S1:E4 - Bipolar and Motherhood

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Episode Notes

Anna and Michelle talk about how bipolar affects mothers and whether it's possible to have a healthy family with bipolar disorder. You can find Michelle at her website, My Upside of Down and on Instagram @myupsideofdown.

Transcript

 ANNA: Welcome to Courage to Heal a podcast where we explore the battles we wage within ourselves. I am your host, Anna Khandrueva, a psychotherapist, and a mental health advocate. This is season one, episode four, Bipolar and Motherhood.

Bipolar disorder affects many aspects of life, and motherhood is one of them. Women in general are faced with unique challenges when it comes to bipolar. They have longer, more frequent and more treatment resistant depressions than men. This means they are prescribed more antidepressants, which can trigger manic or hypomanic episodes.

Mixed episodes rapid cycling and bipolar two are more common in women. The disorder itself, as well as treatments used for it can affect the woman's menstrual cycles and reproductive functions. With pregnancy, medications can affect the baby's development, but leaving the disorder untreated can also have negative consequences.

Pregnancy is a high-risk time for relapses of bipolar disorder. Most psychiatric medications pose at least some risks to the developing baby, but so does not taking medication. For women who stop medicating during their pregnancy, the rate of episodes is twice as high as for those who continue taking their medication.

It is incredibly important to weigh the risks and benefits of medicating with an informed and competent medical provider. Never, ever go off medication all at once or without talking to your doctor. During the postpartum period, both depression and mania can be triggered, so variations in mood and energy levels must be watched very carefully.

It is also possible to experience hypothyroidism or a reduction in the levels of thyroid hormone, which can cause sadness, weight gain, and hair loss. Postpartum psychosis can also occur, expressed as irritability, abnormal thought content such as delusions and anxiety. Up to 8% of women with postpartum psychosis have thoughts of hurting their babies.

Breastfeeding is another hot topic as some medications are not safe to take during this period. Once again, you need to consult with your doctor regarding making any changes. The fact that the mother is often up several times during the night to feed and thus lacks sleep can trigger manic episodes. All of this means that mothers with bipolar need a lot of support from their partner, their family, and their medical team during the vulnerable times of pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period.

Using non-medication treatments like therapy and mindfulness can go a long way too. Some studies showed that using mindfulness-based stress reduction methods can significantly reduce depressive symptoms both during and after pregnancy. It is possible to have a healthy pregnancy and motherhood with bipolar, but you must be aware of the risks and potential solutions.

But let me stop talking. It's always best to hear from someone with a lived experience, and that's why I invited today's guest. Let's hear from her what it was like to become a mother through the adversities of bipolar disorder.

 ANNA: Today I am interviewing Michelle Reittinger, an incredible woman who has come out on top in her battle with bipolar and who now helps mothers living with this disorder through her podcast, her courses, and the Upsiders Tribe on Facebook. Michelle, it's really great to have you here.

 MICHELLE: Thank you so much for having me. I'm, I'm really looking forward to this conversation.

 ANNA: Thank you. And Michelle, could you start by telling my listeners a little bit about yourself?

 MICHELLE: Absolutely. I was diagnosed with bipolar back in 1998. I was, it was one month before graduating from college and I, I had, had symptoms of bipolar of the full illness for a couple of years at that point.

I didn't know what was going on. I thought that it was moral deficiency. I, I was buying all these self-help books, trying to fix myself. And, and every once in a while, I had this, this thought in my head that there was something wrong with me. And every time I would have that thought, I would, I would then child myself thinking I was trying to make excuses for myself.

But I was, I was having, I got, by the time I got diagnosed, I was rapid cycling and it was pretty severe. And I, my, the reason that I even considered going into. See if, see somebody to get diagnosed. Was that I, I lived with my aunt and uncle off and on during college. I was in a different state from my parents going to college.

And so my parents knew that there was something wrong because they would hear from me like every day for a couple weeks, you know, with new plans, big ideas, you know, talking really fast. And then I would disappear for a couple weeks, and they wouldn't hear anything.  and then the next time they heard from me it was the same thing again.

But I had brand new plan, brand new life goals, brand new life plan. And, and after a few cycles of that, they started thinking there was something wrong. And, and my aunt and uncle who I, in fact, I said I lived with them off and on and I worked for my uncle for a period of time while I was in college as well.

And they could see that there was something wrong with. And so, you know, I was diagnosed, and I tried the, the traditional treatment path for the first 12 years and just got progressively worse and really struggled. I, I really struggled. I was trying really hard. I was going to all my doctor's appointments, taking every medication I was given, and I just kept getting worse.

And after about 10 years, I was I had a breakdown. I ended up hospitalized multiple times. They did electric convulsive therapy on me. And, and I became suicidal and attempted suicide a few times, and so I just got to the point where I just didn't think there was any hope. And at that point I had two little children and a stepson.

