Music. Conversations with. My name is Shaylee Kukendorn and I live with bipolar 2 disorder. Sharing with others is healing both individually and collectively. Sharing our stories will educate others, bring more understanding, shed more light and smash more stigma. Our voices need to be heard. Our stories aren't over yet. This is Bipolar. Hi, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of This is Bipolar. I am your host, Jaylee Hoogendorn. I live with bipolar 2 disorder. I am multi-passionate.
Therefore, I am a teacher, an event planner, a podcaster, and content creator. I also have a husband and I have children, so I am a mother and I am fiercely passionate about sharing my story of lived experience with bipolar and the stories of others. And I am very excited if you haven't already noticed, or if this is the first time you're tuning in, I have a co-host friend and I'd love for her to introduce herself.
Hello. Hi, I am Dr. Andrea Basilev. I also live with bipolar, and I have my doctorate in psychology. I'm a therapist here in California specializing in bipolar, and I'm also a passionate advocate. I have a self-stigma program I created that is being turned into a book, so that's coming line. Very exciting. And yeah, I'm here with Shaylee and the cats, so here we are. If you're on YouTube, you might see some cat appearances. We will see. We will see.
You can show us up. Before we launch into everything, one of the biggest questions that I get asked is about support groups. I just get message upon message of someone just wanting to share their story or asking questions and just basically relating to someone else that lives with bipolar disorder. And so I started subscriptions on Instagram. Subscriptions. You join a peer support group. So it is in messages. So we have our own private group.
So and there are people from all over the world. I have people in New Zealand. I've got someone just joined from India. I'm from Canada, US. We have a lot. Yeah, it's amazing. And so chances are, if you go on that chat, there is someone awake. There are people to talk to with your experience. And there are people that will listen and just get it because they all live with bipolar disorder.
And one of the very cool things that we've been doing for almost six or seven months now, we meet every month on Zoom. And so we show up and we check in and we encourage each other. We talk. Calm as we are. Sometimes we come in our pajamas. Sometimes we're a hot mess. Sometimes we're not. And we just encourage people to just show up where they're at.
And from what others have said, it's been a really, really, really life-changing experience because they have never met anyone else or seen anyone else that lives with a mood disorder. So, you are welcome. Sign up. Message me if you need help getting signed up, and I and my other bipolar bears would love, love, love to see you there. All right. I would love to get started. Andrea and I did an episode that went out a little while ago that talked about early warning signs of depression.
This is our follow-up one where we want to talk about strategies to deal with depression. And Andrea is going to tell you a little bit of the topics that we will cover this episode. Yes. So we're going to talk about first our personal experiences experiencing bipolar depression and what that feels like, because that will probably resonate with a lot of people who are listening. It's such a unique and terrible experience that it's almost hard to put into words, but we're going to do that.
And then we will go on to some of our own personal strategies, coping skills that we've developed just through, you know, through, through doing it.
Right. learn by doing so we'll talk about those and yeah that's that'll be the big parts of it well andrea did you want to share first i know you have something special to share with us just about your your personal experience or how it's just such a word that's used for all types of things like i know you sometimes hear oh you know i'm so depressed that my tv series ended or, Or, you know, I'm so depressed about this. I'd love to hear your experience. And then maybe we can tease out.
The difference between clinical depression and situational depression. Because I think that it's very, very different. And we use the same word, unfortunately, for it all. Right. We have some shortcomings in language, right? Because people will say, I'm so depressed. It's raining out today. And if you're in Canada, that's bad news, right? Because it's always raining, isn't it? Where I live. It's snowing everywhere else. Where I live, it rains in Vancouver.
I'm just teasing. So I actually personally use this language, and I encourage people to use it. I encourage my self-stigma program as well because it puts some distance between you and the experience. I say I'm experiencing. That's good. Right. I'm not depressed. Right. That sort of conflates it with people who are saying I'm depressed because it's raining. I am experiencing depression. This is a thing. It's separate from me. I'm going through it. It's its own entity. So I use that language.
And I think that is really helpful for me. I love that reminder. We think, oh, it's just words, but words are actually really important. And of course, you're going to buy Andrea's book when it comes out, and you're going to follow our Instagram. She's going to finish writing it. And language is really important. And I actually think it's a place that we can really start when we talk about breaking down stereotypes and stigma. Yeah, for sure. So let's hear your explanation.
So I've got some poetic phrases that I use, right? And this first one's not mine. I heard it somewhere. I've heard it a bunch of places. And if it's yours, then credit to you, let us know. I don't know where it started. But I've heard that experiencing bipolar depression is like swimming in a bowl full of razor blades. True. Right? And that's so visceral and so descriptive. Yeah. You know what that just reminded me of? I'm going to out myself as a Swifty.
She has the song is called death by a thousand cuts yes i mean that expression i've heard right. But that's yeah it's a good song you want to sing it for us go ahead no i 100% don't want to sing it for us that's all i know that's all i got yeah no that's a really good way to explain it yeah if you go back and if you want to hear andrea's full story you can go back and i interviewed her a while ago and we have she's been on the podcast before and she actually tells her whole personal story.
