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The Mostly Mental Mom
Real talk on the rollercoaster of mental health—it's affect on every part of your life, survival hacks, and a little bit of funny banter to remind you that showing up for yourself is the most important thing you can do in the mental health game!
The Mostly Mental Mom
EP.7 Real Talk | When Living with Bipolar Feels All-Consuming
I literally start this episode by saying, "I don't want to be recording this episode." So please join me for a candid conversation about this holiday season, the overstimulation, the feelings of burdening others and how living with bipolar disorder often feels all-consuming.
• Discussing holiday overstimulation and personal challenges
• Emphasizing the feeling of being a burden due to mental health
• Exploring the search for acceptance in relationships
• Examining the importance of vulnerability in conversations
• Reflecting on the silent battles faced during the festive season
• Encouraging listeners to advocate for their needs
• Highlighting the significance of community and connection
Thank you for listening to Mostly Mental Mom! If this episode resonates with you, please share your thoughts with on social media. And don't forget to share, like and subscribe!
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Lauren | The Mostly Mental Mom
Welcome. Welcome to the Mostly Mental Mom podcast. I'm Lauren, your podcast host and your resident Mostly Mental Mom. This is episode 7 of the podcast and it's 834.
Speaker 1:On Sunday, the episode should have already been live and ready for you guys and I'm going to be real honest, I don't want to be doing this right now. I don't feel the content that I thought I had ready. I'm battling, yelling cats around the house and a tv in the living room and, frankly, my own headspace is fragile and shaking at the moment, as my voice might be as well. Um, but I would not be true to the mission at hand of the Mostly Mental Mom if I did not show up today for the podcast. And so I told myself, as I almost just decided to not record today, that coming on here for 15 minutes, a short episode was better than not doing it. And so here we are, and while I would preface content that I was planning on covering, I'm not going to do so because I know myself and that is potentially setting up pressures and expectations that I can build up in my head, um, and then let down. So here we are. Um, I hope everyone is having a wonderful start to the official week of Christmas. I can't believe it's three days away. We had our first Christmas yesterday with family and it was both wonderful and exhausting. If you're anything like me, if you struggle with mental health, that can be a very overstimulating time. So you kind of put on your game face for a lot longer than you're normally comfortable for and then I think you're kind of at least for me, I have to come down from that, which could be why it was probably not smart of me to not record today's episode prior to yesterday. So plans for tomorrow are make sure I have the rest of the holiday podcast episodes ready to go. But again, can't put too much pressure on it all.
Speaker 1:So, with that said, um, I'm fighting the urge to apologize to you guys. Um, cause that's in my nature just to immediately spit that phrase out. Um, when, one, there's not enough of you that care whether or not I actually post today or not, and two, I don't really have anything to be sorry for, but it's if you've lived with mental illness or chronic illnesses, anything that has put you as a burden, you feel like a burden on anyone else. You have been conditioned to just spit out those apologetic words more often than you ever should. So I know you probably understand I am honestly shaking more right now than I was the first time I uh came on here for the podcast, and I don't really know why, other than just sometimes life is very overstimulating, um, and for me it actually.
Speaker 1:It quite literally makes me feel like all of my nerves are on fire and they're all just like mad at one another. And so then, like my senses and my thoughts and my breath, like nothing can function together and smoothly, everything is fighting against one another. Um, so I think that's why I'm kind of shaky and sound nervous. I'm not nervous, it's just it's physical symptoms happening, um, so if I sound weird this episode, that would be why, anywho and I think I've said any who already man, okay, well, um, the last episode I talked about what I was capable of, um, kind of how very much felt like that all just got stripped away once bipolar came into the picture, and there's definitely merit in that.
Speaker 1:I think anyone with a chronic illness would agree. If it impacts your day-to-day functioning, there's definitely a sense of loss with all of that, however, recounting kind of the backstory and the decline of success and comparison to the rise of bipolar in my life, over 20 years Technically now 10 years being diagnosed. But just watching, kind of, the patterns of life from high school to now, um, yeah, it's frustrating to not be able to do all the things that I know once upon a time I could. But it's less frustrating to not be able to do those things than it is to know I like it's not simply I can't so much as like what that domino effect is to those around me. I'll come back to the B word, burden. You say that and every loved one will say, no, you're not a burden. I appreciate the sentiment.
Speaker 1:I actually just had a conversation I can't remember now if it was last night or it was recently, um, about feeling like a burden. And, uh, I was last night and I'm in the immediately um, another person like reassured, the one voicing the feeling of but you're great, this A, b, c, all the excellent things of why they're not a burden. And while that's wonderful and we need that reassurance, unfortunately that does not pacify the feeling of being a burden. If it were that simple for your reassurances to do so, then I'm pretty sure we probably wouldn't have as many issues with our mental health, but um, because we would just be one comforting conversation, away from being like, oh cool, I'm fine, I'm not anxious, you told me, I'm good, you know so. But my point being is that that's a really real thought and feeling, and I think it's amongst a lot more people than just someone with a severe mental illness.
Speaker 1:But there, whenever you lose some of your, let's just say, like normal human independence for lack of any other I can't think of how else to say it but when you're not able to go and provide in some fashion, just like most can, you're not only a well, you feel like you're a burden, because it can feel like you're now a dependent right. And so the weight of that, on top of losing just the um, losing the use of the gifts you have um or being able to use them in a practical day-to-day setting, just because of the way society works and it doesn't, it doesn't bend when people need it to bend Um. You almost don't even have time to think about all the things I mentioned in the last episode of. Once I was this talented and could do A, b, c and D, and now I spent a whole day trying to do a 30-minute podcast and I'm trying to squeak out 15 minutes, you know, but you almost don't have time to reflect on those things because you're living in, be able to advocate for it and voice that it's okay to those around me. That it's okay to those around me Because, just like me saying I feel like a burden and you saying right back, oh no, you're not a burden, doesn't make me not think it anymore.