My stepson was, let's see, he would've been 12 years old at the time. And then my little children were four and two, and, and I was convinced that they would be better off if my husband could find a better mother for them, and that he'd be better off if he had a different wife, you know?  and that, and that's one of the hard things about, about these illnesses, mental illnesses, is that our mind lies to us, and we don't know that they're lies.

You know, the suffering that we're experiencing is so real and so intense that the lies seem like truth. And I believe the lies that my mind was telling me. And, but I had an epiphany one day. I was watching my children; it was after my third hospitalization. And after my second attempt, and I was watching my children play one day, and I had this really clear thought come into my mind that if I ever succeeded in, in ending my life, that I would ruin my daughter's life, my, my four-year-old daughter, her specifically, that she would blame herself and it would ruin her life.

And I remember being very shocked by that thought that I knew it was true. And as soon as I realized that, I thought, okay, I can never let those thoughts stay again. I can never do that. If my life will be just surviving, that will be my gift. My daughter is, is surviving my life so that she has a chance at a decent life.

And, and so from that point on, there was a mindset change. I felt like I'd been trying before, but I think I was just suffering, you know, I think that it was just trying to suffer with my disorder. I didn't feel like there was a lot of hope. I didn't really understand what I was doing. And for the next two years, I, I just suffered, you know, it was, it was pretty much just suffer.

And then my doctor and I found the first piece to, on my path to wellness, he and I discovered a micronutrient treatment that he agreed to help me transfer, you know, switch over to. And after about three months on that treatment, I, I woke up one morning and felt like it was the first time I had been fully awakened in over and I, it took a long time still for my brain to heal and it, over the next decade I started learning gradually each of the tools that were necessary for me to heal, you know, to heal my brain. Therapy was an essential tool. That's one that I'm like adamant that everybody, you know, I think everybody needs therapy in general, but I think if you have bipolar, you, you absolutely have to have it.

Our minds have periods of time where we have very irrational thought processes and we develop unhealthy thought and behavior patterns. You know, a lot of people with bipolar, like me have unhealed trauma. We have very unhealthy boundaries. And so, all of those things contribute to exacerbating and sometimes triggering mood cycles.

And, and so that was one thing that I, I didn't really understand therapy before. I didn't like therapy.  and it took me a, it took me a number of years to really understand what therapy was, what the purpose of it was, and how to use it proactively to actually heal. But I finally got to the point back in 2020 where I was, I started realizing like, I am living well with this.

Like I'm, I'm healing, I'm doing really well. And once I started realizing that you can live well with it, you don't have to just suffer with it for the rest of your life. I wanted to share it with other people. What. So, I thought, I don't want people to have to wait 20 years figure this out for, you know, 20.

It's that point, 22 years. It shouldn't take you that long. I kind of got a little upset actually. I thought, why didn't somebody give me a treatment plan at the beginning, why did I have to figure all these things out for myself, you know? And so that's what inspired me to start my blog in the first place.

Sorry, that's a long-winded introduction, but that's how I came to the point where I was helping other people, is it took me a long time to figure out all these pieces and I wanted to shorten the learning curve for everybody else. You know, you shouldn't have to figure it all out. That's not some kind of magic formula.

It wasn't like they were unusual things, but I, I didn't understand them. I didn't know that I needed to, I didn't know anything about mindfulness meditation. I didn't really understand how to use therapy. I think they should have like Introduction class to therapy where they teach you like how to do therapy, what the purpose of therapy is, and these are the things that you can do in order to get the most out of your therapy.

I wish that that had been something that I'd been given at the beginning, because my first few attempts at therapy were pretty disastrous, actually. So, yeah. So anyway, so those are, that's how I ended up starting to help moms with bipolar and I can, the things that I teach can help anybody, but I focus on moms with bipolar because, it was very isolating for me as a mother to have this disorder. And I feel like there are additional things that you struggle with because it's not just you who's suffering, it's your children.

And if you're married, you know, or in a serious relationship, your partner, you know, and, and so it, in fact, the entire family, and that can be, it can be really difficult to feel like, I felt very worthless. I felt very isolated.  And so that's why I focus on moms with bipolar because I know what that feels like. I know what it feels like to feel like you're ruining a children's lives.

 ANNA: Yeah, what an incredible story. I love hearing that, how you went from really a lot of adversity and going through the worst that bipolar has to offer with hospitalizations and suicide attempts into this place of hope and recovery. And to go back to being a mom to the very beginning, did you notice if you had any symptoms or issues when you were pregnant or postpartum?

 MICHELLE: Yeah, so it's really interesting because my first two pregnancies were on medication and most of the medications, psychiatric medications, are not actually safe for pregnancy.

And so, it's kind of this tricky, you know, balance of like how much is safe to take you off of so that you can have, you know, go through the pregnancy. And the hormones, you know, during the pregnancy can be challenging. The hardest thing for me was postpartum, though. I. At three months with both of my first two children, I started cycling really bad right at three months.

