My therapist gave me an assignment to come up with rules for living with bipolar. Here’s what I came up with. 

-Take medications as directed

-Sleep 7-9 hours, 9 pm-6 am

-Self-care, ie, shower, brush teeth, eat healthy, exercise, haircut, wash sheets, laundry, chores, do pleasurable things.

-Go to a therapist at least once a month

-If even a little manic or unsure, take zyprexa

-If a lot manic or depressed, consult the crisis plan

-Help others/ be of service

-Pray and meditate daily

-Practice gratitude

-Talk to friends and family daily

-Chart moods

-don’t drink

This list isn’t exhaustive, but I think it covers most of what I need to do to stay stable. Medications are critical for me, and anyone with bipolar. Sleep is as important, if not more important. Taking my medications at roughly the same time of the night and morning really helps too. Self-care is an unsung hero, but can be one of the most difficult, especially when I don’t feel like doing the basics because of depression or mania. Sometimes I have to push myself to take care of myself. Therapy is one that I have lacked in the past, but it is important, if nothing else, just to check in and make sure I’m not getting manic. Having a PRN for mania is important for me. If I’m having a hard time with sleep because of mania, it can also help me get those z’s. Having a crisis plan and sticking to it is difficult, but so necessary if you have bipolar disorder like I do. Helping others is on my list because it’s important to everyone in society, or should be. But for someone with severe mental illness, you can start to feel needy and worthless. Getting outside of myself helps me not feel this way. Prayer and meditation helps me stay focused and connected spiritually. I’ve talked about gratitude in a previous post. Gratitude really sets my mind up to look at life in a positive way. Staying connected socially really helps me stay out of depressive funks, and good friends and family let me know if they see a change in my mood/actions. Charting moods is important because it helps me and my providers to see changes and spot patterns in my moods and actions to help stave off an episode. Drinking and cannabis use can really screw me up. In the moment, it feels like it’s helping my mental illness, but it just makes the episodes worse.

I don’t follow these rules to perfection. But I do my best.