Speaker 1:It's the same as the self-acceptance and me first convincing me that where I'm at is okay, because then you go into conversations prepared and convinced yourself. You're not trying to convince someone of something else that you don't even believe. But it's not simple by any stretch, because, because, no matter how you try to break it down in a formula that everyone can digest and use and apply to their lives, we are all simply way too complex for that and way too complex for generalized answers and solutions, and I think that's the case for every single human and I think that's the case for every single human. That's why I feel it's very important that authentic and vulnerability come back into play so readily and so, uh, boldly. Because we can't, we're not, we don't fit cookie cutters, we don't fit the molds, we don't. That doesn't work. Um, I think we can all actually allow for one another to be our true best selves if we're given the space to create what that needs to be. Create what that needs to be. I think we've gotten too generalized. I think I mean I'm guilty of everyone's.
Speaker 1:This applies to all of us, even amongst my own area of expertise of bipolar disorder and mental health, and you know advice and doctors and therapists and listening to experts on other podcasts and reading books. It's too generalized. It's good advice and it's good feedback and it's good to try to apply to the best of your ability. But what if you don't fit that chapter of the book? What if it doesn't work for you? Does that mean there's just something wrong? You should be able to function, however this chapter says you should. If you do A, b, c and part D, I don't, you know. No, it doesn't. I mean it does in the sense. That's how.
Speaker 1:But I'm very much rambling and I'm very much aware of it. But I'm bringing this up just simply because I'm trying to find my way in this world we live in, in this society and, yes, I would be 100% lying if I didn't say I was craving acceptance from the world and from everyone around me. I'm human, but that isn't my motivator. My motivator is it's been 10 years of living with bipolar disorder and every year and I'm not exaggerating or fluffing up this to just sound better or more intriguing or whatever you want to say but literally every year to say, but literally every year, it's not that life has gotten worse, but I've lost, and I'm losing more of me. Every year I find some, but then I also lose some parts, if that at all makes sense. But it's glaring at me right now as we uh, you know, count down 2025. Because all I can see is me last year thinking I had finally come through some breakthrough and 2024 was going to be different. And I'm sitting here talking to you now, looking at the calendar and the date going well, so much for 2024, maybe 2025.
Speaker 1:And I, frankly, don't want to feel this way every December of every year, feel this way every December of every year. And so I told y'all I was coming to you live in my journey that I don't have it figured out and I'm not here to guide. I am here because this place that I'm at and have, that I've been at and where it's been the worst in the last handful of years, is miserable. It is not a pleasant place to be, and the thought of anyone else struggling just tears me up. Because I just, I know, I know, I know that you very well could be sitting either by yourself somewhere you could live alone, or you could actually be in a home, with cats meowing all around you and children laughing and football playing on the TV. Or you might be at a family Christmas and the noise level is a lot and there's more people than that home's capacity really allows.
Speaker 1:But the common thing amongst all three of those individuals, no matter the locations, all three of those individuals, no matter the locations is that you feel completely lost and alone and you think about calling the friend for the one that's sitting by yourself at your house. You sit there, going. I know that this person would love to be there for me and would listen, and you know that there's someone, but you're paralyzed. You just you're paralyzed. You don't even know where to begin with words of how to describe the havoc that your mental health is having on your life and how the next morning is intimidating and daunting, much less trying to come up with a five-year plan on how to beat my bipolar disorder.
Speaker 1:Or you may be in a room full of people and you know one of them would happily talk to you, but you don't even know. You don't know how to start it, or you're you've tried before and you know you're gonna get the. Well, you shouldn't feel that way. Or just buck up, or you know, and so no one's none of you are reaching out, none of you're talking to anyone, I'm not talking to anyone, and that is is excruciating.
Speaker 1:It is a war where you aren't really because you are not your mental illness, you are not your bipolar, you are not your depression, you are not your anxiety. That does not define you, but it feels like it does. So it feels like you are inflicting pain upon yourself over and over and over again and you can't make it stop. And when you are in that battle alone. If anyone's ever felt that, I feel they would understand why I am where I am today, because it goes back to episode one. It's the silent battle. I don't have it figured out, not even remotely close. I really hope that a part of this is getting to share a lot of victories with you guys, but if the only victory is making sure someone else's silent battle didn't win, then that helps me stay on top of mine too, y'all.
Speaker 1:So well, I did make it longer than 15 minutes, so looky there, and I don't know if that episode had any kind of direction or path to follow to listen to. But I had to show up for myself today. I had to show up and record the podcast and get it published before midnight tonight, because I said Sundays and Wednesdays and I'm trying to show up for myself and for you guys. So, thank you for anyone who listens to this. If you listen to this and you are hurting, I see you, this is for you, this is for you and anyone listening that has loved ones that deal with mental illness, just try to lower your guard and open your mind. We really are trying our best.
Speaker 1:So, but with that said, um, next episode will drop on Wednesday. Um, yeah, I guess I'll. I just realized it was Christmas. We'll see. I may do a special, we may do. I may release that on Tuesday or Thursday TBD. We'll determine that later. Either way, what I was going to say was Merry Christmas everyone. Um, I hope that it is whatever you need for your soul and good memories are made or just peace is had. So Merry Christmas and thank you again for tuning in to the Mostly Mental Mom, and this is Lauren signing off.