And in that personal story, she shares some poetry. I would love to hear some poetry that you have describing depression. So here's the thing. When I was really going through it, all the cycling, all the depression, all the hypomania, I wrote a lot, right? Some of it's not bad. Some of it's a mess, but it's all very raw and truthful.
So I pulled this out of the archives and it's from 2007 so it's quite some time ago this is what it felt like to me at the time so if this resonates with you then you are not alone and we see you because we've been through this so goes i have stopped feeling ceased existence segregated myself from this rich but ironically lonely world i remain alone i take no risks like a cold gray stone i lie artless and formless solid and stoic in my non-existence.
There's this numbness about it right sometimes yeah and i love that, rich part because I think one of the things that it's hard for people to understand is that I am aware of the beauty in the world. It almost seems like... Out of reach. Yeah. I almost feel like there's this thick, dark bubble around me and I know those things are out there, but they no longer can get access to it.
Exactly. It's this like you're stuck. You've sometimes got this non-existence numbness and sometimes it's this, what I call this swirling vortex of despair, right? Where it's more agitated. Actually, Shelley, we should mention one of my favorite sort of recounts of bipolar depression is in the book called Brainstorm by Sarah Schley. I don't know if you've read it. She's also making a documentary. That's a set. Yes, I know about the documentary.
Her book about bipolar depression is just so spot on. It just really, it resonates so much. I really like Brainstorm from broken to blessed on the bipolar spectrum. It's really great. Awesome. We'll put it in the show notes. I always struggle to try and put into words what depression feels like to me because when I'm depressed, I don't have a lot of words, which if y'all know me, if you won't, yes, at all, I rarely am speechless.
Okay. Right. We love that about you. That's one of your finest qualities. People always ask me, what happened? Or why are you feeling that way? They want to fix it. And the thing is that nothing happens, right? Sometimes there are triggers, but mine came regularly every year around the same time. It kept me from sharing because I knew people were going to ask me the reason. I remember not only feeling the depression, but having this deep,
deep guilt because I had an awesome life. I love my husband. We have a great relationship. Obviously, there's things, right? I'm not going to rose-colored glasses of marriage, but I had children, you know, deep down. I had all brothers, so I kind of wanted a girl. I got two. Yeah. And so I had, I ended up getting my career, right? Right. You listen on other episodes that I got my degree by the skin of my teeth near the end through a depression.
I'm outgoing and I'm extroverted. And so I felt like there was not a good enough reason to tell people. Right. You don't have the right to experience depression. Like, how dare you? You have food, you have clothes, et cetera, et cetera. But that's not how it works. Just because your basic needs are met doesn't mean that your brain isn't living with bipolar. Yeah. And I felt selfish too. Like depression is a result for people going through something horrible, right?
And so I think when we get into talking about the different strategies and things that we do, it's been really, really powerful to me to look at that differently. So if you're feeling like that, I get it. Yeah, definitely. So you mentioned strategies and coping. Yeah. We're experienced in this department. We are experienced. Andrea has been diagnosed since she was a teenager, right? Yeah. Yeah, I'm going on 25 years now. So she has experiences for sure.
And I was only diagnosed in 2010 and I was 34 or 6. I don't know. Math is hard. I should really write it down. You were just 30. Yeah, it's fine. Yeah. Yeah. And so there have been... I try not to sit in it too long, but I've let myself kind of grieve the idea of that because I was diagnosed so late all those months of like years of cycles of depression. Sometimes I feel like it's a stole time from me. I felt like a time stealer. Yeah, we do a whole episode on stealing of time.
Yeah, I hear that. You should. And before we jump into like talking about, it's such a science-y word, right? Strategies or coping mechanisms, all of those things. I just want to acknowledge right now, if you are in the depths of depression, if it has clutches in you, please know, please know that we are not saying these are miracle cures. We are 100% not saying these are easy and we're not just, you know, throwing them out there like answers.
We want you to know first and foremost that we see you and my heart feels tight just thinking about my experience and thinking that others have to feel that too. We absolutely know how hard these things are for you.
Right isn't that ironic right that these skills when they're so important are the hardest so i in all things encourage people to look for balance right because there's there's balance between having to meet your depression where it is yeah and pushing yourself to move the needle a little bit that's the other thing is people say okay i gotta turn this depression off maybe not maybe you just move the needle a tiny, tiny bit. And even that is worth doing.
So we're going to keep coming back to that balance of knowing what you can do, what you can't do, and what's the middle ground where maybe you can do something. I love that. And starting small, right? Otherwise, it just becomes completely overwhelming. Let me give people a little structure. Talk a tiny bit about professional help. Then we'll talk about self-care, which covers all kinds of things. Social support, distraction techniques, right? So those are some of the big bucket categories.
Shaylee, give us a couple of words about professional health because we also want to acknowledge that you can do all of the stuff and still need professional help. In fact, that's probably what will happen. So if you are really in it, what's the first thing you should do? I think absolutely you need to go to a doctor.
Most people don't realize they have it. They go to the doctor unless someone's really well-versed and knows it's in their family and knows you probably, like me, I wasn't surprised to have a mental health disorder, but I didn't think that it would be bipolar disorder. And so I think having a treatment team, having a doctor is very, very important because.
