From Chaos to Calm : Bipolar & Holiday Triggers

Welcome to ConversationWay. My name is Shaylee Fugendorn, 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, everyone. Welcome back to This is Bipolar. I'm Shae Lee Hogan. I live with bipolar 2 disorder. I am a mama. I'm a teacher, a vet planner, and all the other creative things. And I'm also a mental health advocate.

And I do a lot of work on Instagram, at this.ins.bipolar. And you can connect with me there, or you can connect with me on my website, which is theshinsbypolar.com. And I wanted to let everyone know from the very start that the biggest question I get asked is about support groups, specifically peer support groups. And I have one. I do it through Instagram. So if you go to my profile page, there's a little button that you press subscribe, And Instagram will take care of the rest of it.

And we have a private chat with people from all over the world. So there's usually someone on there all the time. If you just need to reach out. And we meet once a month for our favorite time on Zoom just to hear each other, listen, encourage each other. So I would love, love, love to see you there. It is a great group of Bipolar Bestie. So today, my favorite recording days is with my friend, brilliant and beautiful Andrea. Tell us about you.

Hi, everybody. I am the actual in vivo bipolar bestie. Perfect. My name is Dr. Andrea Vasilev. I also live with bipolar. I hold a doctorate of psychology. I'm a therapist here in the beautiful state of California. And I am also a mental health advocate, speaker, writer, researcher, academic, all of the things. You can find me on Instagram, although I'm not as good as Shaylee is about keeping up with it. Best.life.bipolar or my website andreavasiliv.com if you want to see some advocacy work.

So that's me and we're your two favorite redheads, dare I say. If you're listening, this is also on YouTube, so you can see what we're talking about.

So today, we're going to talk about the upcoming holiday season and some triggers we might run into and how to cope with some of those triggers. So we'll talk about a couple of things, get to that in a second. But just a thought about holidays. Yes, I just wanted to say, no matter what you celebrate, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Diwali, Kwanzaa, Notre New Year, or if you're just trying to get through this season, it can be unlocked.

So I want to make sure that this episode is for all of you. Actually, even if you don't celebrate any holidays, yeah, chances are people around you are celebrating holidays. So you may be included or impacted vicariously. So still really important no matter what you do or don't celebrate.

And the episode before this, we actually did on travel. So we're not going to touch on that today.

Go back, we've done two. we did travel and tips and tricks and if you go sign up to be on my website there is a toolkit that you will get that you can fill in and then the next episode we followed up with trips we went on and told all the things that we did or wish we did on our trip so go back and watch that because we're yes because a lot of people travel during the holidays so those would be probably useful tips that's one big thing of holiday triggers is

travel which we talked about so go back and listen to those some things we didn't talk about in travel that are holiday specific kind of related to travel the first one is if you travel and you stay with a family member let's talk about that okay so i live in british columbia so i live down vancouver and my parents live about, if you're driving really fast, nine hours up north. And. Most of my life, we have always gone as a family with my former husband.

We took a couple years off just to be with our kids. We used to alternate. And then now we go back almost every year since COVID because it felt so sad to not. So I go up and I stay there. And I stay in my childhood home. Okay. I bet a lot of people do that during the holidays. That can be triggering. You might even be staying at a friend's house. but I know particularly going and staying in your childhood home. Sidebar, nine hours? Why is Canada so big? Sorry.

That's so funny. So because I need to stop for the washroom and snacks almost every town. Okay. It can take me up to 11 hours. And we've done it. Kids were little. For me, it's not a huge, huge deal. But I know to people that don't travel, that's wild to them. That alone could be a trigger. But okay. So staying in friends or family's house, especially if it's your childhood bedroom and you are now a fully grown adult.

Shaylee, what are some triggers we might come up against? And these triggers, again, might apply to everybody, not just people with bipolar. But remember, when you have bipolar, things can hit harder, right? We have bigger reactions to stuff. We have sometimes less stress tolerance. We just have to take better care.

