When I chose “change” as my word for 2024, I knew some of that change would be painful. And so it is.

Last Friday (May 24), just after dinner, with my mom and I and two of our dearest friends sitting by his side, my dad exhaled for the last time.

No matter how ready you think you are, you never are. Every loved one is taken from you too soon.

I was so grateful to have my newsletter for last Sunday already written and scheduled because there was no thinking after that.

In the next few hours, I did what had to be done, dealing with the hospice nurse and the funeral home, but then I struggled to think clearly about anything else.

I notified my family, and frequently checked to make sure my mom was okay. Then I just kept moving, feeling like I couldn’t sit still.

Now that we’re a few days into our grief, I’m thankful for two things.

One, I’m amazed by the love of my friends. There were very few times we were alone in the last few weeks. The support made everything much easier.

Two, I’m thankful I planned ahead. I had a feeling it would be my dad’s last week, especially after he stopped eating Monday. From the funeral home to my online content, having a plan in place made it possible for me to do all required of me.

Those two things are the most important parts of managing your mental health. We all need a support system, whether it’s friends, family, a spouse, or whomever else we’re close to.

We also need to plan ahead. While other people change plans in the blink of an eye, those of us with a mental illness have to have a plan in place.

We have to know which situations we can handle and which will be too tough. We have to make sure we’re managing our medication properly to maintain stability, even through the hardest times.

I’m sad, but not broken. My dad was suffering a lot, and he hated being in the hospital bed. In many ways, it’s a relief that he’s gone. The weight of caregiving was lifted.

I know I will miss him every day, but I also know how blessed I am to have had so much time with him. There were no things left to say or do.

My dad was a man of love. He had a natural ability to make others feel loved, even when he didn’t use the actual word.

When I asked him two nights before he passed if there was anything he still wanted to say, he told me to tell everyone how much he loved them. I hope that’s the legacy I leave when it’s my time to go.

What better legacy than to leave love behind.

Amid my sadness, this week came with good news. Health Union announced their list of 2024 Social Health Awards Finalists, and I made the list. Thank you to all of you who voted for me. Winners will be announced on June 26, so I’ll keep you posted.

This week, keep love in your heart and share it with everyone in your life. Every day is a gift, so cherish today and the people in it.

Featured Post

Since I’m in the middle of grieving, I thought it would be perfect to write a post about bipolar disorder and the stages of grief. In the post (below), I share how grief and bipolar have affected me.

Scenes from My Yard

The top right is the underside of a mushroom cap. The intricacy of the design amazed me.

Until next time, keep fighting.

Scott Ninneman

Bipolar Disorder and the Stages of Grief: A Helpful Guide

Illustration of a sad man sitting in a cemetery near a tree

Grief is a funny thing. While everyone experiences it, not everyone experiences it the same way. Your encounters with grief will probably be just as unique as you are.

There are often five common stages of grief.

Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

Many have the misbelief that the stages always go in the same order and take about the same amount of time. To which my mind screams, “Not true!”

Not only can you endure many of the stages at the same time, they can return after weeks, months, or even years.

This post is about the most commonly accepted stages of grief and how they are affected by bipolar disorder. Throughout this post, I’ll be sharing my own experiences with grief, both in the past and what I’m doing right now after just losing my father.

Let’s get started.

Illustration of a woman mopping a kitchen floor

Denial

The first stage of grief is denial. This is when your brain can’t accept the reality of the loss, so instead it pretends it never happened. Denial is why my mom kept talking to an empty bed for the first few days after my dad passed.

Denial is your brain’s way of protecting itself. It gives you time to process the loss when you are ready for it.

With bipolar disorder, denial brings another set of problems to the table. For me, that most often includes some form of mania.

In the days after a loss, I’m more active than ever. I recently told a friend that I couldn’t sit still if I wanted to.

Not only do I have the energy to do the 5 million things that have to be done, but I also have a flood of ideas about all the things I want to do in the future.

Usually I don’t go into full on, psychosis-inducing mania, but it’s enough of hypomania to disrupt my sleep and push me to do more physically than I should.

As I write this, it’s only been a week since my dad passed, but we’ve already spring cleaned most of my parents’ house. I’ve replanted a dozen plants in the yard and trimmed many of the trees. I also returned to work, though I was less than productive as I sat at my desk. My mind is running fast, so concentrating on what’s important is nearly impossible.

I’m using my excess energy when I can and forcing myself to rest after a reasonable amount of work. This part is easy because I’m too busy to process everything else.

Before I know it, I’ll be passing on to another stage of grief: anger.

Illustration of a screaming woman squatting in a living room

Anger

For most of us with bipolar disorder, anger is one of our toughest challenges. It’s like there’s a hidden switch in the back corner of our mind. When someone flips it, we fly into a rage. It feels uncontrollable and leads to a constant need to apologize.

