healthy emotional responses to
things.
But when we are trying to heal,it's important to recognize that
there are two really main piecesthat go into this process.
(03:44):
The first is there needs to becuriosity into the underlying
sources of the symptoms.
What is causing thisdysregulation to occur?
What is causing the emotionalresponse to be extreme or
dysregulated?
So there needs to be curiosityinto the source, and then the
source needs to be treated.
(04:05):
We need to identify what thesources of those symptoms are
and we need to treat them.
But there's another piece to itthat often gets overlooked, and
that is usually by the time weget diagnosed, we have been
living with these symptoms forlong enough, or living with the
sources of the symptoms for longenough that we have developed
unhealthy patterns in our lives,unhealthy coping mechanisms,
unhealthy thought and behaviorpatterns, unhealthy relationship
(04:28):
patterns.
And so if you do one, which is,you know, like if you were to go
in and identify the sources ofyour symptoms and treat the
sources and resolve those, butyou don't change your habits or
you don't change your patterns,you can continue to have issues
because you have developedunhealthy ways of experiencing
the world and thinking about theworld and interacting with the
(04:52):
world as a result of thesesymptoms and these difficulties
that you're experiencing.
And if you don't change thehabits and the patterns, you can
continue to have problems.
The reverse is also true.
If you try to work on changingyour habits and changing your
patterns without addressing theunderlying sources of symptoms,
it can be a futile attempt.
And that's one of the thingsthat I did for a long time
(05:14):
before I was, you know, ended upin psychiatric treatment and
went through all of thatrigmarole.
I kept trying to fix myselfthrough changing my habits.
So you can't do one or the otherand have it be a lasting, have a
have a lasting impact.
You need to do both things.
So I want to talk about whatthat looks like today because I
(05:35):
think it's important to makesure that we understand that
both sides of this need to beaddressed.
So first, let's talk about thefirst aspect of it, which is
identifying the underlyingsources of symptoms and then
treating those sources.
And I'm not going to spend a tonof time on this because a lot of
my episodes have kind ofaddressed these things, but I
think it's important to kind oftalk about it a little bit at
(05:55):
least to understand clearly whatI'm talking about when I talk
about this first aspect ofhealing.
So when somebody is developingserious symptoms that will lead
to a psychiatric diagnosis,there's something underneath it.
Oftentimes people will say whenI say that, you know, bipolar
disorder is not identifying theunderlying source of symptoms,
and I don't like that diagnosisbecause it ends curiosity into
(06:19):
the sources of the symptoms.
People think I'm saying thatbipolar isn't real.
I hear that all the time.
You know, you're saying thatthis isn't real.
It's very real.
And I think that's not true.
Of course, of course, thesymptoms are real.
There are real symptoms thatyou're struggling with that led
you to go to a psychiatrist inthe first place.
And sometimes they're verysevere.
And that can be very scarybecause you don't understand
(06:39):
what's going on.
You know, a good example wouldbe, you know, somebody that is
experiencing, you know,seemingly out of the blue.
Often there is stuff that leadsup to it, but but often we don't
recognize it until you have anextreme experience.
So somebody experiences apsychotic episode or a manic
episode and does things that arevery out of character for them.
(07:01):
You know, they're they're havingdelusions, they're talking to
people that aren't there,they're seeing things that
aren't there, or they'reengaging in extreme behaviors.
And that can look like, youknow, spending excessive amounts
of money or having delusions ofgrandeur or taking really risk,
doing really risky things thatare out of character for the
person.
So you've got these reallyextreme behaviors that are very
(07:24):
scary, especially for people onthe outside who love them and
are like, what are you doing?
And you want to know what'sgoing on.
And right now, the the generalidea in society is when
somebody's struggling with isyou go to a psychiatrist.
But the problem with that iswhen you go to psychiatrists,
they are going to identify youwith a label based on the
(07:46):
symptom cluster that you have,and then put you on psychiatric
drugs that suppress attemptingto suppress the symptoms.
They're not treating anunderlying etiology because one
hasn't been identified.
They're just attempting tosuppress the symptoms.