Yes. So one of the first things that I noticed, and I didn't notice until I started doing therapy and talking about it and talking about families and how we work, I sometimes almost get, if I'm not aware, transported back into the family role that I had when I was younger and lived with my family. With entities. I am the oldest child, the only daughter of four. I have this role in my family where I'm like a teacher. I'm organized.

I'm planned. I do all these things. And because they're the opposite, yeah, I talked about it in the last episode, but I become. Even more of that idea that they have, and the more I try to convince them that can be chill sometimes, we fall into that and we fall into our age roles and our other roles. Yeah, exactly. So I find that difficult if I'm not careful because then frustrations I had when I lived there sometimes come up.

My family, even though we're different, we're quite close, but it took a long time and some rough times to find our groove and everybody accept everybody where they're at because we are very different. And when we started raising our children, sometimes the differences, especially when you have your first, was very controlling about how to be a certain way. My parents do everything that I don't want.

Every family is a system right every family is a unit and every person in that system impacts the system the system impacts them back i don't want to nerd out that's not what this is about but what you say makes total sense and when we return to our family of origin we sometimes go back and we tend to reenact these patterns that could be great it could also be problematic and if you have bipolar and there's any negative memories of episodes or things woven into those family dynamics or part of

that family system is a lot written about how the family system impacts bipolar and vice versa that's something to be really keenly aware of you don't want to end up getting triggered by an old family interaction pattern yeah and it's just staying like we thrive on routine and rhythm go back and watch with folly schwartz the episode. The rhythms are really broken up, different times, different people. And in our place, there's a lot of people staying in one place.

So there is a lot of privacy and there isn't some of my family have younger kids, whereas mine are older. So they're up early. Do you know what I mean? It gets really, really disrupted even when I plan ahead.

So what do you think are some things I can do or I do? What do you think that I should do to be able to be prepared? Oh, I dare say, first of all, if it's going to be a problem, like a huge problem that you think is really going to trigger you, think about staying somewhere else. I just want to put that out there. That's OK. Mom, dad, Auntie Linda, whoever wants you to stay with them.

That's beautiful but if it's not what's best for you that's okay can't stress that enough and that's so so hard even the thought of that i'm like oh i would hurt everybody's feelings but you have to think that you're going to hurt their feelings or affect them if you have a total meltdown so you have to weigh the options yeah that's also remember you're not last on the priority list That's important to remember. The damn man.

So there's that. Although if you're going someplace like where Shelly's parents

live, there's probably no hotels. So... Can we shine there's yeah you're hilarious maybe like camping tents i don't know i don't understand canada i love it i just don't understand it it is quintessential canada where my parents and my dad built our log home on acreage with snow it's hilarious i lost my case so if a hotel is not an option for financial or any other reasons what can you do so be prepared for noise light and sleep disruptions good things are an

eye mask right to block out light things that are really good earplugs noise canceling headphones black friday's coming up get them then they'll be on sale i swear by those things even having the opportunity to talk with some of the other people in the house be like hey i know you've got your kids and they're up early is there any way to keep the TV low until I'm up at X o'clock. So a little advocacy for yourself can go a long way.

What seems like a big deal to you may not be a big deal to someone else, so they won't know that it matters. But also, you might feel like it's a big deal to ask them to keep the TV down, and they might be like, yeah, it's fine. We'll play games or something. It may be a much smaller deal than you're making it out in your head. And if it is a big deal, my personal experience, then you just have to care more about your illness than what people think.

You can't be last on the priority list. And I am not claiming to be an expert in that at all. So note to self and note to Shelly, you can't be last on the priority list. In fact, sometimes you need to be first and protecting your well-being is probably one of those times.

Yeah, boundaries, hard. Yeah. So yeah communicating those needs i need quiet early nights or i need breaks during the day bringing your comfort things your quiet things even a like a sensory toy or blanket that makes you feel grounded and soothed boundaries aren't rude they're protective they're important finding alone time can be really important too yeah another one that's hard for me okay we're realizing real quick,

I'm exposing myself about how hard the holidays are for me because I don't want to waste a single minute because I only see my family twice a year, some of them only one. And so the thought missing, even doing the dishes with my mom or something, it could be a good conversation. I don't do that enough and it never ends. Yeah. Yeah, I understand. So something else about the holidays, not just staying someplace new, someplace different.