Until we could get my medication right, all of these other strategies that Andrea and I are going to talk about were literally impossible for me to do because I was just surviving every day. I was just getting through hypomanic days on this whirlwind of whatever it was, trying to hold on to it, knowing the depression would come. And then the depression, I was trying to stay alive. I was trying to make. So the thought of doing any of these things seemed absolutely impossible.
But having medication, having a doctor, therapist, I was able to access and bring, you know, the two levels a little bit closer to each other. And I was able to actually be self-reflective, right? And try the things that we're going to talk about. Yeah, just go to your doctor. And if you're someone that's in complete crisis, if you are having suicidal thoughts or thoughts about hurting yourself or others, go to emergency. If you need to be admitted to save your life, please, please go.
I know it's a hard experience. I know that some people it was not a great experience, but if it keeps you alive. That's what matters. That's what matters. I am a firm believer that it is nearly impossible to manage without medical help, in my opinion. Yeah. So if you have your diagnosis and you know you experience episodes of depression and you feel one coming, go back to our last episode, The Warning Signs.
Yeah. But you know that you're in it or about to be in it, call your doctor, psychiatrist, therapist, anybody who can help reach out. You know, kind of like if you're going down the quicksand, you've got to reach out. Yeah. And even telling one person, I don't know about you, but if I speak aloud, even now, the power of, I call it like the power of the pen or the power of, to me, it's the voicemail, the power of a group message.
I feel the teeniest bit of movement when I speak it aloud or write it or tell someone, right? Someone you trust. And if that person, you know, dismisses you or doesn't, you don't feel fully heard, try someone else, right? And if you need to, if it's something that you've never written down or told someone before your diagnosis, feel free to send us a message. I get messages all the time that says, I've never told anyone.
Because it's it's a start we're here to hold space for that and hopefully it will help you get courage to you know share in real life yeah exactly so once you've seen the doctor told the doctor taking care of yourself gone to the hospital if you need to then what what are some of our self-care type things i want i want to hear yours first. Okay, so this also kind of falls into the bucket of prevention, which we talked, we didn't cover prevention, but let's give it a hot second, right?
Yeah. So a little bit of prevention is worth a lot of cure. The tricky part about that is that you can do all of the quote unquote right things, do all of the treatment things, take perfect care of yourself, and you might still end up with depression. So don't be discouraged if that happens, but there are things that can be done that we do that reduce risk of relapse or even just time to relapse, and that's a big deal.
So some of these things are preventative, but when experiencing depression, I'm going to go off script for a second, the first and most important thing, you never guess, guess, no, don't guess, I'll tell you, self-compassion. Yeah. Even more important than self-care, I would say, because you can be doing all of those things and still bullying yourself.
And I feel like my negative self-talk and that person, you know, I try and separate it from myself, that voice inside that stops me from being able to do anything. So if I can't have compassion with myself, keep thinking over and over again, it's my fault. Some of my reoccurring thoughts are, I can't believe I'm back here. How did I let this happen? I have to look at those thoughts and say, this is not true.
It's not true it's not helpful and it's making things worse the hard part about that is when you're experiencing depression those cognitive distortions that negative self-talk boom right away they happen so much more easily so you've got to be pretty intentional about holding yourself in compassion bath of empathy just you know bathe yourself in all of that that love that you can muster so that's the first thing because that'll make everything else easier right it's true it's It's true.
So what I have done in the past, because I still struggle with this, let's be real. I write down things I would say to a friend or things I've said to a friend on Instagram, and then I read them back to myself because it's not, doesn't come naturally to think about that for myself. And I used to have a self-care box and it would have things in it that made me be compassionate with myself.
So I might be skipping ahead to some self-care things, but that was a step that I did to be compassionate myself. So one, I wrote down kind words or words that I'd love to be spoken over to me, sent to me. I will read them. And then I also have a couple pictures. I have a picture of seven-year-old Shailie, and then I have 16-year-old Shailie, and I have them on my mirror. And I found this beautiful thing that said, you are enough that you can etch it kind of in your mirror.
And I look at little Shailie and I think, or teenage Shailie, like those years whoa and I just have so compassion because they didn't like one they didn't know and they felt like they were different and I just it's easier to say those things to myself if I'm looking at at that that's beautiful I love that how do you practice your self-compassion.
I think it's it's sort of it's everywhere right it's an approach to life it's an approach to how you talk to yourself it's an approach to how you do things so if you're trying to do something that's a coping strategy that we'll talk about and it's not going very well instead of hating on yourself it's okay i did my best maybe my best didn't succeed or accomplish the task or whatever but i did my best and that's really
all i can ask of myself right and another one you might stick in that self-care box is a gratitude journal plenty of research behind gratitude journals and mood. Even if a journal sounds like a lot of work, just a practice of three things you can name for the day. Shelly, give me your three things you're grateful for today. Today. I'm grateful for you that you're here and I'm grateful that you like fun and fashion with me.
