Get - O - Life

Home Organization for the Organizationally Challenged
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What is Sanctuary?
Bipolar Land
Be Careful
Reality
Boundaries
Stay or Leave
Translation, Please
Why not work?
Medication
Why so common?
Too Stressful
What to do
Stickers
Stressors
It sometimes seems like a bipolar episode just comes out of thin air. There has been no medication change and nothing terrible is happening. It helps to know that all sorts of stress, both good and bad, can contribute to a manic episode.
 
I was thinking about all of the triggers I've seen and how confusing the whole thing could be, so I took a few minutes to make a quick list of stress triggers.
 
Going to work
Driving a car (All those idiots in the other cars)
Riding in a car with someone else driving (pull over and let me drive! NOW!)
Getting out of bed
Staying in bed too long
Getting dressed
Having to make your own breakfast when you don't feel like it
Having to explain to your SO for the millionth time that you don't want your egg yolk broke--and talking him or her into making you another egg.
Finding the pair of pants you wore last Thursday in the laundry, still dirty
Finding the shirt you wore yesterday still wet in the dryer
Finding nothing good on TV
Not being able to find the remote when you want it
Finding the remote where it's not supposed to be
Not being able to keep a job because the bosses are all stupid (other reasons)
Not being able to wash the dishes because you don't feel like it
Not being able to pick up the clothes you took off last night because you don't feel like it
Not being able to help around the house because you don't feel like it
Not getting a shower every day because you don't feel like it
Having to take a shower because you've been in those pajamas for a week and they are getting washed and so are you or you're sleeping in the back yard.
Not having enough hot water
Not having your favorite brand of shampoo
Running out of your favorite scent of body wash
Not being able to find clean underwear because it's in the drawer, not on the floor where you left it.
Having to decide what's for dinner
Not getting what you want for dinner because you couldn't decide and no one could read your mind.
No onions in the potato salad.
Too much mustard in the potato salad
An empty milk carton in the fridge
Running out of cereal
Flavored coffee when you want plain
Friends coming over to see the new house
Family coming over to visit
Travel--vacations are more stressful than work
Loss of routines
Someone's been sitting in my chair (says the papa bear)
Nothing to do (but complain about nothing to do)
I don't feel like it!
Feelings are really the problem with bipolar disorder--if your feelings are messing with you, you really believe them.
 
In most people, feeling tired means you need to rest and feeling hungry means you need to eat--you have to trust your feelings to survive. When your feelings get out of control, it can be very frustrating and scary.
Sex 
Sex can be a powerful stressor for some with bipolar--the sex act affects brain chemistry and can be as powerful as other drugs.
 
Worries about sex--being rejected, being impotent can cause stress.
 
When a person with bipolar starts wanting a lot of sex, mania is present or eminent.