But holidays come with a lot of expectations and a lot of triggers. Shelley, you said that you struggle with the holidays just now. Thank you for being open about that. There are certain holidays that I really dislike. Can I be totally honest? Yes. I really dislike Thanksgiving. I can hear across this is bipolar nation right now. Everybody going, no, she didn't. Right. No, you'd be surprised when I did my Thanksgiving post because I'm in Canada. We have ours in October.

How many people in Canada did not enjoy? So you are not alone, Andrea. So that's good to know. Let me explain in the hopes of making someone else feel seen. Yeah. So my worst depressive episodes always come around Thanksgiving. So Thanksgiving in the U.S. is the end of November, coming up soon.

And that's when the days are losing light the quickest they're not the shortest days of the year those are end of december but they are the days when the light is rapidly decreasing right, so those are really hard a lot of people struggle with that pattern they feel sad in the winter they get elevated in the spring so that has been hard for me my whole life so when i was little i'd feel really awful, sad, lonely, guilty, worthless, depressed, but I had no idea why.

But always now look, we're both going to cry if you're watching the YouTube. Look at this. So here's this sweet little girl who was so sad, feeling so awful around Thanksgiving. And the only thing that stood out around that time of year was that it was Thanksgiving. So I thought, this must be this holiday. I don't like this holiday. So I don't have good memories of Thanksgiving for that. And we don't have a big extended family.

And we have a tough family dynamic. So I don't have, like, cozy, warm family memories.

And even expectations. we'd go to distant relatives homes who were kind enough to welcome us which is lovely but i'm i also don't eat meat so everybody would be feasting on a turkey and it was before the days of let's have many options right so i'd bring a sad sandwich and just sit in the other room and be sad and eat my sad sandwich so i don't have very many good thanksgiving memories so to this day i'm a fully grown adult now and i still have like sad visceral painful memories

of thanksgiving my husband loves thanksgiving and i tried to be supportive and involved in that but i it's not my holiday you know what that's okay no it is my holiday black friday is my holiday another episode which is a very good segue into something about the holidays and something that i find difficult too because unlike you what happens to me is i get before i would start to go downhill at the end of September and then start getting more and more depressive symptoms.

And then I would get my blue for the holidays. And sometimes it went real high. I love holidays. I love parties.

I love planning parties. I love everything about it. And I. Love spending money because my love language if you will is giving gifts and thoughtful gifts after both my daughters i had what i realize now is hypomanic episodes meanwhile you have a newborn or a one-year-old or a newborn and two-year-old i really struggled with not sleeping or anything So you would think people think, oh, they're tired or whatever. I was making soap because I wanted to give everybody soap.

Do you know, it's not easy to make soap. And to get to my point, all of those things cost money. So I would spend, and my parents, in my family, we didn't have a lot of money. But the one time my mom went, what my dad would call hog wild with the money, would be around Christmas. She would spend a lot of money at Christmas. There's a precedent for this, but also in hypomania, impulsive and sometimes reckless and extensive spending.

And then two, side story, there's the opposite side where people don't have the same amount of money. And I'm just going to give a PSA as a teacher. Please give the bigger gift, if you have one to your child, from you. Please don't give the bigger present from Santa because I can tell you as a teacher right now that kids are going to have memories of that in my classroom.

If there's someone that celebrates Christmas and Santa Claus, if their other friend gets the bigger gift and Santa's all about naughty or nice or whatever, I see children all the time internalize that and be like, oh, Santa got Joey an iPad and maybe they don't have enough money. They got... A new jacket or something like that. So that is a total side thing. And that is a teacher thing that I see. So it is nothing.

I just went off on a tangent, but just as a teacher, I see that a lot. Do you know what I mean? Anyways, spending. Yes. And I do really well. And then almost every year I feel panicky. And then usually the last two weeks, I almost double more. I just think there's not enough. So there's something to be said for planning in terms of spending, making a budget.