Some of my favorite things right now of having a co-host again is being able to talk about like, hey, what are you going to wear? What am I going to wear? And then we match up to me. That brings me so much joy. And if you see, we're almost twin-deaned. I know, right? We couldn't wear just straight black. And I'm going to get into a self-care thing about color for me. Yes. But so we have some gold.
So that, my second thing I'm thankful for is that I was able the past two weeks to teach small tiny humans. Oh my gosh. Four days a week, both weeks. Oh my gosh. With teaching on call, which is a lot for me. It's not that I can't do it, but then everything at home just falls apart. I can, you know, making dinner, all those things that usually come naturally, it's overwhelming. I mean, like sometimes I just have to sit and zone out after because littles are a lot and I love them.
But I think I'm grateful for that and grateful for... I think the third one would be, I'm grateful that I don't judge myself about that because there's kind of distortion that I have that tells me, you know, I'm not working enough. I'm not giving back to society enough. This isn't a big, big deal, right? Everybody works kind of thing. But I recognize for me, teaching small children and living with a bipolar disorder is a huge feat.
That's amazing. I love those. And I'm grateful for you too. When you're experiencing depression, your grateful things might not be as big. They might be, I'm grateful I took a shower today and I'm grateful that someone called and that they care about me. And I'm grateful that I have these pills to take. Like they can be very basic, but still worth doing. Yeah. One of the biggest things is I do reasons to stay alive. I even have like a thing.
And that really helped because I had to dig deep to find like 30 in one month or, you know, 45. Because it's easier for me to say, you know, like, even though these are absolutely valid, but it would be easy for me to just say, just say my family or just say I had to dig deeper into the little glimmers around me. And I wanted to speak a little bit to gratitude journal as well. It doesn't have to be a journal with paper.
I always, one of my things is I always think that there's a right way to do things and that I'm doing it wrong. So that compassion I'm working on. And so sitting down and writing served me when I was a teenager. Now, I had children and just being busy and just who I am. The sitting down and doing the writing is overwhelming to me because I don't know where to start. Then I just keep going. Makes it a stressful thing. I also get stressed by coloring, which is hilarious. But I have found a way.
One, my content creation and my Instagram is my journaling. But also I have an app called Marco Polo where I speak, like I tell my friends, you and I, we do...
Audio check-ins right and then also like I'll video record myself or audio record myself because if I'm speaking it out to me but having it still is just as powerful so if journaling is not your jam find the way right even just think them yeah it's the process of identifying them that's really helpful if you are interested too on the Instagram every Thursday I do it mostly for me but the community shows up, I do a thankful Thursday post.
So if you can even just be come that day and write those out, I have a way you can write it right where everyone can see it, like in the comments under the post, but I usually put it in stories too. And then it just comes to me. And I, I used to think like, oh, I'm going to post this again. People are getting so bored, but people show up and they really, really appreciate it. And it also reminds me. So if that's something that would be helpful to you.
I offer that on Thursdays, on Thankful Thursdays. Yeah. So give me another coping strategy for depression, something to focus on. Yeah. So when I start feeling depressed, I get almost militant about my sleep. Because we know with bipolar disorder, the sleep and energy, those two things are a big, big struggle for us. With depression, I actually sleep too much. A lot of people have hypersomnia.
The interesting thing about depression is you can have hypersomnia, which is sleeping too much, or you're going to have insomnia in which you might be very tired but are unable to sleep. Yeah. Oh, that one's hard, right? Because you're stuck with your thoughts. If I could have just slept the depressions away, that is what I would have done. But I force myself to keep between eight. And then when I don't have to work in the morning, sometimes I can sleep eight to 10 hours, right?
When I'm depressed. But I could sleep depressed. I could sleep 12, 14. I could just sleep forever or get up and go back. But I make myself get vertical. And I learned this from Holly Schwartz. Yes, you did. In the Social Rhythms episode. Because I thought as long as I'm awake, but actually you need to get vertical. You need to sit up, stand up to give the floor, as they say. Yes. Signal to your body that the day is starting. So I do that.
And on the deepest, deepest, darkest, darkest days, just doing that and moving myself and getting some kind of food. And then even if I'm just moving to the couch to sit up or even if I just do a lap in my home, if that's all I can muster.
It's forward motion like andrea was talking about little movement and not getting stuck how about you how do you sleep a lot sleep less when you're experiencing depression sort of depends on both ways but i do think it's important not to again balance some days you bed rot because that's all you can do but if there's a tiny spark of a percentage of a possibility of a hope that you can get out of bed and make it to the couch, do that. Do the thing that is just within reach.
I love that. I love that so much. And I leave myself my glimmer pebbles. So I'll leave stuff around my house. So color is really, really important to me. Okay. So I have like my water bottles. I'm a drinker early. My phone. Yes. Phone cases.
And I'm also a maximalist. Oh, look, i'm getting these made plug this is by plugs yeah within the next couple months you can get your this is bipolar mug i have one of these in every spot so i have one of these it by my bottles yep i have sorry for those listening it's my starbucks tumbler but water bottles i have different ones i have one like where i sit beside the couch i have one in my office i have them all over the place, and then I also have different like
I have different drinks so I when I get up I get excited to use the mug to have my special drink right to have my latte or whatever so sometimes honestly just getting up for my latte was the thing but I find that leading into to something else like color around me even in my bedroom I don't like I have bright colors a lot you know like some crisp white. I've got some yellow. I just find that just seeing other colors just helps me get like a pinhole out of the gray.