And the problem that this causesis that you stop looking for
answers after that.
You stop looking for why thatoccurred.
(08:08):
You don't look with anycuriosity into anything that
might have led to that episode,led to those symptoms, because
the diagnosis leads you tobelieve that you have been told
why, and you believe that thedrugs are fixing the problem.
But the reality is that there issomething underpinning those
symptoms.
(08:28):
You know, whether it's mania,you know, symptoms of mania,
excessive spending, erraticbehavior, hearing things, seeing
things, or severe depressivesymptoms, like somebody who just
has lost all their motivation.
They are cannot get themselvesout of bed, they are unable to,
you know, even take care ofthemselves.
(08:49):
We want to believe that it's achemical imbalance, which isn't,
it does not exist as anunderlying source of symptoms.
We want to believe that there'ssomething wrong that can be
treated with a pill, becausethat's a simple solution, and it
would, it would solve theproblem without it having to be
our responsibility.
But when you do that, you staysick because you are not
(09:11):
actually treating the underlyingsource of the symptoms because
it hasn't been identified.
So let's talk just briefly aboutwhat some of those symptoms, the
underlying sources of thesymptoms might be.
Some of the most common sourcesof symptoms are, of course,
micronutrient insufficiency.
And I've done episodes on that.
You know, I did athree-interview series with
David Stefan, episodes 70, 71,and 72, that talk about how
(09:37):
micronutrient insufficiency canlead to symptoms, even extreme
symptoms like psychosis andmania, that are caused because
the brain is not getting thebuilding blocks it needs for the
neurotransmitters to function ina healthy way.
You know, those four buildingblocks are vitamins, minerals,
omega-3s, and amino acids.
And if it's not gettingsufficient levels of any of
(09:59):
those, the brain is not gettingwhat it needs to function in a
healthy way.
And it starts to you start toexperience symptoms.
Similar to what would happen ifsomebody were stopped eating
protein, their body, you know,the muscles would start to break
down.
The brain is not getting what itneeds to function in a healthy
way.
And so micronutrientinsufficiency is a very, very
(10:22):
common source of symptoms.
Many people in our society justaren't eating in healthy ways.
And even people who are eatingin healthy ways might not be
getting adequate levels of thesenutrients in order to support
their brain and, you know, theirbrain's health.
Another one is unfortunatelymedication.
And it can be, you know, drugs,but it can be psychiatric drugs.
(10:44):
It can be drugs used to treatother things in the body.
It's really interesting.
Gabapentin is a drug that isused for neurological issues,
but it's also used forpsychiatric issues and it
affects your brain.
It affects your emotionalresponse to things.
It can cause severe depressionand it's it causes dependency.
And so if somebody starts takingthese drugs, or marijuana is a
(11:07):
big one now that we're startingto recognize, the potency of the
THC and marijuana, I believeit's a THC in marijuana is so
high now that it is very commonnow for people to experience
psychosis as a result of smokingweed.
There are a lot of differentmedications, some psychiatric,
some just, you know, for otheruses in the body, that can cause
psychiatric symptoms.
(11:29):
And because we have pathologizedthe symptoms, because when
somebody comes in with feelingdepressed and difficulty getting
out of bed and difficultyfunctioning, instead of somebody
looking through and identifying,well, you're taking this drug
and that's a side effect of thisdrug, most doctors will just
send you to a psychiatrist.
The psychiatrist will not lookat the source, the drug as the
(11:53):
source of the symptoms.
They will just give you adiagnosis of depression and put
you on antidepressants.
And antidepressants, ironically,can lead to mania.
And instead of peoplerecognizing, you know, the
doctors recognizing that theycaused mania by using
antidepressants, they say, oh,it revealed that you have
bipolar, and then they give youmore drugs.
(12:14):
So psychiatric drugs can be, andany kind of medication can be a
source of symptoms.
And there are people who havehad trauma in their lives.
That is a very common source ofsymptoms for depression, bipolar
anxiety.
You know, when we talked, Imentioned Angie Peacock at the
beginning of the episode.