And so I had to stop breastfeeding cold turkey, which was torturous for me and my baby, and go back on the medications. And then about four months later, I started losing weight at a rapid rate and like excessively my hair started falling out. I was getting really dizzy and, and it, the first time it happened.

I didn't know what was happening and I went to my, I had a midwife that time and I went to my midwife and she said, oh, just drink whole milk. You know, this is normal. This happens after pregnancy. And I didn't know any better cause I'd never had a baby before. And so, I just dealt with it. My mom thought I was anorexic, like I was like 25 pounds underweight from my normal body weight.

And I'm a fairly thin person in the first. But the second time, the second baby, it was way worse, like passing out, I was afraid to drive because I was, I would black out really easily. And that time I had a different doctor that time and he sent me to a doc, you know, to a I can't remember what kind of doctor it is, but they tested me and discovered that I had a hyperthyroid condition and it.

You know, they did all these, these tests and all this stuff and I was pretty sure that it had to do with the medication that I was on, that something about the combination of the medications that I was taking and the hormone changes from their pregnancy triggered this hyperthyroid condition in me. And I was told not to have any more children, but about, and this was, so this would've.

 2006 and 2008 was when I had my breakdown. And then 2010 was when I got on the micronutrient treatment. So, I was off of medication and in 2013 was when I got pregnant with my third baby. And it was completely different experience with that pregnancy. Like no issues with, you know, mood cycle. No problem at all with my thyroid at postpartum, none.

Like I actually had to work, you know, I had to work to lose the weight like normal people do, you know? And, and so it was, it was a, there was a huge difference between those, you know, the medicated pregnancies and the non-medicated pregnancy. And I know that that's something that a lot of moms, you know, women worry about, you know, should I have a baby?

You know, if I have bipolar there's a lot of worry about passing that disorder to your children. But I have to say, first of all, my children saved my life. Literally. Like if, if it hadn't been for my children, I don't think that I would be alive because it was that recognition that my children needed me, not just a mother.

They needed me. That kept me trying, it kept me trying to, to learn how to live well with my disorder. It kept me, it gave me something to live for because I didn't feel like I had any value. I felt personally like I had none, but I knew they had value. And so, for me, they were worth working for it. It was worth it to keep trying for them.

And then the other part of it is, now that I know how to live well with it, I thought, well, you know, if they do develop this disorder, I know how to help them. They won't have to suffer the way that I did because I know how to help them, because I know how to heal. And so, you know, I, that's one thing that I would say to, you know, women who either have children already and feeling, you know, discouraged or you know, that are considering having children. You can be a wonderful mother with bipolar disorder. You just need to learn how to manage it. You know, just like a woman that has diabetes or you know, any other health condition. It's just about learning how to live well with it and learning.

Learning how to take care of yourself so that you can be, you know, present for your children. And I don't use the word good mother or bad mother, I think those are terrible terms, that we need to eliminate from a vocabulary. But to be a healthy mom, you know you wanna be healthy for your children. Sure, absolutely.

 ANNA: Oh gosh. I can relate so much as a mother because I didn't know I had bipolar when I had my son. It wasn't until much later I was diagnosed, and things made so much sense looking back when I had postpartum depression and I also started rapid cycling after some point. I think that is very common in, in women especially when all of those hormonal changes happen. So yeah, I can relate to a lot of what you're saying. And again, I love the hopefulness in there that no, you don't have to not have kids. If you really wanted to always have kids and you don't have to feel hopeless as a mom, you can absolutely be healthy and raise healthy children even though you have bipolar.

 MICHELLE: Yeah, absolutely.

 ANNA: So, Michelle with your Upsiders tribe, you have this group on Facebook for mothers with bipolar. What would you say are some of the biggest challenges that those moms say they face?

 MICHELLE: I think you know, some of the things that I've seen in there are moms feeling like bad moms.

 That's something that I see, you know, a lot of, and there are, you know, women feeling like they're, they're bad. I see people, you know, women that are struggling. I, I see a lot of this, and it's not just in my Facebook group, it's in other Facebook groups with bipolar people struggling with side effects of medication continuing to cycle even though they're on medications.

And, and there's a lot of discouragement because it feels like you're not gonna get any better. You know, it just feels like things are always gonna be bad. And so I, I encourage people to take a proactive approach to learning how.  Be, you know, to advocate for yourself. You know, don't, don't just keep suffering.

You know, don't think that that's how you have to, you know, things have to be that way. When I was first on medication I, my first antidepressant was Zoloft, and I felt like I was asleep for the first three and a half years that I was, you know, medicated. I don't, I struggled. They, they, they had a really hard time finding a mood stabilizer that, that I didn't have a bad reaction.

But the one common denominator was Zoloft. Like, I just kept stand on Zoloft and I didn't realize that I could advocate for myself. And I finally had a doctor that, you know, when I was describing I, I could sleep anywhere. I could sleep for 10 hours one night and then fall asleep in the middle of the day the next day.