And yeah, color therapy. I didn't know it was a thing. I just always did it putting on sometimes even if I'm at home and I'm not leaving, sometimes I'll even put on lipstick. What I've done lately, I always just had black and gray like sweatshirts or my cozy hoodies. But then when we were wearing them all the time in COVID, I decided I can be cozy, but also colorful. So even when I'm sad, I have certain depression, down. Sweaters and hoodies. I literally have one that has the Taylor Swift.
I cry a lot, but I am productive. One, it's purple, different ones like that. And I have a Sunday one from, Andrea bought me one that says the Sunday scaries. Anyways, color therapy. I didn't know that that had a name. I know a lot about it. I've just heard the phrase, different colors make you feel different things. That's fair.
But you make a really good point, Shelley, in all of these, let's do the little thing that little thing if that's taking a tiny amount of joy in something simple if that's making it to the couch so i think that's a good overall idea is to to do the little thing say the the one thing you're grateful for right get up out of bed another one where we can do the little thing is exercise and i can i can literally hear everybody rolling their eyes at me because i get it when experiencing depression
yeah exercise well go away go take a walk okay bro like what yeah i can barely get myself to exercise sometimes when i'm not right but it's i don't know for me exercise has been such a huge part of my getting and staying well but again do the little thing sit on the floor and touch your toes right do the yoga stand up reach for the ceiling right do the little thing that you can, that moves you in the right direction. Get that snowball going.
Yeah. Dr. Hilary McBride, and she talks a lot about embodiment and embodiment therapy. And I love the language because it had extra connotation with me with. When I would get depressed, I get disordered eating. And then I, so not so much anymore, because again, professional help, my medication has really helped with that. But I loved how she just talks about like just changing exercise to moving your body, right? Because to me, it was exercise, gym.
Like I said, I get these solid ways of how you have to do things. If you don't do it for an hour, it's not even worth it. Like those kinds of things. And she really, you know, helped me reframe that. I think of it as moving the feelings through my body too. Sure, I love that. And people who know me know I'm a dancer. So I dance, but you can also turn on YouTube and get like dance fitness, or you can just turn on your music and move your body around the house.
Like dance, like no one's watching, but for real, right? But it's true, cardio exercise, intense exercise will shift your mood. So if you have it in you, do it. It's like medicine. Yeah, caring for my body, helps me care for my mind. Normally I would never do a challenge because I do, especially in January, but my daughter asked me to do a Pilates challenge. And if your teenage daughter wants to hang out with you, you even do Pilates for her.
So we've been doing this one and they're literally 10 or 12 minutes long. And I would probably think before, what's the use kind of thing. But actually, how do you feel after? Yeah, good. And they're hard. And also that would bring up with exercise, having a buddy, or if I tell someone I'm going to do it. And this one was a big one for me. Those would always, so I would have this list of these things that we're doing in my head, and then I would beat myself up if I didn't do them at night.
So one of the strategies that I do is instead of writing a to-do list at night, I call it my reverse to-do list. I write only the things I did, like I ate an apple, and then I draw a little square, and I check it off, or I cross out. And mentally, it makes such a difference. Like, even if I said, like, I walked to my car today. I walked to my car, I got in my car and went somewhere. If that's on the list, Great. Right. So again, focusing on the small wins, right, as a pattern here.
So exercise is kind of up there with diet, and neither you or I are nutritionally trained. Can't tell you what to eat and not eat, but there's plenty of evidence out there for diet and bipolar and just in moods in general. Like, if you put junk in, you get junk out.
At the same time if you've ever read my slate article or heard my story sometimes like when i first got really sick when i was 14 i stopped eating that's why they took me to the pediatrician right no one knew i was experiencing depression but they knew that i had stopped eating and the doctor was like let her eat whatever she wants because she's not eating and all i ate for like two months was this is so disgusting mcdonald's french fries yeah this was like
this was the 90s, though they weren't as awful as they were. But McDonald's french fries, sugar cookies, and apple juice. That's it, right? So that probably was not helping, but I wasn't eating. So again, balance the struggle between meeting your depression where it is and trying to move the needle. Yeah. Especially be very careful because I think that it's also a slippery slope, because of hyperfixation that we get. And also with depression, you can just focus on all the hard things.
And sometimes too with our meds, we gain weight and then we feel worse or sometimes we move less. So we gain weight, we feel worse and there's this big yo-yo thing. Just like Andrea said, balance. Be careful not to do, and I'm saying this from experience, go through your cupboards and throw out anything, which I'm going to go sugar. I'm picking one exact diet that's completely, you know, I have to follow step by step by step.
For me, it was like a hyper focus and so much so that I got in vicious cycles. So just be really careful. And like what Andrea said, if you can't eat at all, eat something. Like for me, when I'm really depressed, I can't drink water.