You're right. There can be elevation around the holidays as well because of all the stimulation, the late nights, the staying up, New Year's, the alcohol. We'll get to that in a second. But let's also talk about just expectations. A lot of people feel around the holidays to be a certain way, right?

You see it on social media. oh look at me in my matching pajamas and that's beautiful if you're doing that but if you're not doing that it can really impact how you feel about yourself so there's this expectation to be a certain way live a certain way have a certain amount of stuff perform wellness oh can't you even get it together for this holiday dinner we're having what's the matter you know what today's a bad day right and june whatever keep it to yourself yeah and two right there i want

to recognize as well that other horrible life experiences don't stop just because of the events and everybody doesn't feel merry and bright for those of you that are following along. I'm currently going through separation. That will be a divorce. And that is still happening. It doesn't take a break. And this will be the first. And we don't always know that about people. The merry and bright thing. Just there's so much of an expectation. Happiest time of the year. That kind of thing.

People lose their jobs. There's sickness. There's all of that. So that does not stop around these times. So I think we need to be extra careful. To be aware of that. And we might be the one that's experiencing that or others. And, okay, I am sidetracking this episode, Andrea. I'm sorry. But it has to do with that. I actually have a memory of that. I felt very passionate about that and I do events. So I did an event with an organization called Paused and Present.

So pausing and being present for those that aren't feeling merry and bright. I love that. Yeah. And we had speakers that talked about those exact things, when things aren't merry and bright, when things have been happening to them. And it was just like real and raw and what you don't really hear at Christmas. And yet it was a banquet, but we're all like sobbing or whatever. So I planned this event and this event I also spoke at.

And this was the very first time that I said the word bipolar in public. And I talked about my diagnosis and it was to 85 women and I haven't stopped since. So yeah, so just be aware of that. One, we might be the person that's feeling that, but also when I am euthymic or I am feeling good, I need to remind myself that not everybody's feeling that way. And you said expectation.

I listened to a podcast, I think it was We Could Do Hard Things, and they talked about how if Uncle Bob at dinner is always sexist and always racist. Sorry if your name is Bob. And you are expecting that the family dinner will be different this year, or you say there's always like different interactions to expect with heightened emotions and at Christmas for it to be completely different. That's not the time.

That's not the year. You don't want people to have expectations of you, but also maybe check your expectations of other people because sometimes you just know how people are going to be.

So have compassion if you aren't feeling the season, the merriness, the brightness, etc. You are having a hard time or if you're just having a regular time but this season isn't really for you or if you're going through other things in your life like she really is and to release some of those expectations and replace them with just acceptance and self-compassion yeah and look around and see that it feels because we get time off and there's stats

or whatever i can imagine that someone that doesn't celebrate any of it must feel like it's forced down their throat or may feel different at this time or like uncomfortable because people assume and so i think it's good to be aware of other people's beliefs and celebrations at this time it's just another time of the year we've just superimposed these experiences on them and assigned arbitrary meaning obviously if you're a religious person these

holidays some of these holidays do have deep significance for you and I completely understand and respect that but other ones are just like Thanksgiving I think it's just an arbitrary day right yeah exactly and if you're struggling to be thankful for anything on Thanksgiving that is okay go watch Shaylee's page she does a thankful thankful Thursday and I do it for myself and it helps others too because I forget when I'm in a depressive episode to be.

Okay, so we've covered, we referenced travel, right? Go back and listen to travel if you're traveling around the holidays. We covered staying someplace new, whether it's with family or at a hotel. We covered expectations and unpleasant memories. And we talked about staying with family, but a big trigger for a lot of people is dealing with their family, right? The holidays can be beautiful, spending with your family, people you love. Two things can exist at once, right?

It can also be really hard. It's even harder with bipolar. One, you might have other undiagnosed family members. There's that. And families, so there might be that. Also, families are hard, right? You can hold both down. Before, I would never talk about it because I'm amazing in relationships and I felt like I was betraying them by talking about the hard things. But sometimes it's beliefs.