You know, I just was sleep tired all the time. And when the doctor finally said, well, let's just switch the medication, it was the first time that anybody had suggested that. You know, another experience I had was when I was in the hospital the first, my first hospitalization, a doctor was insisting on putting me on a medication that I had, had a very bad reaction to years before.

And I kept begging her not to put me on it, and she insisted that it was what I needed to be on. And at the time, it's really hard to stand up to the doctor and say, Nope, I know my body. And that is not a good thing for me because you feel like they're the expert and you have to listen to the. But really you are the expert on your own body, and you need to learn how to stand up for yourself and tell 'em, I don't, this is not okay for me.

You know, we need to find a different solution. And so, you know, I think that's probably the, one of the things that I, I advocate a lot for people, learning how to take responsibility for themself, accept responsibility and take responsibility. You know, advocate for yourself. Stand up. Learn how to, you know, tracking moods, track your mood, learn about what it looks like, you know, learn what your mood cycles look like.

Learn what, so that you can start trusting your mind more. I think that's the other thing that I see a lot are people struggling with trusting their own mind. You know, you don't know, am I having irrational thoughts? And so I think learning how to track your mood cycles track. We know what the symptoms are that you have so that you can recognize when you're in an irrational mindset so that you can make a plan for how to handle that, you know, so that you don't do things that you wish you'd hadn't done.

 ANNA: Right. Oh, absolutely. I really like how you talk about advocating for yourself because that is so important. I mean, we have actual research showing that doctors don't listen to women all the time, and they ignore women when they come in with complaints of pain. And all kinds of things. So that advocacy is so important and I'm really glad that you teach mothers with bipolar how to do that for themselves. What would you say seems to be the most helpful in that group to those mothers? Is it, you know, social support, is it something else?

 MICHELLE: Well, I think a, a lot of it is just making sure, number one, the, the reason that we have the group is, is to provide. All the other groups that I've been in, and, and I, this is not disparaging them, I'm not trying to say this to say they're bad groups, but they were, they were stressful for me, and I'm, and I'm well , you know, it was really triggering to go into those groups because it felt like the most, the, the, it felt like all the conversation was focused on negative things.

You know, it was people just suffering and talking about their suffering and there was no solution. You know, when I, when I tried to, tried to suggest some solutions in a couple of the groups, I got kicked.  and I, and it was really discouraging, and so that's why I started this group in the first place, is I thought, I want a place where people can provide solutions.

We're, we're not gonna censor what people are, you know, are saying because we don't agree with it. You know, I, I wanna provide a place where people can, you know, these are the things that I'm struggling with, and we can provide solutions and encouragement and, you know, how, how can we solve this problem rather than just let's all wall and the mud together, you.

And so I think that that's, that's probably the biggest thing. And that was one of the reasons why it was created in the first place. And then the other thing is, is I am doing a challenge actually in the group at the end of this month where we're working on developing a mood cycle response or mood cycle survival guide.

It's a guide I developed for myself in the first place to learn how to proactively manage, you know, successfully manage my mood cycle. . Before when I, the first probably 12 years of my disorder, every time I would experience a mood cycle, it felt like I was getting yanked onto a rollercoaster and I just had to hold on for dear life.

You know, it was, I was just suffering through it and everybody else was suffering. And, and I, at the time, I started thinking like, I thought if I have to do this for the rest of my life, there's gotta be a better way to do it because I felt like I spent most of my time, I almost felt like I was triggering mood cycles by anticipating them.

Like, I was so afraid. Every time I would start to feel good, I'm like, oh man, I'm getting manic. You know? And, and I almost felt like I caused mania by worrying about the mania. And once you got on the roller coaster, in my experience, you can't get off in the middle. You know, you ramp your mind up and then you're gonna crash afterwards.

And so it was just like it felt, I felt like a victim to my disorder. And so, I developed this mood cycle survival guide for myself to come up with a way.  Be more proactive in handling them. So, you know, it's, it's identifying who are the people that are provide support. It's my response team, you know, who are the people that I need to help me when I'm experiencing a manic or depressive episode?

And what's their role? Identifying clear, healthy boundaries. Because I think that's one of the hard things about having this disorder is when you feel like you're experiencing emergencies all the time, it wears out relationships. And so, identifying. What is your role in this? And a, a healthy boundary around those responsibilities for like your spouse, for people that are helping with your children, you know, even for your relationship with your, you know, therapist and your doctor.

And then and knowing who you can ask for help and how to ask for the help when you need it. And then the second part of it is identifying what I call “the early warning system.” You know, identifying like what are the, what are the triggers that, you know, you recognize trigger mood cycles. What are the symptoms… that was really important for me was learning how to identify, am I actually manic? You know, I used to worry, anytime I started feeling good, I would worry that I was getting manic. And like I said, it felt like I was triggering manic episodes by worrying about it. And I started to recognize when I manic, these are the things that I experienced.