I know that's so weird. I can't drink water. so I drink like coffee iced coffee I'm not recommending this but and also like you know drinks and sometimes I drink diet drinks sometimes I drink diet pop none none not great for you and then I would have tea but it's liquid I was getting liquid right and I used to beat myself up a friend was like that is liquid and you're staying alive and when I could just, let that go. I actually started drinking more water because I wasn't pressuring
myself to feel the bad. Yeah. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. So when I'm experiencing depression, I still eat fries, not for McDonald's, but. Fries or yum? I know, right? Grilled cheese and fries. If you come into my house one day and I'm eating grilled cheese and fries, something may be up. Oh yeah.
We, with our children, grilled cheese, my kids are still love grilled cheese i know some people have a hard time eating it all so it's not cookie cutter it is but yes try and get something green i take green greens in pill form because i can't handle this drink and i have protein powder that i love but it's chocolate so it's really good, yes right so yeah we are it does it might sound on the face of things like we're being contradictory but really that's the thing is that these are aspirational
and you want to move towards what's best for you, but not move so quickly and so hard towards it that you're really tough on yourself. Yeah. And I like that step thing that you're talking about because, okay, so maybe you are eating. Maybe you feel like you could do that next step. Maybe the next step is to eat at similar times or three times a day until you can get into patterns. Because just doing the steps, even though you don't believe that they're helping
you or they feel terrible. They make it. Yeah. So you said something about routines, which if you go back and listen to Dr. Schwartz's episode, you'll hear all about. But if you've got routines, stick to them. Oh, my goodness. Stick to them as much as you possibly can. It cues your body. It cues your brain. It cues your heart in some ways, right? Yeah. To stay well, to feel a little better. So I, you know, I eat the same time every day.
I go to bed the same time every day. and when I'm experiencing depression, some of that goes out the window, but I try my hardest to stick to it. Yeah. And for all of you that heard that episode or know me at all, this is my hard one. It's so hard. Yeah. It's so hard because I get bored. I have different ones for the days I work and the days I don't. I really, really struggle. So don't think like I did. I am not doing social rhythms or the same thing because
it is boring and I'm not boring. So I'm not doing that. Instead, I took a look at, oh, okay, I'm already doing some. Which ones could I, you know, run a little better? The first step for me was just get to bed before midnight and go to sleep the same day that you woke up.
That's my thing. That's interesting. I like that. Okay, so we have the self-care we talked about with the gratitude and the little things that we love and the things that feel good and smell nice, etc., etc. And we talk about movement and a little about diet and a little about routine. Sleep hygiene is very important. If you are having trouble sleeping, you've probably heard a lot of the recommendations. Don't use your phone about two hours before bed. Use your bed only for sleeping.
Yes. But not for hanging out or studying or working, right? That's a big one. Keep it cool in your room. All of the sleep hygiene things might make your sleep a little easier. Yeah. So those are some of the big ones. Also, we can talk a little bit about Shaley's, one of Shaley's most favoritest words. What's my most favorite word? Mindfulness. Oh, yes. So we were talking earlier and we were talking about how I would roll my eyes.
I could to not hear the word mindfulness because we're getting back to this theme of Shaley. It seemed like a tight box that I couldn't fit into, right? I needed to be wearing like flowy MC Hammer kind of pants. I need to be sitting on a bolster. I need to be cross-legged. All these things. I had this idea of what it is, right? And especially when mindfulness and all of that, that word was kind of being used. It was a buzzword and it was being portrayed in all of media a certain way.
And I look at mindfulness way different now. I'm on board with the mindfulness. Some of the things that I do, especially when depressed, because I can get on the revolving tapes of the hard thoughts, bad thoughts. Beating myself up. Just picturing those as, I like the leaf and water analogy. So picturing those thoughts on these little leaves that float by. Because I thought mindfulness is you got to block those things out and you have
to get to a state where your mind is empty. No, that's not. Impossible. So I picture that, you know, I'm by the river. I even know which one I picture by my house. And I'll picture them sitting on there like, you know, like you're not good enough in it. I watch it float it might not put it on the leaf watch it float away so yeah mindfulness is just.
Really doing one thing at a time with full attention full acceptance right a mindfulness meditation is like what you're talking about placing your thoughts on leaves just watching them float by without interacting with them without without judging them just co-existing and i make it sound so easy and it's not easy but if you're in a moment where you're experiencing seeing really acute feelings of being overwhelmed, that's a great thing to do is to just notice and accept your thoughts.
Okay. I notice I'm feeling overwhelmed. I accept that I'm feeling overwhelmed. I am watching this feeling of being overwhelmed float down the river and away. Yeah. And like a minute count, a minute count. And I used to do this with work a lot. I kept watching the hours. Oh, it's almost recess. That's this much of my day is done. Oh. And I just kept trying to get things done. I'm really like, okay, like we're doing language arts right now.
This book is really cute. I try and be there instead of always in the back of my head, waiting for it to be over or getting to the next thing. And usually when I'm depressed, my whole focus is what can I do to get through my day? Cause I'm trying to get back to my bedtime. Like I just want the day to be over. So if I say to myself, you know, you are making dinner right now for your children and I might be hating it, but I'm just like, you are here. Like I literally need to tell myself.
