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[Music] if you ask someone with bipolar disorder what they want out of life their response isn't going to be much different from every other human being we want to be happy healthy maybe have a family a home a relationship a good job you know the same things that just about everyone wants however there is something else that a lot of us polar warriors desire this would be finding some kind of peace or stability with our symptoms for a lot of us that actually has to come first because we can't really have the job relationship or lifestyle that we want without managing the bipolar symptoms first it's also very connected wanting to be happy isn't anything revolutionary it's something we all desire I think a more crucial question than what we want out of life is asking what struggles or pains do we want in our life sounds weird right but this might provide a really valuable perspective in your approach to treating bipolar disorder after all how we approach our struggles and pains can determine how our lives turn out in a lot of ways I had a big realization when I looked at the way I've approached many of the not-so-easy challenges in my life of course bipolar being one of them something I noticed was how I focused more on the endgame instead of preparing myself for what I might run into trying to get there if my process started to be not fun anymore or if I hit a roadblock along the way it was so easy to give up and just move on to something easier let's say what you want is to find stability with your bipolar disorder I sure want that more than just about anything in my life so what stops so many of us from finding it or only getting moments of fragmented stability I have a pretty good theory here and I hope this video encourages some of you to try a different approach I'll start by using an analogy that many of you are familiar with most of us have bought a gym membership at some point in our lives changed oh we a maybe quit smoking drinking things like that right here's the thing with fitness and how it relates so Weld of approaching bipolar disorder some people can jump right into a workout routine and you'll progressively better every day and see tangible results in just a few weeks well what about someone who weighs 500 pounds and has asthma and diabetes and chronic pain can you imagine how much harder their journey would be compared to the average person it could take years of extra work and excruciating pain just even get to the same starting point as an average weight person the same thing goes for those of us with bipolar disorder some of us get their meds right on the first try they have a great counselor support from their spouse and family or even diagnosed with a milder form of the illness and then there's those of us who feel virtually med resistant we live with paralyzing side-effects have zero support from our family or community and have a plethora of other conditions piled on top of our bipolar diagnosis here's an interesting thought though how can someone with severe bipolar disorder count every calorie spend hours at the gym go to tanning booths pay for cosmetic surgery buy the best organic foods but they can't for the life of them make it to a counseling appointment or how could someone with bipolar disorder go to college for a decade and get their master's degree yet they can't hold a job for more than a couple of months it's not like we enjoy suffering or had this deliberate plan to hook up our lives there's a lot more at play here the first key to understanding this is approach when I was 15 my parents bought me Arnold Schwarzenegger bodybuilding encyclopedia because I became obsessed with the 80s image of becoming a bodybuilder I got my first gym membership and my first day there I followed a program that was most likely for professional steroid using adults after almost three hours of working out the next day at school my legs literally collapsed when I was walking down some stairs it was so unhealthy to put my body through what I did is such a young age but I kept going religiously I'd even spend all of my extra money on gas for friends to drive me to the gym it got to a point where I wasn't satisfied unless I was sore and in pain I even made it into the local newspaper for being so dedicated to fitness now fast-forward some years later and I was drinking smoking gaining quite a bit of weight and all over the place with my mental health instead of going to the gym for the self-image I started going again because I knew my lifestyle was killing me now exercising for my life is so much more important than exercising for some image I wanted but I quit going after a few weeks why how could I get into the newspaper wanting to be a bodybuilder but I couldn't make it past a month when I wanted to do it for my health the thing is I was in love with the results an image being a bodybuilder was something that I obsessively wanted with all my heart at the time years later I was going to the gym because I felt like I had to for my health because I was scared of the consequences if I didn't go remember at the beginning of the video I asked about what kind of pain do we want in our lives when I was a kid my legs literally gave out when I was walking due to how hard I pushed and I still went back to the gym that day the pain was unreal but I was fully willing and ready for that pain in order to reach my goal I even invited it because in my mind the pain meant that I broke those muscles down and was getting closer to my goal years later the road to my goal was a lot steeper I was out of shape I had a lot of back issues I was abusing my body a lot and I wasn't the 15 year old kid I used to be that wasn't my main problem though working out because I had to instead of because I wanted to was a big part of it but the other part was the fact that I wasn't fully willing or prepared to handle all of the sacrifices and pain associated with getting what I wanted the pain in exhaustion although much less than what I put myself through at 15 was greater than my desire to be healthy a few years later I found myself single and was motivated to get back into shape for the dating scene again I was at the gym religiously at men loving every minute of it it's funny what motivates us right if a doctor told me I'd die if I didn't exercise I'd be all over it but