And sometimes it's different ways to celebrate. Like if you were in a partnership with my former partner, our family celebrated very differently. So when I went to his, I felt very uncomfortable and sad. And meanwhile, it was just a different experience. I feel like I need to sometimes be prepared. And sometimes I need to have, it sounds... I would have thought this was ridiculous before, but I have like pocket phrases for, again, if I'll use a different name.

Aunt Sally says something that's, yeah, something, yeah. Or I can imagine in the United States, the politics right now are pretty polarizing. Christmas dinner might not be, or whatever holiday you celebrate, might not be the best time to debate such things. And so I had to have pocket phrase and I practiced it, whereas we probably aren't going to see eye to eye on this topic.

So can we talk about something now? Oh, that's great because that kind of stress can really impact bipolar if you're trying to connect with people and it's just not working or you keep running into roadblocks. So we have all the regular stuff around families and then the added stress that it resonates more with us. But also, what if your family members, diagnosed or undiagnosed, are giving you a hard time about bipolar? Maybe they don't even believe it. Now we're back to stigma.

Every conversation comes back to stigma with me. but because it's huge and i think that you've really opened eyes and minds and hearts and i know i've learned so much from you but yeah thank you the stigma and so yeah that is a tough one because i know i've been labeled as dramatic or here she goes again with things and. Sometimes we just need to not try to convince people that are dedicated to misunderstanding us.

And that's a tough one for me because I want to be understood and light and, yeah, validated. And so that's a really hard one. Do you have any ideas around dealing with that? I think some of it comes back to how you talk about your bipolar. Some people may know. Some people may not know. Not everybody needs to know. There's a great chapter in this in my upcoming book, which comes out in June or July. I won't let you know my self-stigma workbook. But there's a whole chapter on this.

Not everybody needs the same amount of information about your life and your story. Share what serves you. I'm going to summarize. That's chapters 10 more or less. Yeah, it's true. And you might not convince everybody or you don't have to tell everybody.

And I think that someone like me that's very impulsive and now as a mental health advocate and because I'm online, sometimes I don't have the same choices not to tell other people. And also, I don't have to talk about it in all spaces just because I am an app. Right. You don't anybody in explanation at any point in time. It's the difference between being polite and feeling pressured to tell your whole story. Right.

So I love that pocket freeze that you have. There's also, if you're stuck in these stressful family dynamics, you can have an exit strategy, so to speak. Okay, if I am 8 out of 10 triggered, upset, feeling distressed, I'm going to be compassionate to myself and find a way to go. What's your exit strategy? Oh, I'm not feeling great. Oh, I'm tired or I'm jet lagged. I need to, whatever it is, even if it's not totally true, you can have an exit

strategy. That's really important. Yeah. And also, I do this with my children as well, because I know they get overstimulated. And so we would have times where they could look at us a certain way, have a signal, and to be able to get them to rest. Because there's a lot of expectations also as parents to make sure your kids behave. And they're overstimulated. And maybe they don't say thank you for a gift.

And it's very stressful. and then in turn you make it stressful for your children that just becomes a big mess i know i've experienced that yeah do you want to say anything about parenting i don't have kids yet your kids are older but there may be listeners who are dealing with younger kids or middle school aged kids yeah i think going back to expectation it's like you want to make it the best day ever for your child.

And you can afford certain things and you can't and you compare yourself to other families and also. The kids get really overstimulated and a presence and there's this and that and the expectation. And we always told our kids like, how the people you feel comfortable with. But I hated that whole force scene. So we taught them like to say polite thank you. But as I have no inner monologue, one of my children does not either.

And so you could tell by her face. And she struggled when she didn't like self-being. Or she was disappointed or like someone bought underwear and she was expecting like, because they have expectations. And so I found it really stressful. And still, as they're older, to just get the perfect thing to make them happy. Right. So don't put too many expectations on them, but don't put too many expectations or too much pressure on yourself to make it a certain way.

