I got a couple of irate emails this week, demanding to know why I’m not approving certain comments on the blog.

While I read (and usually respond with links and other support where appropriate) everyone’s comments on the blogs, for your protection, and the tone of the site, I rarely approve ‘negative’ comments.

There is a woman that has been commenting, endlessly on our posts that hasn’t been approved is basically saying everything about bipolar disorder that we’re vehemently against – I don’t believe for one minute that we should consider bipolar disorder a burden, though I’m all for wallowing occasionally.  I don’t believe we should ‘battle’ the disease, because we’re anthromposizing something that isn’t human.  We can show our spirit instead by being the best we can be.

Living with bipolar disorder is somewhat like changing your life to help conservation, and lower carbon footprints.  You can do it to your heart’s content, and make a difference internally, by accepting, changing, and adapting, but it’s shouting into the wind until you can get others to understand.  Living with bipolar disorder is more than possible – it’s as big a fact of life as suffering from it.  It really IS all about mindset.  And once you get your head around that – or teach the people you, yourself are living with about it, you can ‘win’, if that’s how you want to see it.

I have a mantra.  Live, thrive, survive.  I live when I’m manic, purely and to the safest, sanest and fullest I can manage (though, being fair, the only reason I manage that is because I have a great partner and several amazing friends), I thrive when I’m ‘normal’ – putting down roots, and growing the important things, and I survive when I’m depressed – I conserve energy, I breathe, and I remember the important stuff.  LTS is my mantra, because it’s how I live.

My book, Pictures In The Dark, talked about it in depth, and we’re about to go into a second reprint, so if you’re interested in no BS, no nonsense discussion on how to adapt to living, thriving and surviving, then please, join us!

Kai

Kai is a writer, author and avid reader.  A mental health advocate, Ludosport athlete and coder. She’s the mother of two young adults, owned by two cats, and lives with her beloved in the Cotswolds.