for some people that still wouldn't be enough so how are you approaching your goals with bipolar disorder and treatment are you looking at photoshopped pictures of anorexic swimsuit models or are you looking at a beginner's guide to starting an exercise program I don't have to tell you what's more realistic and healthy are you expecting to somehow be cured of bipolar disorder and feel great all the time or is your goal to just make it to an appointment with a doctor be careful here because my goals when I manic do not always match what I'm realistically capable of doing or sustaining if you always set these huge unrealistic goals when you feel great you're not only setting yourself up for disappointment but if you end up disappointed too many times eventually you might believe that anything you try isn't going to work periods of depression can also reinforce this belief it's a giant circle you try too hard crash and then feel even more depressed for not achieving the unrealistic things you thought you could do when you were manic we can really dig ourselves into a hole and not even realize it when our manic ambitions or depressive delusions cast a shadow over what we're truly capable of if you're setting a goal for your mental health ask yourself this very important question if I'm having the day from hell will I still be able to follow through with this commitment if you're crashing will you still be able to get those meds or make it to that appointment if not then have a back-up plan just in case because we don't know how we might feel tomorrow I do this when people ask me to commit to literally anything now in my manic past I'd say of course I can do that sure I'll be there of course I can help but when the depression came I ended up bailing on a lot of these plans that didn't help the depression at all and just made me feel like I couldn't do anything keep your treatment goals simple and realistic if you go to the gym on your first day and work out for three hours it might be such an uncomfortable experience you never go back again if you get all manic and revved up and try to approach your bipolar treatment in such an extreme way and it's also not going to be very sustainable the next important thing I want to emphasize is to know what you're getting yourself into I get comments from people who had one bad experience with a doctor or some bad medication side effects and they go on and on about how all doctors are evil and how drugs are bad and some kind of conspiracy many people also assume that if they find the right medications that they won't have symptoms anymore some of us get lucky and treatment goes very smoothly but for the majority of us the road is gonna have some bumps in it maybe even some craters the medications we take can include some really uncomfortable side effects the wrong medication can literally make things worse know this except this it's not some medical secret it's just the way it is with modern medicine it sucks it's not perfect but it's what we have right now for those who can afford it there are some improvements in genetic testing that can help pinpoint the right medications but most of it is still trial and error I know it takes time to get diagnosed and finally prescribed something it's hard not having definitive answers while we go through this process but we all go through it it's part of the package many of us have this delusion that starts from childhood where we go to a doctor for a toothache or rash some pain whatever and they're supposed to quickly make it better not worse sometimes people go to the doctor for bipolar disorder and unfortunately they do give us a medication that makes things temporarily worse all of a sudden the doctor is a horrible doctor and all medications are some kind of conspiracy and they just give up because quote that's just the way it is I'm one of those treatment-resistant people and it took me years to find the right medications of course it was horrible and of course it's sucked hearing about other people finding relief from their symptoms but you know what it gets better if you do nothing bipolar disorder is a progressive illness it's not just gonna disappear it doesn't get sweeter with age it gets nastier if it's not treated each medication I tried that didn't work just helped narrow down the ones that would if you've just been diagnosed with bipolar disorder learn about it my channel is a great resource know what you're getting yourself into so it's not a giant surprise later it would be a little silly to get angry that you're sore from going to the gym for the first time right give yourself a little slack at least you're making progress and I know it's hard to see that when we aren't mentally well all right so let's circle back around now to the beginning of the video when I talked about what we want out of life when I used to run karate schools every kid that joined my program wanted to become a black belt some even wanted to start their own karate school some day you know how many of them actually made it to their black belt less than 10 out of over a thousand students now I wasn't running an after-school belt factory for kids it was a very intense program most of my students quickly realized the practice that it would take to get good how many moves there were to memorize and how physically and mentally demanding it was they all started out with the same excitement and motivation during their first weeks of class eventually some of them would stop coming well what made the difference between the kids who quit and those who made it to their black belt I can tell you from my own personal experience as someone who made it to theirs I enjoyed the whole process I loved practicing for hours in my room at home when my friends were off doing something else I'd be writing karate notes in my junior high English class instead of listening to the teacher I had brushed my teeth standing on one foot to practice my balance I learned to enjoy the process of incorporating it into my life I didn't compare myself to other students or martial art icons I did it because I loved how much it enriched the quality of all aspects of my life practicing wasn't a chore for me like other students it was my passion how many of you ever wanted to be a rock star and make music for millions of people I it's a pretty common dream I wrote some songs bought some