Newly diagnosed bipolar with extreme anxiety disorder
So I have struggled with depression and self harm my whole life. I am now 26 and have been recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder and anxiety disorder. I
Hi @Mosha2922, I know that feeling of just wanting to be normal again or just wanting to feel like "me" again. Unfortunately, we don't get to choose what's served to us from the Mental Illness Buffet but we can be the best versions of ourselves and not let our diagnosed illness or our symptoms define us.
Recovery from mental illness - and severe depression in particular - is a journey. Along the way, we learn to change some things, we learn to get help in new ways and we also learn to accept certain parts of us that we held as unacceptible. In my journey, I'm letting go of some beliefs about myself that no longer serve me, that no longer reflect my reality. It is hard for me to do this, I've had them since I was a child. I'm struggling, sometimes I fall. Hopefully I fall forward!
Will it get better? Yeah, definitely it will and you've already taken positive steps in that direction by posting here, by getting diagnosed and hopefully through the treatment prescribed for your condition. It is a process so it takes time. I hope you can be patient with the process but more importantly, with yourself. There is a "new you" emerging from out of the turmoil of symptoms, frustration, isolation and fear - and that person is worth becoming. Worth getting to know, too.
@Russellistrying thank you so much for your beautiful and kind words. I feel so alone in my own mind, all I want to do is be left alone and I know that
@Fishie2922 You're welcome and I appreciate your response. You asked, "I know I have to make changes and learn about acceptance with my new life. But how can you accept a new life when you never really accepted the old one?"
That's a fair and excellent question and I wish I had a satisfying and definitive answer for you. There are parts of my past that I haven't put to rest because for one reason or another. I can't tell you anything about you, for me, I remain attached to some parts that I must let go of. Other parts I've put on a shelf until a day arrives when I have the skills to cope with the distress that will follow from opening up that box. Does this make any sense?
While I feel like I'm working towards resolution I may never reach the point when I've let go of everything I need to drop and fully incorporated what remains - and that's okay. It has to be, because life happens to me whether or not I clean out my psychic closet and if the best I can do right now is to maintain then I will until another day when I can do a little more.
@Russellistrying you don
@Fishie2922 Thank you for letting me know that I've been helpful!
I see what you mean and it can be really hard to be patient with yourself when it seems there is much to sort out. Do try to be kind to yourself. Sometimes, my inner voice can be harsh, cruel when talking to myself about what I need to do, who I need to be. I often need to remind myself that this mean voice is not the way to provide "discipline" nor motivation to myself.
I have to be gentle and I have to listen to the smaller voices inside me. They may be trying to tell me there's something that needs tending to if I'm to make any progress with my goals.
@Russellistrying I had never thought of it that way. To focus on what the little voices say. The mean voices make it so that their noise drowns out the poor squeaks of my tiny voices so I can nearly hear them