I interviewed her a coupleepisodes back, and she had very
(12:35):
clear sources of symptoms withher the trauma from her
experience as a as a in themilitary.
She's a veteran.
They had like very traumaticexperiences they went through.
She experienced, you know,assault and show there that was
a very serious source of trauma.
You know, there were all kinds.
She had, she was wounded, shewas injured.
(12:55):
I mean, there's all theseissues.
She had physical gut healthissues, and nobody asked about
those things and looked at themwith curiosity and identified,
oh, this is the source of yourtrauma.
We need to treat these things inorder to help you heal these
actual sources of trauma.
She was just diagnosed with apsychiatric disorder and put on
(13:16):
psychotropic drugs that didn'tsolve the underlying source of
the problems and made thingsworse.
So the first thing is that wehave you have to identify what
is the source of the symptoms,what is causing these symptoms
to occur.
And those things need to betreated.
You need to treat the source ofthe symptoms.
(13:37):
And when I talk about this in mycoaching group, we we look, we
talk about it looking at thesources, you know, looking at
the symptoms with curiosity,over, you know, not judgment,
we're looking at it withcuriosity.
We don't talk about bipolardisorder, we talk about bipolar
symptoms, and we becomedetectives.
You start to become a detectivein your life and start to learn
how to look for the sources ofthe symptoms, and then we then
(14:01):
we talk about the tools andresearch that will help you
identify the proper things thatwill help you address the
underlying sources of thesymptoms.
If you have micronutrientinsufficiency, we're going to
use specialized micronutrientssince they're going to help your
brain get what it needs tofunction in a healthy way.
If you have trauma, we talkabout the different tools, you
know, how to use therapy in away that will help you actually
(14:22):
heal, you know, how to usemindfulness meditation in a way
that helps you become moreself-aware and identify these
issues that need to be addressedand processed so that you can
heal the trauma, reprocess it,heal it.
If you have, if you'restruggling because you've had
drug cause, you know, symptomsthat are caused by medication,
(14:43):
most often that needs to beaddressed through micronutrients
and very safe taperingprotocols.
So it's important, critical foryou to identify the underlying
sources of the symptoms andtreat them.
That that is not the end of thestory.
Because we, our brains aredesigned to protect us and it
(15:04):
will try to figure out how tocope with things that we're
struggling with.
And most people will developcoping mechanisms, thoughts and
behavior patterns.
You know, we have things thatwe, you know, relationship
patterns that we engage in thatoften are not healthy and often
exacerbate the situation, butour brain is just trying to
(15:26):
survive.
It's trying to protect us.
And as we heal the sources ofsymptoms, it may become more and
more apparent that we've gotunhealthy thought and behavior
patterns.
But if we don't do anything toactively change those things,
they won't change.
They're not going to resolve ontheir own because they're
well-worn pathways.
Our brain has learned to respondto certain situations in a
(15:46):
certain way because we havedeveloped habits, relationship
habits, emotional habits, youknow, patterns of coping or not
coping with situations.
So I'm going to give you someexamples.
The first one is from mypersonal life, one of the coping
mechanisms that I developed whenI was quite young with dealing
(16:07):
with depression and anxiety wastrying to escape through
watching television.
And I've talked about this alot, but it's helpful to kind of
understand what I'm talkingabout here in context.
So when I would experiencedepression or difficult
situations like abuse, cope, oneof my main coping mechanisms was
TV and movies.
And when I would do that, Iwould escape.
(16:28):
It was a form of dissociationfor me.
I would escape into these moviesand television shows and kind of
lose myself in them.
And so over the years, I kepttrying to stop myself from
engaging in these behaviors.
I wasn't resolving theunderlying issues because I
didn't understand them.
I had a psychiatric diagnosisand I didn't look anymore for
(16:51):
the sources of my symptomsbecause I believed I'd been told
what was going on.
I believed I had a chemicalimbalance and I was taking the
medication that was supposed tofix it.
But I kept trying to go in andchange the behaviors.
I went to addiction recoveryprograms because I thought I was
addicted to TV.