recording gear read books about success in the music industry shoot I even had a radio station play one of my songs but after that things changed and I didn't want it in the same way anymore so what changed well I really wanted the end results and didn't know what I was getting myself into it wasn't fun for me to try and find people to collaborate with or late nights practicing for a gig that got cancelled lugging gear around to different performances without a car and the amount of time and money spent on something with less chances of making it than winning the lottery I felt like it was impossible to make it so I decided to quit by comparison I put way more effort in years more time into getting my black belt which was exponentially harder than making music for me personally so why did one dream succeed and the other not I think it was due to the main things I've talked about in this video how much I wanted it my approach to getting what I wanted and knowing what I was getting myself into I knew beforehand that it would take blood sweat and tears to make it to my black belt I knew I'd get hit a few times before I learned enough defense to start seeing improvement my first night of class I didn't expect to come out of there is some kind of super ninja I guess it's just culturally known that it takes time to master the martial arts with bipolar disorder we have this assumption like I mentioned where we think that we're going to go to the doctor get a pill right away and start feeling much better well maybe I'm the first to tell you this but finding stability with bipolar disorder is a journey it can't be compared to or approached like other medical experiences that you might have had if you approach your treatment realistically and truly accept what you're getting yourself into the last missing component is wanting it bad enough that's the hard part you can't fake personal motivation and I can't tell you how to make yourself want something I can't make you want to go to the gym you have to find your own personal spark and it's different for all of us I'm sure a lot of you are wondering what motivated me to take my bipolar disorder seriously well it only took over a decade of being diagnosed to finally find my spark but here's what happened a few years ago before I started this YouTube channel I was still not taking my medications very seriously still drinking from time to time and I hadn't gone to therapy regularly in years I had a semi bumpy start to my current relationship and we even broke up a few times eventually my partner started to notice that the only times we'd ever break up was when I was symptomatic that realization made me so sick to my stomach because I swore that the issues were exclusively because of my partner's actions I made a very firm commitment at that point to my partner that I would take my treatment seriously because I knew at that point the relationship really depended on it something happened that changed the game once I took my meds seriously again and didn't miss a dose the problems in the relationship completely stopped for us I mean not just a few less problems but a total 180 I was in absolute shock I could have easily blown the healthiest relationship I've ever had and truly believed that it was all my partner's fault the problems that we were having would have literally just carried into the next relationship I started if things didn't change I just didn't know better the feelings and supposed problems we were having were so real at the time when I wasn't taking my treatments seriously no one could have convinced me that I was part of the problem at the time I just couldn't see it and that's part of how the illness affects us it's not an excuse for bad behavior it's just part of the reality of mental illness and bipolar disorder I also started this YouTube channel right around the time I started having these realizations starting the channel has provided some major accountability in my life I wouldn't feel comfortable telling people to stay sober or take their meds if I wasn't doing it myself it also pushes me to keep researching new ideas too cope with bipolar symptoms that's what pushed me onto the Polar Warrior path but that's not going to cut it for other people some of you might not have a partner or a YouTube channel that motivates you even if you did it still might not be what gives you that spark to take action I can't tell you what's gonna motivate you enough to take your treatment seriously it's something that you have to learn for yourself just like I can't convince you to go to the gym every day you have to find what makes you wanted enough for some it takes a lot of loss like getting fired or losing a relationship or custody of the kids or a suicide attempt to finally take action some of us will never take action in this lifetime and I'm doing everything I can with my channel to change that maybe someday you'll be watching one of my videos and something will just click also know that the intensity of our spark or motivation comes and goes with the way we feel being okay with that is really important there's still times where I couldn't make a video for the life of me and I feel like everything I do is crap just like going to the gym sometimes we need a week or so for some mental and physical self-care if we work out when we're miserably sore that's not going to be a good motivator to keep going it's okay to take breaks just don't go too far from the path or it can be harder to find your way back if you made it this far in the video thank you so much for taking your time here seriously I know at the end of my videos I've been mentioning our community on patreon it's not just a place to support polar warriors it's for people who want to take their treatment to the next level of course my channel isn't a substitute for therapy but if you spend 50 bucks on one session donating a couple dollars a month to help me continue making these videos is very reasonable I know it's easy to assume that other people are donating or that eventually you'll do it but I need your help to keep this free resource going the only reason why this video was available to you today is because someone out there donated please help us keep a good thing going here I love you all and take good care of you selves this week I'll see you guys here soon for another polar warrior video [Music]