I, I cannot sleep. My mind races and I compulsively spend money. Those are the things that, like, if I start to feel like I just have to spend money, you know, and it's like, wanting to spend money, like I have to do it. Those are the things that are symptoms of my manic episodes. And then the depressive episodes, like I cannot think, it's like I can't, if I feel like my brain is, is sludging through mud, you know, I just, it feels like I can't think, and I'm tired all the time.

So, there are certain symptoms that are indications. Yes. You are in a manic episode. Yes. You are entering a depressive episode. And so, understanding those things then I can recognize like, and when I. My husband takes responsibility for the, the money, and I don't, you know, I, I have to check in with him. I, I don't have this anymore, but when I did, I was checking in with my husband if I had an idea before I acted on it.

You know, don't, don't just go off and act on all the ideas that you think you're getting all this inspiration, you know? And then I also, the, the baseline priorities is the third piece, which is identifying what are the things that have to be done so that you can focus on. And that was really important because, for example, when I was manic, I would get going on big projects and then I would forget to feed my kids.

 I would forget to eat myself. I would forget that I would even need to eat. And then my children were like going through the cupboards trying to find food for themselves. And then, you know, when I was depressed, it was like I kept trying to do everything. And so, the things that mattered most would get forgotten about.

So, I realized it's really important to make sure I know what things, what things are most I.  and make sure those are the priorities. And if that's all you get done, that's okay. And so, I'd, establishing those baseline priorities was really critical. And then the last piece was figuring out how to get back to a healthy, you know, healthy balance mindset.

And so developing a plan that would help me focus on getting back to, to balance, getting back to health. And so once I developed that plan for myself, I, I realized how important it's to.  how important It's to have a way to successfully navigate your mood swings so that you're not a victim to any, any anymore.

You're being proactive about how you manage those mood cycles. So that's one of the things that we're, we're gonna do a challenge in in March to help people develop those for themselves. It's a free guide that I offer on my website, but it's something, like I said, just empowering women with bipolar to learn how to manage their disorder in a healthy way so that they're not feeling like a victim to it.

 ANNA: I love that. I love that. Sounds like right now is a really good time to join if people wanna take advantage of that challenge.

 MICHELLE: Yeah, it's a free Facebook group. The guide is free. It's all free. I'm just doing it in a Facebook group cuz sometimes when you're doing something new, it's a little bit hard to figure out on your own. And so that's why I'm doing it in the Facebook group so that there's an opportunity to like ask questions if people need help with figuring out, you know, how to develop each of the steps. . Yeah, so it's, I'm calling it March Madless.

 ANNA: Oh, I love that. That's great.

 MICHELLE: I'm basketball fans and I, I came up with the idea one day. I'm like, oh, that's a good name.

 ANNA: That's great. I love it. So Michelle, you have this unique experience, I think, in that you got to mother your children when you weren't well and you got to mother them when you were, well, what are some of the major differences you noticed?

 MICHELLE: Well, one of the things that I has been really helpful to me is understanding that you can heal. Like going through my own healing experiences has helped me to, to have some compassion for myself because I felt tremendous guilt for many years after, you know, because I felt like I really damaged my children when they were little. You know, they, I was quite sick when they were, when they were young.

One of the things that I experienced a lot was this bipolar rage, you know? And I, I would have these, like, I, I felt like they were out of body experiences where I felt like I was watching myself scream at my children. And, and then I would sob at night watching my children sleep, thinking I'll be a better mom tomorrow.

I promise I'll be a better mom tomorrow. And then it would happen again. And it felt, I felt out of control. And so, for a long time, you know, that, and the hospitalizations, you know, the things, you know, times when I was absent in my children's lives, you know, I knew that that was traumatic for them. It was, I felt a lot of guilt for a long time.

And, but once I started really understanding how to utilize therapy for myself and understanding what a, you know, an important tool that was for me to heal, I started recognizing, okay, so my kids can heal too. Like, I can help them heal. And so that's been a, a really beneficial part of my healing process is, is helping my children through the healing, you know, I, I got them into therapy.

I remember going into a therapy session with my son one time and I was telling him on the way in, I'm like, okay, it's, you can talk about me like , I'll leave the room. It's okay. I want you to talk about me. Don't feel like you have to be loyal. I want you to heal. I want you to get better. And it's a really humbling position to be in.

We don't intentionally hurt our children. Now, I wasn't, none of this was with malice, none of it was intentional. But at the same time, my kids got hurt and I wanted to make sure that they were able to heal from, from what they went through and, both of my older children have very healthy relationships with therapy now, which is I'm so grateful for.

And my youngest has never had to do with any of it , because I was well on my way to healing by the time she was born. And you know, and so that's been a, I've been grateful for that. I've been grateful that my, that my youngest is, you know, hasn't had to go through those things. But at the same time, like I said, I, I feel like my older children are actually much more compassionate than I think they would be otherwise.