And I would, I, at one point Ibought a device called the Power
(17:11):
Cup that I put, I plugged thesource of the power for the TV
into it, and then I would lockit to try and prevent myself
from getting into the televisionand give, you know, give myself
one more thing that I would haveto do in order to, in order to,
you know, watch television.
And it wasn't effective becausethe the reason that had
developed, the reason I haddeveloped this coping mechanism
(17:35):
was this unprocessed trauma.
And the un you know, I didn'thave the proper nutrition in my
brain to help my brain functionin a healthy way.
I had sources of symptoms and Iwas on medication that were
suppressing my emotionalresponse.
I had all of these issues that Iwas trying to cope with with
television, and I was trying tostop the behavior without
(17:55):
resolving the sources ofsymptoms.
And so over time, I, as Istarted going through the
healing process, I startedgetting my brain what it needed
to function in a healthy way.
I, you know, I got off themedications safely through a
safe titration protocol and goton the micronutrients.
My brain started to heal fromall the damage from the
medications and from theelectric convulsive therapy.
(18:17):
And then I started learning howto use mindfulness meditation
and I started learning how touse therapy in a way that would
help me heal.
But the habit was still there.
And so periodically, I would gothrough long periods of time
sometimes when I wouldn't feelthe need to engage in watching
(18:38):
lots of television.
But I had developed theemotional habit of coping with
distress through television.
And as social media became athing, it kind of evolved into
social media.
So scrolling through YouTube andscrolling through social media
was another form of dissociationthat I had.
So even though I was resolvingthe sources of the trauma and
(19:00):
the and the micronutrientinsufficiency and all that, I
had was working on resolvingthose sources, I still had an
emotional habit.
Anytime I would feel emotionaldistress or discomfort, I would
go to this habit.
And it was very frustrating forme to try and figure out like,
why do I keep craving this?
Why do I keep wanting to dothis?
(19:21):
And I had to figure out how tochange the habit.
I had to learn how to changewhat I did when I experienced
those emotions.
And mindfulness meditation wasactually a big piece of this.
Number one, it was it waslearning how to be more aware of
(19:43):
the source of the discomfortthat was causing the craving for
better work, you know, better,you know, I guess that's a good
way to say it, like the theemotional need to dissociate and
and you know, scroll or watchshows or you know, watch social
media.
But I had to, I had to dosomething, I had to come up with
(20:04):
a different way to manage thosethings or a different way to
respond to those things.
And so this is where the habitsfor healing come in.
We talk about those in myprogram all the time.
We talk about you knowdeveloping habits for healing.
And this is really the latterpart of the program.
You know, if you if you've readmy book, it's you know, the
starting with mindfulnessmeditation, mindfulness
(20:27):
meditation, yoga.
Um and yoga includes breathwork, you know, doing pranayama
practices, breathing practices,exercise, learning how to use
exercise in a healthy way.
And then the last piece of it islearning how to live mindfully,
learning how to become aware ofthe negative, you know, the
unhealthy thought and behaviorpatterns that have developed,
the unhealthy coping mechanisms,these habits that developed
(20:52):
around your around you to helptry and support you when you
were struggling with unhealthyemotional responses and
dysregulation.
But now you have to change thehabits, you have to change the
behaviors, you have to changethe way you respond to distress
and the way you respond tothese, you know, to difficult
circumstances.
(21:13):
And also that it has to do withour how we how we interact in
relationships.
When you have relationshippatterns that develop while you
are struggling with emotionalhealth, you know, while you're
struggling with symptoms ofdepression or mania or anxiety,
you develop unhealthy ways ofinteracting with people.
You know, especially if you havea spouse or you know, close
(21:36):
loved ones, family members, youwill develop relationship
habits.
You will develop relationshippatterns with them.
And as you heal, you know, we itwould be nice if as you heal
that you would justautomatically switch those
things, but that's not the case.
We have developed habits and youhave to change the habits.
(21:58):
So The reason why I'm talkingabout this is a lot of times we
don't think about that piece ofit.
We focus so much on healing theunderlying sources of our
symptoms that we don't thinkabout how we need to work on
changing our habits, changingthe way that we respond to
things, change, you know,identifying unhealthy thought
(22:20):
and behavior patterns so that wecan change the way our brain
thinks about things.