This is all about perfect childhood, right? Like, I should be thinking of this and that. And there's already a pressure that I fell into and continue to fall into about because I live with bipolar disorder, maybe I'm not the best mom. So I feel like this added pressure to go extra and about because of the self-stigma and the stigma-stigma about a mother that lives well. He had something to prove.

Thanks for asking. Yeah, of course. So in all these events, I think it's really important to build in recovery time. Yep. A little bit of rest before and a little bit of rest after. Can we talk about the elephant in the room? yes I'm going rogue here alcohol yes we can just do it. I make no judgments. There's a big comorbidity with alcohol use disorder, substance use disorders, and bipolar.

And just as a note, recent research shows that it's not just, oh, people are using substances to cope with their moods. There's also shared genetic architecture between the two. So there's a lot driving that. Yeah, very interesting. There's a lot driving that. And people have expectations. I think society has expectations about alcohol around the holidays. And this is a deeply personal topic. If you don't drink, I've had a couple of drinks here and there.

Turns out makes me feel pretty awful. So I will probably go back to not drinking at all. If you do drink, the pressure to drink more. There's a party culture going out, New Year's Eve, all of the things, right?

So this is something that I think it's worth having a conversation with yourself and even your doctor about in advance and making some, setting some limits for yourself if that feels right, if that limit is I'm going to have this drink, I'm going to go out once per week, I'm not going to drink at all, whatever it is, choosing from a place of self-love and following through on that and maybe letting a few people in your inner circle know this is what I'm going to do. Can you support me in this?

Yeah, definitely let people know because there is so much pressure. I don't drink at all. Maybe I'll have one on my birthday every five years, but I don't drink at all and that's a personal choice because I'm an all or nothing person and sometimes we're like that when we live with bipolar not all this lot I don't. Yeah, I can be very disappointed about a lot of things, but I also have an addictive personality. Go big or go home, right? And so I choose not to at all. But you do feel left out.

And so the things I've done is I pick a new one or I make one up that's like my signature holiday drink. And I'll bring it so much. I'll have a diet seven up with some grenadine or I make a fancy one and I also drink out of the fancy glasses. Even if I'm half like a diet pop or juice or something, I'll put it in a wine glass so that I don't feel left out. And if you're listening and you love someone, please don't ask them why. I hate when people ask why.

And I have to tell you something that's very insensitive that happened to me is that whenever I didn't drink when I was younger, a lot of people would assume things about me. I cannot tell you how many people would ask if I was pregnant just because I wasn't having a drink. And I was like, oh, I get the are you sober? And I'm like, maybe not the way you're thinking. Also, is that appropriate to be asking anyone? It's about as appropriate as asking someone if they're pregnant. Right.

So I think be prepared. And half the time people want to try my signature drink. Yes. Bring the mocktails. I make a mean virgin mojito. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that sounds really good. And really look at it because sometimes this is not just with alcohol, this is with marijuana and what sometimes people consider recreational drugs. I know it is legal here. I think it's legal in California. I don't know.

And I know that a lot of people self-medicate, but with the amount of people that I've talked to, it self-medicates and then it doesn't. So there is no judgment that I can see why people do the things they do, but. Yeah. Just think about it and maybe just keep track. In advance. Think about it in advance and then maybe just keep track how you feel after. Yeah. And similar, we talked about New Year's Eve and alcohol. New Year's Eve also involves staying up late.

A lot of these parties involve staying up late, which can be a huge trigger for bipolar. So we're really covering the whole gamut today, right? Travel, someone's house, expectations, triggers, family, alcohol. Boy, I'm starting to feel like we're doomed. I hope that's not the case. We'll get to the hopeful stuff at the end. But yeah, staying up late can be a real trigger. You do not have to stay up until 3 a.m. on New Year's Eve.

I usually am in bed by about 11 and then we watch the ball drop wherever it's dropping or watch the replay of the ball dropping since we're on the West Coast. Right. I'm sleeping by five after 12 and some years we don't. But generally, that's how it goes. And if that's not for you, that's fine. But you have to do these things with intention and with some planning. Yeah, exactly. And if you're like, sometimes for me, it's a one-off.