Number one, they've been through a lot of challenges and so they've, you know, they've had the experience of understanding what it feels like to struggle with, you know, some damaging experiences. But they've also seen me very sick, and they've seen how hard I've worked to, to get well. They know what it looks like when I'm sick and they know what it looks like when I'm well, and, and so I feel like it's helped them to have a tremendous amount of compassion for people that are struggling with mental illness as well.

So, you know, I, I feel like I don't feel any. I have no negative feelings about that anymore. I have tremendous amount of compassion for what I went through when I was younger. Going through trauma healing is really important. You know, I, I was severely traumatized by my hospitalizations, and I didn't even realize that until last year.

 I had a kind of a triggering experience. I had a trauma response, and I couldn't figure out what was going on. And I realized it was, it had triggered a trauma response from the trauma of my hospitalizations. And so, went to my therapist and I thought, all right, we've got something to work on, like time to work on the healing for this. And so we went through, and I, my, for me, the thing, the, the most beneficial modality for trauma healing has been EMDR. I know that there are a number of different modalities that have, that are specifically for trauma, but that's been the one that's been most beneficial to me in my healing is, has been the EMDR.

 ANNA: That's great. Yeah, in my episode on bipolar and trauma, that's what the person I interview also did, and it helped her tremendously with bipolar symptoms as well, when she healed that trauma.

 MICHELLE: Yeah. It's, it's pretty, I don't know. I, our, our minds are so complex, and I think that we have this tendency in our society to look for the magic bullet, the magic pill. You know, the, the thing that you're just gonna take something, it's gonna make you better. You know? And I've heard a lot of people compare having bipolar disorder to, in, to having diabetes. And I, I use that comparison on occasion to advocate for like mood tracking. You know, I, I talk about, you know, if a diabetic has to track their blood sugar, we need to track our moods.

You know, I think that there's some benefit to that, but, but we don't have something that's the same. It's not the same. You know, unfortunately I wish it was, I wish it was as simple as, you know, you're missing this thing in your body, and you just take this and you'll be better. Bipolar is a very complex disorder.

You know, it's, you know, I believe that there's a genetic component for a lot of people. For me, the micronutrients were what my brain needed to heal. You know, using micronutrients helped my brain heal. It helped to become balanced, but then I still had work to do with therapy. To heal the un, all the thought and behavior patterns I developed and unhealed trauma, unhealed trauma really will lend itself to very, you know, unhealthy mental state, and it can manifest with bipolar, depression, anxiety.

You know, there are a lot of different mental illnesses that are developed because of trauma, and so you need to heal the trauma in order to heal the disorder.  You know, and then mindfulness meditation was a huge game changer for me. I, I didn't really understand it when I first was introduced to it.

It seemed a little hokey to me, honest , honestly, I'd had a therapist one time that tried to teach me a mindfulness technique, but I didn't really understand what I was doing, and I didn't understand why. And so, it didn't really work very well. But once I started understanding the value of mindfulness meditation, I actually used a book on mindfulness, Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace.

And it's, it's an eight week program that you go through on your own and each week they describe what the, the meditations are that you're doing that week and why you use them and how they work. And then they have prescribed meditations for each week. And it was such an amazing experience for me to go through that program because I became friends with my brain again.

 That's one of the hard things with bipolar disorder is you go through periods where you have really bad thoughts. Like I had terrible thoughts come into my mind, and I was so, so ashamed. I never told anybody because I thought normal people don't have thoughts like that. And, and I didn't want people to know that I was having these really bad thoughts coming into my mind, you know?

And you know, you have really negative, intrusive thoughts. We'll just pound you and pound you and pound you. And so, for me, I would intentionally daydream. I would, I would, I developed a habit of like going somewhere else in my own mind because I didn't wanna be in… I didn't like what was in my head. I didn't wanna be there.

And so, and that created anxiety problems for me. I developed really bad anxiety issues because I couldn't handle being in the present. And so, mindfulness meditation was a, a huge game changer for me because it taught me, number one, that you are not your thoughts. And that just because you have bad thoughts come into your mind does not mean you're a bad.

And then it also taught me how to, not that you don't have to engage with the thoughts that you're having, and that never occurred to me. Like I didn't even know that that was a thing. And you know, and then, and a lot of times we have something, we'll have a, you know, a trauma response will be triggered or anxiety response or something like that.

And you have a panic attack that happens, and you have no idea what triggered it. And I used to read books.  The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People where it talks about, you know, the, the space between stimulus and responses where you can make your decision. There was no space there for me. I had no space there.

And so, it was a really frustrating thing to try and figure out how to utilize that tool, because I couldn't choose like the, I was angry all of a sudden. I was like stressed, all, you know, anxious all of a sudden like vomiting and, and chest height and I couldn't breathe, you know, and it would happen without me even realizing why it had.

And mindfulness meditation created that space. It gave me the chance to, you know, recognize, like sometimes I would have things happen like that time when I had the trauma response last year. But I recognized I was having a trauma response and I was able to identify what triggered it and then I was able to think, okay, I'm having a trauma response, you know, it's okay.