Something that I shared recentlythat I've been working on is
I've had old thought patternsstart to pop back up, old ways
of thinking about myself.
And it's not because of, youknow, I've worked through the
trauma.
I've worked through the traumathat were was the source of
those thoughts and behaviors andthe way that I view myself.
(22:44):
But I have spent, you know, I'malmost 52 years old.
I've spent probably over 40years with these thoughts that
have developed and over timeand, you know, from early
childhood bullying and then, youknow, abuse in my first marriage
and, you know, unhealthyrelationships that I that I had.
(23:05):
Over the years, I developedthese habits of thinking about
myself in a certain way.
And when you're going throughdifficulty, when you're going
through difficult circumstances,it's very common for those
thoughts to come back up.
It's very common for you tostart thinking those things
again.
And so recently I started, youknow, struggling with some of
those thoughts of, you know,self-doubt and not liking
(23:27):
myself, you know, things likethat.
And I didn't understand why, youknow, I thought, what do I do
about this?
I don't understand why this iscoming back up because I sealed
I healed the source of thetrauma.
You know, I healed that trauma.
So why why are these thoughtscoming up in my mind now?
And uh I did a breath worksession with um my fantastic, I
(23:47):
actually should have her on.
She's an amazing somatictherapist.
She's she does breath work uh inyoga.
Her name is Abby Da.
And she and it's so interestingbecause we don't often think
about the habit of how we think.
The way that we think aboutthings and the way that our
(24:08):
brain reacts to things in ourmind is developed over, you
know, through habit.
And if we don't do somethingconscientiously to change things
in the way that we think aboutthings, it will continue with
the habits that we've developedover our lifetime.
And so I ended up writing amirror talk.
(24:29):
She calls it mirror talk scriptfor myself.
I used AI.
This is a really cool tool.
We are actually talking theother night in our in our tribe
Zoom about the the I the waysthat we can use the AI tools to
help challenge some of ournegative thought and behavior
patterns.
It was pretty cool.
I'm still exploring that, so I'mnot ready to necessarily talk
about it on here.
(24:50):
But it was, I did that, I didthis with my uh, I will share
how I came up with this Mir Talkscript for myself.
But I I started by telling AIabout my experiences in my
childhood and the negativethoughts that developed out of
those experiences, and thenpresented what I wanted to
(25:11):
believe about myself and the wayI wanted to talk to myself.
And that was that was a littlebit hard for me because when you
when you are used to hearingyour brain tell you certain
things about yourself, it'sreally hard to challenge those
thoughts sometimes, especiallyif they're seated deeply in our
emotion and we've lived withthem for our entire lives.
But I I used things that like Ihave a very good relationship
(25:34):
with my mom, and she sees me ina different way sometimes than I
see myself.
And so I thought, well, I likethe way my mom sees me and I
want to believe that thosethings are true.
And so I put those things intoAI and I said, these are the
things I want to believe aboutmyself.
And it gave me, and I said then,and I told it, please give me,
you know, 90-second mirror talkscript for me to use to tell
(25:57):
myself these things every day.
And so I it pulled it, it gaveme this really cool mirror talk
script.
I only had to change a couplethings in it.
And the reason I changed them isbecause I didn't like the way it
worded things.
But I changed them and starteddoing 90 seconds of mirror talk
with myself every day, lookingat myself in the mirror and
saying these things.
And I hope that you'll hear whatI'm saying and understand that
(26:21):
what we say to ourselves hastremendous power to affect the
way we bel we see ourselves andthe way we believe what we
believe about ourselves.
And we develop thought patternsoften, especially if you've been
struggling with mental healthchallenges.
We develop unhealthy thoughtpatterns based on coping with
these unhealthy experiences,these trauma or our brains not
(26:42):
functioning in healthy ways.
And even if we resolve thesource of the trauma, we can
still struggle with how we feelabout ourselves because those
thought patterns haven't beenchallenged or changed.
You have to conscientiouslychange the way you think about
yourself.