Grief often brings anger for everybody, but with bipolar disorder, the anger is even worse. Not only do you feel rage, but your bipolar brain will move you to say the worst things.

Suddenly you’ll know all the most painful buttons to press to hurt the people around you. The anger has such force you feel unable to keep your mouth shut.

Anger can also lead to dangerous actions, such as destroying things, starting fights, or saying ugly things to the wrong people. (Bloody nose, anyone? Yeah, me too.)

When my soulmate Lizzy died, I called my boss and told him I couldn’t work that night. He told me there was no one who could take my shift, so I had to be there.

Enraged, I went to work and did my job, and turned in my notice the next morning. So ended a 15-year friendship. I never returned to the job and the anger still lingers even after a decade.

Anger may stick with you as you slip into another stage of grief: bargaining.

Bargaining

Truth be told, I never understood what bargaining meant when people talked about the stages of grief. I always imagined it had something to do with asking God to take your life instead of the one of the person who just died.

Then my mom explained to me what bargaining really is. She calls it the “coulda, woulda, shoulda's.”

For example, you might think, “If only I had gone to see the person sooner.” Or, “I should have made them go to the doctor when they first noticed the symptoms.”

Bargaining is about all the things you think you could have done, but you didn’t do when you had the chance.

My Lizzy died in a car accident. We talked on the phone just moments before, and even though it’s been many years, there’s still a piece of my mind that still wonders what would have happened if we would have talked for just another 30 seconds.

By then, the dump truck would have gone past the intersection where she died. Imagining what I could have done changes nothing.

Bargaining, at least for me, seems to be a grief stage that keeps returning time and again. I’m sure it has a connection to the fact bipolar disorder causes your brain to ruminate about everything. And so why not ruminate about the things that you should have done?

The next stage of grief with bipolar disorder is probably the most dangerous: depression.

Illustration of a sad man sitting on a sofa holding his head in his hands

Depression

Bipolar depression is brutal on any day, but when you reach depression with your grief, it’s deadly. The depression stage is when you stop living, refuse to get out of bed, and no longer care how you look or smell.

The depression stage can hold you captive for months. When I lost Lizzy, I kept running for the first 90 days. I went to see her family every day and kept busy with projects at home.

Then one afternoon, back when I was still getting discs in the mail from Netflix, I put a DVD in the player and sat down on the couch. And I didn’t move again for weeks.

My episode with bipolar depression lasted 6 months. I stopped talking to my friends and family. I didn’t care about anything, myself included, so I spent my days watching mindless television while binge eating junk food. I was the dictionary definition of a couch potato.

It was a long road out of bipolar depression, but eventually one day, I found the strength to get off the sofa and start living again.

Talking to my doctor about my depression helped. He recommended making some medication adjustments, and an increased dosage helped me find the light again. I should have called my doctor sooner, but for a long time, I simply didn’t care.

The depression stage is probably the one to be most concerned about. It’s essential to have a strong support system in place.

Don’t do what I did, and speak to your primary care physician or psychiatrist quickly after you experience a loss.

Reach out, especially when you feel yourself slipping into the darkness. Sometimes you need a little more medical help to get you through the toughest days.

Once the sun starts to return to your sky, there’s still one more grief stage to complete: acceptance.

Acceptance

Acceptance is another stage I didn’t understand. In fact, I’m not sure I get it even now.

To me, acceptance isn’t about accepting the loss happened, but more about having the hope that you will start living again.

Acceptance is when you can start thinking about a new relationship, what direction you want your life to take, or allow yourself to laugh without feeling guilty.

It’s important to remember that even though acceptance is the last stage of grief, it doesn’t mean that you’re done grieving.

The grieving process may last the rest of your life, depending on who you lost and how you felt about them. Or acceptance may come quickly, and you may find the way to move forward when many are still stuck in their sadness.

Many experts now say that there are more than five stages of grief. Some say seven, and others say even more.

I’d say with bipolar disorder in the mix, there’s probably at least 50 different stages of grief. And each one will be unique to you. Besides the five mentioned here, you will also likely experience:

Anxiety
Guilt
Physical pain
Shock
Dissociation, and more

Illustration of a smiling man and woman walking in a flower garden on a sunny day

Regardless of what stages you experience and when, it’s vital that you stay connected to those who love you. Hold to your support network and don’t be afraid to reach out when you need help.

It’s okay to cry, scream, or rip that pillow to shreds. Sometimes that’s the only way to move forward. Journaling also helps, even when all you can do is scribble black ink all over the page.

Having a stable support network around you will give you the security you need to work through your emotions so you can return to life again.

Grief never truly ends. There will be a piece of you that always mourns what you’ve lost, whether that’s a person, relationship, or a job.

But you will find a way to live with grief. You’ll reach a day when you feel more sunshine than rain. You will want to live again.

Until next time, keep fighting.

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