I'm safe, you know, and go through a mindfulness practice to, to bring myself back into the. And then write down what was going on, and then go to my therapist and work on it. You know, it was pretty extraordinary because a lot of times we're not even aware of what's causing the problems, and so how do you work with your therapist if you don't even know what's happening?

If you don't know why your body is having this response, if you don't know why you feel claustrophobic all of a sudden, or you feel like you can't handle being around people or don't touch me, you know, like these really bad physical negative responses that are triggered by something in our head, but we don't know what's going on.

 We're not friends with our brain. We don't know how to be present in our own minds, you know? So yeah, mindfulness meditation is a huge, it's an amazing tool, and it was a major game changer for me. I, I advocate for that. Again, something I think everybody needs, not just people with mental illness, but absolutely needed if you have  mental health disorder.

 ANNA: Definitely. I very much agree with that. I love how you've given all of these tools that worked for you, and you said now a couple of times that you need to know how to use therapy in order to get the, the most out of it. Could you ex expand on that a little bit?

 MICHELLE: Absolutely. So the first thing that I, that I learned is that therapy has to be, you have to be really open with your therapist. When I, when I first started going to therapy, I didn't realize, first of all, I didn't realize that you could choose a therapist. Like I, you know, you go into therapy and, and I would stay with therapists that I wasn't comfortable with.

I had one therapist that I went to, I don't know, for about six months, and I hated every time I went. I just didn't feel comfortable with her. I felt like she wasn't really paying attention. I would talk the whole time and she wouldn't, nothing proactive ever happened.  and I didn't know what I was doing, and so it wasn’t, it was like a really discouraging experience.

I'm like, I'm not gonna do that again. Like that was totally useless, a waste of my time and my money. I'm not going back. And so, I learned that not all therapists are good therapists and, and even a good therapist could be a bad fit for you. And so, it's really important to make sure that you find a good, the.

And the second thing that I learned is how important it's to go to therapy until you have nothing left to talk about . And even then, like, don't stop, you know, for me, for a long time, once I first started going to therapy, I was going, when I was having a crisis and then when the crisis was, was over, I would stop.

And the problem that that created was that I was, I was not preventing the crisis in the first place. I was just responding to the crisis.  and starting therapy is a really taxing emotional experience because it takes a while to get to, for the therapist, to get to know you. You kind of have to give them as much of your history as possible so that they get a good idea of what they're working with.

And it takes a lot of investment, emotional investment. I used to tell therapists that I wish that I could just tape my intake session, give them the tape, and then they can listen to it, and then ask me questions afterwards. Cuz I hated going through that intake session, like I hated it so much. But I just had this epiphany a few years ago actually, like, I need to stop going only when I'm in crisis, I need to start going to prevent the crisis. Like I need to go and figure out what's creating the crisis in my life and go so that I can prevent them in the first place. And so, I made a commitment that I was gonna go until I had nothing left to talk to my therapist about. And that didn't mean like one session where I didn't know what to talk about.

It meant like weeks of therapy where there was nothing to talk.  and then I made the decision after a couple of years of therapy that I would, I, I would ask my therapist, how long can I go between sessions? If I got to a point where I felt like I was done, he'd reached the therapy goals, how long can I go between sessions and still remain your patient?

 And it was a huge blessing that I did that because I, you know, I would go once every four weeks. And over the past two years since I've been started doing that, I've had things. And so once when something came up, then I was like, okay, if we need to increase, so we would increase the number of sessions that I would have until that was resolved and then we would go back to that.

I call it the maintenance sessions, where I would just, you know, go once every month with her. You know that once a month was what I needed to do in order to remain her patient. And so, so don't go just for crisis. Go and go to eliminate the crisis, you know, go to be proactive.  and then it's really important to make sure that you provide information to your therapist.

So, using a mood tracking app was actually super beneficial for therapy too, because a lot of times we don't recognize triggers. We don't recognize unhealthy thought behavior patterns. We don't under, you know, boundaries were something I didn't understand for years, and I finally admitted it to my therapist, like she would talk about boundaries, and I would just nod and you know, smile.

And I had no idea what she was talking about, but I was kind of embarrassed to admit it for some reason. And I finally admitted it to her. I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. Like, I don't understand boundaries. Can you please help me understand this? Cuz I think that this is a big thing that's missing in my life is understanding how to set healthy boundaries.

And so, you have to be, the therapist only has the information you provide. And so if you're holding back, if you're hiding things, if you're embarrassed about stuff and you don't wanna share it with your therapist, they can't help you. You have to be, and sometimes it takes some time. Don't feel like you have to like to spill your guts and everything in the first session.

But be open with your therapist. Talk to your therapist about, you know, things that you're embarrassed about. I've shared things with my therapist that I've never told anybody in my life, you know, and I will never tell anybody. Like I don't really wanna talk about those things. But I needed help because I was struggling with them.

