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People can be so courageous. Living with bipolar is hard, whatever the intensity. When you add in careers, relationships, families, goals, dreams to live up to; the illness permeates everything. This means that sometimes everything in life can become a little bit harder, or a lot harder, or maybe it becomes absolutely insurmountable. Nonetheless we try. We try to be better people. We try to make our lives happier, to care for those we love, and to minimise the damage we can cause. Not all the time, but nearly all the time.
We hope for change and improvement and we go looking for the means to make it happen. We are proactive and sincere on our journeys to face ourselves and conquer the darkness and the hopelessness and the debilitation. That is brave, incredibly brave, but a lot of people reading this may disagree. You could think that it isn’t bravery but necessity, isn’t courage but desperation, and that there is no other choice.
In reality there is always a choice.

So let’s get real about it for a minute and acknowledge some of the greatness within everyone who is dealing with bipolar disorder, that is so often taken for granted. It is so important to be proud of all the things we ARE, and not just focus on all the things that we aren’t.

We are relentlessly hardworking. Managing bipolar is exhausting! Add in families, jobs, studies, relationships, hobbies, and it is an entire life of work. We are amazingly hardworking and creative, inventing personalised ways to accomplish the things that we need to, always trying to learn how to balance ourselves in busy lives: no wonder so many celebrated entrepreneurs have bipolar.

Read my introduction on effectively managing bipolar disorder here.

We are beautifully hopeful. We deal in hope: gaining it and losing it, giving hope to people, and receiving it when we need some. Hopefulness is an amazing attitude capable of catalysing immense changes in our lives. Hope protects us, sometimes deludes us, and fuels us. At our best we are magnificently hopeful in a way that radiates the possibility of life to those around us. Mostly though, we just hope to be better people, and that in itself is very wonderful.

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We care deeply about other people. I think this goes hand in hand with experiencing a much wider range of emotions than most people ever do. Bipolar gives us the gift of empathy: we know what life feels like and, when we have the resources to care, we care a lot. We are extremely romantic people capable of total dedication and it hurts us deeply if we do something to harm another: empathy is our double-edged sword.

We are open to change. The landscape of bipolar is not flat and stable ground: it is an immense ocean. Our moods, values, energy, strengths and weaknesses are in constant flux. Every day is a different story so perhaps we need to be humble to counter a mania or maybe it is time for a bit of extra confidence to lessen a depression. We are willing to change our minds and ourselves to progress our interesting lives, like intrepid adventurers we keep doing what we can to keep moving forward.

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We become like diamonds. Whether we like it or not, bipolar is hard. It brings adversity into our lives as surely as a storm brings darkness. Being bipolar can teach you many things but, if you accept yourself, underneath everything else it will teach you to be resilient. Resilient people do not simply rebound from adversity, they accept hard experiences and integrate them into their lives in a healthy way. Resilience isn’t automatic it takes: adaptability, sensitivity, hope, and hard work – all things that we already possess. The world is changing at an ever-quickening rate and if you learn to be resilient in response to bipolar you will always be able to find your footing no matter what. I think that resilience founded on kindness a primary skill for dealing with mental illness and is something that I will be writing more about.

I hope this article is useful to you, thank you for reading it! I believe that these articles will help to educate people with bipolar and give them skills for a future of mental wellness, not mental illness. Please consider Supporting KindBipolar and joining our email list (we never send spam). Be kind to yourself and have a great day.