And sometimes I, even when it feels impossible, I'll take off my shoes and socks. If it's not cold, I'll go outside because I feel it, right? Like I feel, it reminds me I'm here on the ground because I live in my head. How about you? What kind of mindfulness or grounding things help you when you're feeling completely overwhelmed?
So i do yoga which again people we might be getting some woo-woos from the crowd here i don't know if i'm i mean i got yoga teacher certified so i could use it with no way yeah i don't do like stand on your head yoga i do very simple grounding in the body regulating a breath paying attention to what you're doing mindful sort of yoga practices and i try to do that you know.
On ongoingly yeah yeah and you know they're teaching children now like it's actually in our curriculum to do things like that and it's so cool because we welcome to Canada I love that so much we we make it fun right for kids and they they buy and there's a mindfulness time we have these little bells but we do things and I think we can do them as adults just like I'm a firm believer of looking at picture books as adults I just am it brings us back everyone I love
being read to anyways side that's teacher shaley going at it but we do like hot chocolate breathing so i'm like get your mug you've got your steamy hot chocolate your marshmallows okay your marshmallow will go flying if you breathe really fast let's go slow or you know we make it fun so i even do that to myself sometimes i'm like drink your hot chocolate shay like right so yeah i think. It gives me a lot of hope that our kids are going to have a lot of these skills
that we never had because we're so aware of it that it is in schools here. Yeah, that's great. Hope is something we're going to circle back to at the end because I've got some thoughts about hope. But something that hopefully you and I are providing is another coping strategy, another skill, and that's social support, right?
So this could be your close circle, your significant other, your family, your loved ones, your friends or hear me out could be strangers on the internet who get it either is great right there's in this country we have dbsa depression and bipolar support alliance groups we have nami groups we've got instagram accounts we've got shaley's group we've got bipolar social club which is an email list you know we've got so many places to reach out and connect
to people either people with bipolar or people without bipolar but to connect really changes how you're functioning Yeah, it's true. Community care is just as important as, if not even more important than self-care. Because, yeah, even if you have one person. And the problem, right, that sounds, yeah, okay, I've got friends, yeah. The problem is when you usually, we hear a lot of, when you're depressed, you isolate, right?
Because you feel like you're a burden, you feel like this. For me, I think, oh, I'm here again, because I sound like a broken record because the same thoughts come or whatever. And I have a group of friends, and we have a WhatsApp group that is just like, I'll tell them, and they're like, it doesn't matter if it's the same. We will listen to it till the cows come home. And the fact that I can write it and they can read it when they want—.
It helps me feel like less of an inconvenience because I convinced myself I'm an inconvenience. But I love what you said about the internet because I never thought in a bajillion years, that's a big number, that talking to people on Instagram would change my life. And it has. I thought that I was going to be like this wealth of lived experience information. But really, the connection has been the hugest thing. And I get to connect with people all over the world. all the time.
And I think, too, eventually that might seep out into your life if you get comfortable talking to someone. And it's just, I don't know, as human beings, I think our most important job is to, you know, witness each other's lives and witness each other's pain. Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah. And when you talk to people, you know, it's important to think about how can I communicate my needs, right?
Do I need someone to listen? Do I need someone to come over and help me clean the house because i've been in bed for a week right but communicating your needs and not being afraid to communicate your needs oh i just need you to sit here with me in silence and watch which will bring us to our next thing can i go to the next thing yeah you can totally do that distraction right yeah yeah that i mean we talk about mindfulness which is staying present in the moment so sometimes you need
distractions so in some of my biggest episodes I watched the same tv shows over and over and over again because it was comforting I knew it was going to happen it felt like having friends around do you have you done that oh yeah I have mine what are your shows well one of my big ones so it used to be like parenthood I love that I connected to the family I felt like I was a part of their family.
My Schitt's Creek is my one of my absolute favorites so if I really want to laugh I forget to laugh when I'm depressed I don't feel like laughing so I like kind of, like ridiculous Saturday Night Live humor. So my one friend and I, she struggles too, will be like, watch Bridesmaids tonight and I'll make you laugh. How about you? So the kind of, my lineup kind of with different episodes that I've had, I Love Lucy. It's a classic. Okay, old school.
The Nanny, if you remember the Nanny, Fran Drescher. I was one. Scrubs. Okay. I don't ever watch Scrubs. Oh my gosh, you have to watch Scrubs. That was my early 20s depression show.
And the big bang theory which luckily was on for many many years so that took me in good stead for a while make sure i do make sure it's good for you at that moment well and i do notice this is my thing is that i think it was healthy to watch some things but i think to be careful because when i feel and experience depression i want to surround myself with dark things which feeds into it so i have to be very careful hence the birds maids or the schitt's creek or whatever i have to be
very careful because I want to listen to the saddest music and the darkest things because I want the outside to match my inside. And that's not completely healthy. So I'm very careful. I have to mix it. Yeah. And that's kind of a theme we've seen actually is this sort of opposite action, right? If you're craving the sadness, maybe do something opposite. If you're craving the carby food, if you can eat something healthier, if you're craving being in bed, maybe get out of bed.
