I’m stuck in a bipolar depression and yet, I’m trying to exercise. I’ve never been successful at this – ever.  Now and then I have been on exercise programs, but I’ve hated every one and none of them have stuck. Not to mention the fact that getting my depressed butt out of the house to do anything is almost impossible. I have no energy and everything hurts all the time. Bipolar depression makes exercising almost impossible – but I’m hoping the truth is that it’s just “almost” impossible.

Fear and pain are realities of life, but we can’t let fear and pain make our decisions for us. As soon as we do, they will be the masters of our fates. But we all need to be the masters of our own destiny. In short, we need to stand up to fear and pain and make our own decisions, even though it can be very hard.

I’ve written before how critical sleep is to those with bipolar disorder but just how sensitive is bipolar disorder to sleep changes and what can you do about bipolar’s sensitivity to sleep changes? It’s important to know what happens with your bipolar disorder when your sleep patterns change, even a little. That sensitivity can make all the difference to your day and what coping skills you choose to employ. But how big a change in your sleep does it take to affect your bipolar disorder? How do you deal with sleep changes with your bipolar disorder if you detect them?

I consider bipolar disorder to by my main enemy most of the time and I’m trying to win against my bipolar disorder. But the word “try” sucks. I hate the word “try.” Yes, I’m “trying” to win against my bipolar disorder but all this “trying” is exhausting and full of failure.

Functioning and bipolar disorder is a constant struggle. I know this is true not just for me, but for so many with serious mental illness. And part of the oddity of my functioning with bipolar disorder is that if I stop functioning, being productive, I just won’t start again.

Because of my bipolar disorder, I fake happiness – a lot – like, all the time; like, every time I leave the house. This is due to several factors but, obviously, one of the primary ones is that I, typically, am not actually happy. I am, typically, depressed. And people don’t like that. People don’t like constantly-depressed people. So my bipolar disorder forces me to fake happiness.

There are nasty effects on bipolar when I suffer from a lack of sleep. Luckily for me, I usually do have a decent sleep thanks to my medications but, sometimes, my body just decides to wake up at 3:00 a.m. and refuses to go back to sleep. I know this happens to many people but I also know that most people don’t have bipolar disorder. And I know that, for me, if I have a lack of sleep it really affects my bipolar disorder negatively.

I write about some things that can trigger those with depression so it’s important for readers to know how to deal with depression triggers in blog posts. Understanding how to deal with depression-triggering blog posts can protect you from negative emotional effects and worsening symptoms.

I hate it when people say, “failure is not an option,” because, especially with bipolar, failure is always an option. And by saying “Failure is not an option,” people make it sound like failure is bad. But we all need to accept that failure is an option, and a viable one. We need to accept that with bipolar, failure happens.

People with borderline personality disorder often self-harm, but that doesn’t mean they are the only people who do; let’s face it, anyone can self-harm. People associate self-harm with borderline personality disorder, which I understand, after all, self-harm is a symptom of borderline personality disorder. But it isn’t the case that these are the only people who self-harm. Self-harm can be a coping technique that anyone can pick up (unfortunately), whether they have a mental illness or not.