I have a therapy notebook that I use that because you have homework. That's one thing that is, I've realized how important it is to, you only get outta therapy what you put into it. And so, if you go and your therapist, you know, it has, you do something. Practice something between sessions. If you don't do it, you're not gonna, you're not gonna progress, right?

And so, I would take notes and write down the things that I needed to work on, whether it was a book I needed to read, or a tool that I needed to practice using, write it down and then keep a record of it. And that therapy notebook was only for therapy. Nobody else saw it. It was just mine. But it would help.

To be more proactive about utilizing the tools throughout the week, and then I would be able to go back and report on it. And that's how you make progress. So, I think that it's just important to, to recognize how important your role is in therapy. Yeah, so those are the, I think that's all the tools. Those are all the things that I have learned.

 ANNA: Those are excellent because you're talking about taking control of your own therapy experience. Once again, advocating for yourself and admitting when you need a bit more help, a bit more explanation, and I love that you talk about doing work in between sessions. That I would say is the biggest issue I see with some of my clients is they come in for an hour a week and that's the only therapy they do. There is nothing else going on in between sessions. And it makes such a huge difference when you actually put your mind to it, your body to it, and do something in between.

 MICHELLE: Well, and one of the other things, actually, I had one other thought is learning about different. Not all therapists are trained in all modalities, and you know, you might have somebody who doesn't have any experience with trauma healing, but you might need a trauma therapist. And so learning about, you know, different modalities that are offered and, and if you need to go get a different therapist for, you know, to, because you need to do trauma healing, then, then do that, you know, learn about modalities and then identify what you need help with so that you can find the right person to help you.

So that was, it was like, I remember there was one other thing that I, I wrote a blog post about it and I was trying to remember, I wrote a blog post, so, yeah. Yeah. Cuz there are a lot of modalities out there. Like you say, EMDR is excellent for trauma, but it's not necessarily great for everything.

 ANNA: Right. And there are tons of others who are great. Let's say for depression or anxiety, better going to be more or less use, useless for trauma. So that's a really good point. Michelle, as my last question, what do you wish people without bipolar understood more about bipolar?

 MICHELLE: Probably that it's not, they're not pretending, you know, I think, I think that one of the things that was really hard, we’re really hard on ourselves with bipolar because you feel like you don't have control over what's happening in your mind. And it's really embarrassing to do things like spend excessive amounts of money, get yourself into debt, tell people about all your life changes and life plans and all your big ideas and stuff, and then you crash, and you realize how irrational everything was.

And, and it's, it's embarrassing. And so, it's really important, I think for people to, to recognize. We're not doing it on purpose. You know, this isn't something we're doing on purpose, but it's also important to set healthy boundaries with people that have bipolar disorder because not unkind boundaries, but healthy boundaries.

You know, I've even had to do this. I, I have a, a friend of mine who has bipolar and, and I was getting caught up in a, you know, she had a massive manic episode for several months and I had to set some pretty clear boundaries with her because it was gonna drag me down, you know, as well. You know, so I think those are the two things that are most important for people that are, don't have it, you know, for, especially if they have a loved one who has bipolar.

Trying to understand better what the disorder looks like and how you can help, you know, getting into a therapist yourself is really helpful because sometimes I think that you can feel helpless, and you can start to harm your own health in an effort to help somebody who's struggling. But, but if somebody can, if you can have compassion,  and also set healthy boundaries that can help facilitate, a lot of times, help facilitate moving them towards healing as well is if they've got people that are compassionate and on their side, but also setting healthy boundaries with them, that that will help to establish a healthier relationship and, and hopefully help move them towards healing.

 ANNA: Wow. That's, that's very powerful. I'm really glad that you sent that message out. And Michelle, you have so many wonderful resources on your website and the Facebook group. Just real quick, where can people find you? I will definitely link it in the show notes.

 MICHELLE: Yeah, I have, my website is www.myupsideofdown.com. My handle on Instagram is @myupsideofdown. I have a podcast, the Upside of Bipolar, and that's linked on my website as well. So, and I have like the free, that that resource that I was talking about is free on my website. You can go on there and just access it right there.

And then the Facebook group is I just blanked all of a sudden on what's called, I don't know why my brain is completely blanking right now. It's linked on my website. So, if you go on my website, everything is there. So, you can find all the links there.

 ANNA: Perfect. I will link all of that in the show notes so that my listeners can find that. Michelle, thank you so much for this wonderful interview. I have no doubt that any mountain that's in front of you, you're gonna climb it, you're gonna conquer it. You have so much positivity and so much hopefulness. I love hearing that. Thank you so much for being here today.

 MICHELLE: Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

 ANNA: Thank you all for tuning in today and listening to Michelle's story. Please subscribe and leave a review so that other people can find courage to heal. In the next episode, you will hear my interview about bipolar and ADHD with Hailey Rose, a mental health advocate with a lived experience.

Until then, take care and stay courageous.