So I make sure that I'm extra diligent the other times and maybe choose to. Yeah. Like you said, the West Coast, we can always celebrate what we used to do with our kids at nine because it already happened. So, yeah. And that one's a tough one, too, about like loneliness, right? Especially if we're someone that lives with depression and maybe has ghosted people because of our depression. And so maybe we're not invited to a party or there isn't.

That can bring up a lot of feelings of loneliness and be left out, which can trigger or make different. Worse. Or if you're hypomanic or manic, you might get impulsives.

Do impulsive party which is not your regular baseline but like you said something about what's your regular behavior when you were talking about buying persons and how you can tell that in the last episode yeah okay yeah baseline baseline okay so what's your baseline yeah so if your baseline is that you like me don't ever have any drinks and all of a sudden you're doing fireball shots like me me not the best choice totally no shade on drinking no none at all yeah

but just i'm seeing from experience that it can make me feel pretty awful and i wouldn't wish that on other people so if you are in a place where you have a choice to drink or not drink just consider what might be best for you actually sidebar research my colleagues one of my colleagues at the University of Michigan at the Prechter Bipolar Foundation, did some research, I think, last year and showed, fascinating studies, showed that an increase

in alcohol consumption, no matter what the total amount is, can trigger depressive or elevated symptoms and occupational struggles for six months afterwards. I kid you not. Look up Sarah Sperry, the name of the investigator. She's amazing. Fascinating research about the impact of an increase in alcohol on bipolar for six months. Wild. So just something to consider.

Yeah. That's all we can really say about that. So I think all these triggers, all these issues, everything, these problems we've highlighted are true for everybody, but they can be bigger and harder for us. We see them under a magnifying lens and we have bigger reactions and sometimes, less ability to tolerate stress and that's okay. So what do we also need more of? We need more self-compassion, more self-acceptance, self-love, more boundaries, more intention.

So all of the things it sounds like oh my gosh i'm lacking i'm different what can i do we can make up for and exceed all of that with these extra things self-compassion self-love boundaries intention etc yeah especially if you would call mess up right yeah. Punishing yourself or beating yourself up isn't going to help with your self-compassion.

And I did want to bring up one thing that we hadn't talked about, but I just had a flashback when you were talking about self-compassion and when I was thinking about that. I know that rates, I don't know the science, but I know that rates with bipolar disorder, there is a lot of comorbidity of disordered eating or eating disorders. And that comes up a lot around the holidays. It is surrounded completely around food.

And that was something that was really hard for me because when I am in a depressive episode, especially pre-medication and treatment, I struggled with binge eating disorder. And so it was very hard for me around these times because my thought life was all about the food that can be offered. And if I do, and then I would binge and then the next day try to restrict.

And yeah so if you struggle with food issues or eating disorders or even body issues it's a time where you can overindulge in sugar and that's i let myself have some i'm not talking about we're all gonna have a little bit more like this is the time in canada a lot of nanaima bars and so i will eat i'm gonna get my hands on one of those yeah i am i'm gonna get you a vegan one and you're gonna I love it. I cannot wait.

And so I just wanted to acknowledge that because that is something that I didn't talk about for a very long time. And I carried a lot of shame around and it really impacted my mental health, but also my enjoyment of holidays.

Thank you for sharing that. It makes me think of maybe one last thing that can be really triggered around the holidays and can feel really isolating is thoughts of hurting yourself.

The holidays can be a huge trigger for that so if you're experiencing any of that obviously our our first response is to reach out to someone to anyone in the u.s you can text 741-741 that's the crisis helpline i can call 988 or 911 show up at any hospital call a priest a rabbi a friend a doctor anybody because it is worth hanging around whatever pain you're experiencing i promise you it may seem interminable but it is temporary so that's my first thing second

thing is don't shame yourself this is a hard time of year and you're living with a really hard condition so i beg of you to hold yourself in compassion for those feelings and know that you can cope with them you can deal with them you can get help and you can come out the other side yeah yeah that was really important what you brought up because i know now i'm seeing all of it pop up like 2025.