And so doing something likemirror talk is a way to change
your habit, the habit of how youthink about, you know, what you
(27:04):
think about and how you thinkabout yourself and what you say
to yourself in your own mind.
And I have to tell you, evenafter just a few weeks of doing
this mirror talk, it has changedhow I feel about myself.
It has changed the way I seemyself.
And I'm going to keep doing itfor a long time after this.
I don't know if I'll ever stopbecause I'm understanding now
how powerful it is toconscientiously change the
(27:27):
habits that I have in the waythat I talk about myself and
think about myself in my mind.
The same thing is true for, youknow, as I mentioned before,
relationships.
So when we interact withsomebody, we have habits of the
way we interact with them.
And especially people that areclose to us and anybody who's
been with us through, you know,if we're struggling with
(27:49):
emotional, our emotional healthor our mental health, there are
there are habits that develop inthe relationship based on often
unhealthy ways that we interact.
And one of the things that I seeregularly in people that I'm
coaching are very unhealthyrelationships because when one
(28:10):
partner is unhealthy, therelationship, even if one
partner is healthy and onepartner is unhealthy, you can
end up with a super unhealthyrelationship because the
unhealthy partner is interactingin unhealthy ways.
And you develop habits in yourrelationship.
And as the unhealthy partnerheals, that is not automatically
going to change the relationshipbecause you still have to change
(28:34):
the patterns in therelationship.
You have to change the patternsof how you interact with each
other.
And I'll I'll give you anexample of my youngest and I.
I have when I when my older twochildren were were younger, when
they were little, I was very Iwas struggling a lot with my
mental health.
And I for and I've talked beforeabout you know struggling with
(28:57):
the quote unquote bipolar rage.
You know, I would have this likehair trigger and I would get I
would dissociate and get veryangry and yell and and that and
I worked for years to overcomethose issues.
I worked for years to addressthe underlying sources of the
symptoms and then you knowworked on practicing
mindfulness, learning how to beaware when I started to get
upset, give myself space to makechoices about how I interacted
(29:21):
with my kids.
And it took a lot of time and alot of effort.
And the one that I that was thebiggest struggle, honestly, was
my oldest, because she and I haddeveloped relationship habits.
And so we it it created, youknow, one of the one of the ways
that I've heard it described,these kinds of relationship
habits are is like a dance.
(29:43):
And you you know the stepsreally well and you just do them
without even thinking about it.
And in order to change thedance, you have one at least one
of the partners has to changethe steps.
You have to change the way youinteract with each other.
Man, it took a lot of work overthe years.
And now with my youngest, everyonce in a while, you know,
(30:05):
especially if I'm I'm having aday where I'm really tired or,
you know, real you know, reallyworn out emotionally or
something, those little oldhabits try to work their way
back in.
So I might start to get, I don'tget angry, I don't yell anymore,
but you know, I might getagitated and stressed and, you
know, kind of speak sharply.
But I have developed new habitsnow.
So even if I start to do that, Icatch myself very quickly and I
(30:28):
think and I immediatelyapologize and say, I'm so sorry,
I shouldn't have said that or Ishouldn't have reacted that way.
And and so she and I havedeveloped new habits.
You know, she was when she waslittle, I was still going
through the healing process.
So she experienced a little bitof, you know, kind of the
unhealthy patterns.
But thankfully, I had done somuch work with my older two in
(30:48):
changing the relationship habitsthat by the time I got to my
youngest, I had developed newrelationship habits.
I had developed new ways ofinteracting, I had developed new
ways of handling stress.
And so it's really critical toconscientiously work on
identifying these unhealthybehavior patterns, the unhealthy
(31:11):
relationship patterns, and thenactively work to change them.
And there are, you know, you canyou can work with a therapist to
do these things.
You know, a lot of times it'shard to understand how to
establish healthy boundaries ina relationship if you don't
understand what healthyboundaries look like or don't
even understand what boundariesare.
I've talked about this inprevious episodes, but I feel
(31:32):
like since I brought it up, Iprobably should say something
about it here.