So there is that that dialectic that tension right yeah and another distraction that i use a lot is music i actually have a playlist called well i wonder could i share my playlist do people still use pandora or am i a dinosaur i think i had a client tell me i was a dinosaur for using pandora so whatever i don't know what pandora is i use spotify oh my gosh you don't know pandora okay it was like one of the og streaming services oh i thought it was a bracelet.
Oh, that too. But anyway, I have a playlist literally called Feel Better. And it's not upbeat music, but it's gentle, soft, warm, loving music. I do have other upbeat playlists. But when I'm really in it, I've got this Feel Better playlist, which if we can figure out, share.
Yeah what would be so cool oh my goodness i'm going to do this on instagram i want to do let's make one together so i'll put a post and people can put songs and all yes this is bipolar feel better playlist oh i love that okay do that call to action yeah right lots of things yeah i've got one more i've got what about things that are creative which if you're really in the depths of it might be very hard but if you're just in
the middle somewhere could be really uplifting So what creative things do you do, Shelley? I love to craft. I love to make things. I found that I fell out of it a little bit because I used to do events more before COVID. So I would make a lot of the decor. Honestly, my creativity is a lot of getting dressed. I think of it as my palette. I like to put clothes together. I like to, luckily I have a jeweler as a friend that makes me all my earrings.
Yeah, I just putting those things together and then making things, right? And my huge one is content creation, right? Like, I think it looks easy to some people, but I pore over the images, the art of making images go with words, go with music. And so, yeah, how do you like to create? So, well, first off, you mentioned something really important in depression that I can't believe we skipped, and that is get dressed. Oh, yes.
Change out of your pajamas, even if it's into something else that's comfortable and pajama-esque. Yeah. Get dressed. I get dressed. Yeah. We're lucky nowadays. There are very comfy pants that look. Right. But the action of getting dressed is very powerful.
It says I'm delineating sleeping time from rest of day. And even if that rest of day is going to be me in the sweats I have still changed and I have delineated the start of the day So that's good But my creative things are like I said, I dance Um, I sing, I color. I know you don't like to color, but I color. Lots of people do, I wish. Come over and color. I have a coloring station downstairs. Oh, see, I would be good at that because it's social. Okay, let's do it. You know where I live.
Color retreat. Nice. And I have some of these silly drawing books where it shows you how to draw a cat example and it never looks right when I do it, but I love doing it anyway. I did it and it's fun. Oh my goodness, you just reminded me. My biggest one is I get to be creative at school. Oh, sure. I love doing art projects with kids and I do them too. Nice. Yeah, be a kid. We lose that, right? That's true. I'm feeling better. I woke up kind of like, you're right.
Is it still January and it's not? And just being on here talking about doing these things, I feel really smiley.
That's nice i feel smiley too so i hope that our listeners are feeling like they've gained something if you don't feel smiley that's fine yep hopeful that you gain something that you could maybe put into action whether it's a thing or even just the attitude like we talked about of of self-compassion of balance of pushing the needle just a little bit you know having that one thing to do every day. In one of my later depressions, I made myself leave the house every day just
to go. I went to the mall, to the body shop. Remember the body shop? I think it went out of business. Do you? I think it went out of business here. Anyway, but I'd go to the store every day. They got out of the house every day, right? I moved the needle, that one tiny bit that I could do.
I couldn't go to work, couldn't socialize, but I could just go to the mall and look around and yeah strangers yeah yeah well that probably helped too with your senses right smelling things yeah really nice beautiful smelling things oh I love that I love that yeah again just moving and one of the things we do in the peer support group we always end our zoom with which is what's something that you could do to take care of yourself this month I post that regularly what can you do to take
care of yourself this weekend or things like that if you wanted to share we would love that if you are on YouTube just share below and we would just love to hear and love to encourage just that little bit of movement depending where you are I hope that if you're in the deepest depression that, just looking for a glimmer. For your day. Yeah. And I always like to say, have a day instead of have a good or great day, have a day, whatever that looks for to you.
I hope that your day, week, month is, is kind to you. I just, just know where you are and you're seen and it's not your fault. You didn't cause your depression. And there are these little, little, little things you can do and we see you and we're proud of you. If you are listening to this, you have done something huge. Yes. So just remember that this too shall pass, right? It might take a long time to pass, but it will not last forever. Yeah, it's true. Yes. I love that you put that in there.
Like, we don't know when or how, but we know, we know. Can we end with the hope thing?
We gave a little preview of hope, but something that's helped me, and maybe it's because I'm a redhead, like Shelly, and I'm by nature incredibly stubborn right maybe a little bit obstinate i find that i have to have basically unflappable obstinate just spiteful levels of hope depression robs you of hope but if you hang on to that and say you know what through you depression i am going to remain hopeful that things will change that things will be better that is such a lifeline again hard because
depression takes that away but i'm i'm stubborn about it i love that hope as resistance i light an actual candle every episode that i love that yeah to hold space for all of our bipolar bears out there so yes hold on to hope and when that seems cheesy think of it as a resistance and a rebellion rebellious hope we love you and thank you for joining us thank you for joining us this is Bipolar. Thanks again for tuning in. You can find video versions of This is Bipolar on
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