Make it the last two months make it the best or there's this big pressure to think about what's change and if you follow me on instagram you'll see i share things more like 2025 felt like being awake during surgery, right? If I was a nightmare. Yeah. I find those very... I know that they're supposed to be inspirational, but I almost... Feel awful. And if all you did was survive this year, good job. Super job. And yeah, I just want to reiterate what you said, even though it would probably

feel like, oh, I can't do this around the holidays. We would rather you go to the hospital and go and get help than not be here. Halloween year. And on that note, we do want to give hope.

The reason that we did this episode and we talked about these hard things is because we know that shame grows in the dark and so we want to bring these things to light but it isn't to bring people down we can absolutely enjoy the holidays we can be time we can live through having big symptoms wherever they are in the mood scale we can i think what our hope with this is that giving strategies and speaking them aloud and having a plan can do that. Will it be absolutely amazing?

Maybe not, but I think having a plan increases the odds. Yeah, I agree. And if you take one thing away from this episode, it's know that you're not alone in these struggles. I want everybody to feel seen. I'm sure we miss struggles too, so feel free to comment and let us know to feel seen and to also take away the need for self-compassion. What would that, so we know this word goes around a lot, and so some people, it seems like a really big idea.

I'm curious, what would that look like for you? Could you give an example of what that looks like? Full disclosure, as much as I preach self-compassion, I struggle with it. Wow, me too. I'll be totally honest. This is the space where I'm honest, right?

I struggle with it but what i aspire to are things like self-kindness is part of self-compassion knowing that i'm not alone in my pain knowing that even if things aren't going how i tried to make them go that my efforts deserve to be honored there's a wonderful book written called self-compassion you should see if you can get kristen neff on the podcast talk about self-compassion which is amazing yeah read her book Kristen F self-compassion

really wonderful but just holding yourself really in that space caring for yourself knowing that you are a human experiencing complex layers of existence and, And that it's okay. You don't need to judge. You can remove that voice of judgment. Yeah. And I would love to share how I try to put that into practice because, yeah, it isn't my first thought about myself. And some of the things that I've done is I bring, so right now I have a picture

of little Shaili on her mirror. And then I have a Christmas one.

And I bring that with me. and I try and think of would I say this thing to little Shaley and if that still doesn't help I think about because I'm a teacher would I say that to a small child or my child and that helps me think a little and I'm going to say something and tell me if it's not scientific but I've read this idea that you can trick your brain that's why you know saying positive things or reading things allow, even if you don't entirely believe them, you can trick your brain.

I don't know the science behind it. I love the word trick, but you can certainly pattern your brain. Yes, that's the science word. Just the neuroplasticity and that kind of stuff that I know nothing about. But you can do those things and they feel ridiculous, but I am telling you it's not miraculous, but But it helps me redirect. Right, so choosing self-kindness in that way will help make more sense. Yeah, just have little phrases, like pocket phrases for yourself.

I have a list of those in the book, too. So we hope everybody has a beautiful holiday season, but we also hope that you just survived this holiday season. I will take either and be very proud of and happy for you. Yeah, that's one of the things that I do. I say have a Christmas or have a Thanksgiving, whatever that looks like for you. So there's no person for Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays, because if it's not, that's okay, too.

So, hope that this upcoming season is kind to you and that you are gentle with yourself. Same. Thank you, Andrea. Thanks, Shaley. This is Bipolar. Thanks again for tuning in. You can find video versions of This is Bipolar on our YouTube channel. We also have all our previous episodes of the podcast on Apple, Podbean, Spotify, and Google Play. We spend most of our time on Instagram at this.is.bipolar.

There is a vibrant community there where we have conversation and post different ideas and different strategies. And we'd just love for you to join us there. It is so helpful if you enjoy our work or think it would be helpful to someone if you could like and share and save and follow us in all or any of those spaces. If you're a listener for the podcast, if you could leave a review, we would be forever grateful. Again, thank you for being here with us.

Let's get the word out. Let's share lived experiences so that we can change the ideas that people have about bipolar and help those of us that live with it feel less alone. This is Bipolar.