But the simplest way tounderstand what boundaries are
was something that my therapisttaught me.
And I I loved it because foryears she had talked about, she
and other therapists and otherpeople had talked about
boundaries, and I didn't everadmit to anybody that I didn't
really know what they weretalking about until I finally
was in a session and I reallywanted to understand what my
(31:54):
therapist was saying.
And I stopped her and I said,Can you explain to me what
boundaries are?
I don't think I understand whatthat is.
And she described it as theboundaries of a country, the
borders of a country.
So the borders of a countrydefine the space that that is
that country.
And within the borders, thegovernment, you know, the people
(32:15):
are responsible for the care ofthe people inside there, the
care of the land, you know, allof the, you know, deciding
what's appropriate there, whatwhat is going to be acceptable
there, and and what is going tobe allowed within the borders.
And but they are not responsiblefor what is happening in other
(32:35):
borders.
They are not, it's not theirprerogative to tell another
country what to do or how tobehave, right?
They're responsible forthemselves, and the other
countries are responsible forthemselves.
And you can have treaties, youcan have, you know, cooperative
relationships with othercountries, but ultimately, you
(32:57):
know, this country isresponsible for themselves,
country A is responsible forthemselves, and country B is
responsible for themselves.
And that is what boundaries are.
Boundaries are recognizing I amresponsible for myself.
I am accountable for mybehavior.
I am responsible for myself-care.
I am responsible for the choicesthat I make, and I am not
(33:20):
responsible for controllingsomebody else's behavior or, you
know, with the exception, ofcourse, of children.
Like I am responsible for takingcare of my children.
But at the same time, you know,I want to be respectful of my
kids.
I want to be respectful of theirautonomy as a person, you know.
So I want to teach my childrenhealthy boundaries as they grow.
(33:41):
But one thing that happens veryfrequently in relationships with
people that are struggling withtheir mental health is in
erosion of boundaries.
You know, there's especiallywhen we have psychiatric
diagnosis that make us believethat we have a disease, you
know, a bipolar disorder is adisease or a chemical imbalance
that they don't have any controlover.
(34:03):
If you believe that, thenthey're not responsible for the
bad behavior that they engage inwhen they're struggling with a
manic episode or a depressiveepisode, you know, as they call
it.
And so then what do you do withsomebody that you love that's
struggling with those things?
You want to help them.
And so boundaries get destroyedin these relationships.
There's a lot of codependency inthese relationships.
(34:25):
And something that I have seenhappen is a struggle to learn
how to have healthy boundariesin those relationships,
especially as the partner istrying to heal.
Because there weren't healthyboundaries in the first place.
And so, in order to change therelationship and change the
(34:46):
patterns, you have and change,you know, change the way that
you interact with each other andand help to create a healthy
relationship, you have to changethe habits.
You have to change the way thatyou interact with each other,
you have to change the way thatyou talk to each other, think
about each other, interact witheach other, and that requires
(35:06):
effort.
It requires consistent anddetermined effort.
Just like I had to learn tochange the way that my brain was
thinking about myself.
You have to wait, change the waythat you talk to each other and
the way you interact with eachother.
You have to stop reacting andstart and start responding.
You have to, you know, learnwhat healthy boundaries look
(35:27):
like and then learn how to havehealthy boundaries in the
relationship.
So the reason why I brought thisup is I've I've seen this, I've
recognized it in myself, andthen I've also seen it in other
people as I've gone through, youknow, I've coached people in the
in the upsiders tribe, and alsoas I've you know observed other
people that are asking for help,but don't really know what that
(35:48):
looks like, what help would looklike, is it's important to have
both pieces in the healingprocess.
You have to identify theunderlying sources of your
symptoms and then treat theunderlying sources using
research-based integrated toolsthat will help to actually
address and heal the underlyingsources of the problem of the
(36:10):
symptoms.
So healing needs to occur.
But part of the healing processis then changing the thoughts
and behaviors and copingmechanisms that developed as a
result of these of the unhealthyemotional responses and symptoms
that you were struggling with inthe first place.
You cannot do one without theone without the other if you
(36:33):
really want to recover.
And it's not an overnightprocess.
That's the other thing that Ithink is really hard for people
to understand sometimes is thathealing takes time.
We have a society that wantsthings to be done quickly.
We don't have very longattention spans.
We've been convinced by thepsychiatric industry and the
medical industry, frankly, thatall you need is a pill and
(36:54):
that's gonna make everythingbetter.
And so, even a lot of the peoplewho are looking for more
holistic approaches to recoverywant a quick fix.
Like, you know, people want tojust know like, can I take the
micronutrients and theneverything is going to be
better?
Yes, it will help make thingsbetter, but that's not the only
piece.
(37:14):
You can't just take somemicronutrients and all of a
sudden all your problems goaway.
It's really important to look atboth sides of this equation.
You have to identify theunderlying sources of the
symptoms, treat the underlyingsource with patience, because
healing takes time, and you haveto address the unhealthy
patterns, unhealthy thought andbehavior patterns, unhealthy
(37:35):
coping mechanisms, unhealthyrelationship patterns that have
developed out of the emotionalstruggle that you've been
experiencing for years, often.
So I I hope that this ishelpful.
It should be hopeful.
It should help you feel hopebecause there is something you
can do about this.
(37:55):
You don't have to struggle forthe rest of your life.
That's good news.
You know, a lot of times one ofthe things that is so sad to me
when somebody is struggling withthis is that they just don't
feel like they can put theeffort in, the sustained effort
necessary to heal.
But as I mentioned at the veryend of my book, your life is
(38:18):
already hard.
You can choose the hard thatkeeps you stuck and keeps you
struggling, and you willcontinue to be stuck and
struggle.
Or you can choose the hard thatis the work that will eventually
lead to healing and recovery.
And it I again, I mentionedthis, I've mentioned this in
previous episodes, but it is soimportant to make sure that you
(38:40):
are surrounding yourself byinfluences that are going to
encourage you through that hardthat leads to healing, that are
going to encourage you, youknow, yes, this is hard right
now, but it does get better.
I've seen, I've seen healthy,I've seen recovery, and and I
promise you it's worth theeffort.
Surround yourself with peoplewho are on the same journey,
(39:03):
with people that are goingthrough similar things, who
understand what you're goingthrough and what it feels like
and the struggle that you'reexperiencing, but also
understand that there's hope onthe other side of it, that it
does lead, you know, this effortthat you're putting in does lead
to recovery.
It does lead to better things.
Make sure that you're listeningto uplifting podcasts, things
(39:23):
that are encouraging you, thatare giving you insights and
helping you to learn more abouthow to think in healthy ways and
how to respond in healthy waysand the tools that you can use
to help change the way youinteract with the world world.
Make sure that you're fillingyour life with good things that
will help encourage you asyou're struggling through the
(39:45):
trenches sometimes, through thehealing process, because we
already have enough bad in theworld.
We already have enoughdiscouragement in our own heads.
Now it's already hard enoughthere.
We need sources of support andencouragement that are going to
help keep us moving towardshealing and recovery.
If you have any questions aboutanything I've talked about, I
(40:06):
hope you'll send me an email.
I would love to hear from you.
And make sure that you, ifyou're new to the podcast, check
out the earlier episodes.
I've got lots of great episodesthat talk about, you know,
sources of symptoms, tools thatwill help you with, you know,
recovery.
There's some really greatepisodes that can help you along
this path.
If you haven't read my book, Iencourage you to get a copy of
(40:27):
it, The Upside of Bipolar, sevensteps to heal your disorder.
And if you're ready to startyour healing journey, check out
the link in the show notes thattalks about the upsiders tribe.
Thanks for joining me on theUpside of Bipolar.
Your journey to recoverymatters, and I'm grateful you're
(40:49):
here.
For more resources, visitwww.theupsideofbipolar.com.
If you're ready to dive deeper,grab my book, The Upside of
Bipolar, seven steps to healyour disorder.
If you're ready to heal yoursymptoms, join my monthly
membership, The Upsiders Tribe,to transform chaos into hope.
Until next time, Upsiders
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