Ugh, this was a week! I’m feeling better as I write this update on Saturday night, but most of this past week was awful. I tell the entire sordid tale in the featured post below.

Hopefully, you remembered to turn your clocks back last night. If not, here’s a friendly reminder (if you live in a place still forcing time changes on its citizens. If not, I’m jealous. 🙃)

Time changes can cause problems with bipolar disorder, so take extra good care of yourself for the next few weeks. You will adjust again, but may notice more intense symptoms for a while.

Scenes from My Yard

My pink rhodadendron is blooming like it's springtime. The azalea (smaller picture) is putting out a few blooms even as the leaves change. So weird for early November. (Here's why I share pictures from my yard.)

Journal Prompt

(Read the featured post first.) How do you protect your limits with bipolar disorder? What ways could you better protect yourself in the future?

Reader, I hope you have a great week and take a little extra time for self-care.

Thank you for being part of the Speaking Bipolar community.

Until next time, keep fighting.

Scott Ninneman

Featured Post:

Limitations, Chronic Illness, and Bipolar Disorder

Limitations.

I’m really coming to hate the word. Not that I ever was much of a fan.

As a child, if you told me I couldn’t climb a tree, I’d head straight for it. Tell me I couldn’t jump off a roof, and I did it, but that’s a lesson I only needed to learn once.

Limitations are especially discouraging with bipolar disorder, and for two reasons.

One, there is the frustration of having to have any limitations at all. Even when your brain swears you are Superman, you’re really not.

Two, the edge of your limitations will often change without notice.

Here’s what happened when I recklessly pushed past my limitations.

Causing my own problems

Last weekend, I spent most of Friday and Saturday out in the sun sanding, scraping, and painting the railings and balusters surrounding our deck.

The deck juts out from our second-floor sunroom, but I keep most of the painting supplies on the lower floor. Besides the agony of twisting and turning, my hands cramped from using them in ways I rarely do. I also had the torment of making 50 trips up and down the flight of stairs.

By Friday night, the unfinished project taunted me with how much still needed to be done. Exhausted as I was, I vowed to spend most of Saturday doing the same.

Come Saturday night, my muscles were screaming in anguish and the bottoms of my feet burned with the fire of Mordor. Every step hurt, but I was proud of how much my octogenarian mother and I had accomplished.

With a satisfied heart, I smiled at the portion we completed and planned to work even more on Sunday.

Waking in agony

About 3 a.m. Sunday, I was jolted awake, like someone had just kicked me in the back of the head wearing steel-toed boots.

Dizzy and disoriented, I made my way to the bathroom, splashed some cold water on my face, and lied to my reflection in the mirror.

“You’ll feel better come morning,” I whispered through barely open eyes and then staggered back to bed.

With the early morning light, my lie no longer held any meaning.

Even in bed, my world spun with the ferocity of the blades in my Ninja blender. Standing up took Herculean effort, and when I made it upright, the drums from a thousand drummers all beat in unison between my ears.

I blinked my eyes, willing the nausea away, then used every ounce of energy to trudge up the stairs to my mom’s place.

“I think I’ll be okay,” I told her, holding white-knuckled to the back of a kitchen chair to maintain my balance. “I just need something to eat.”

Stepping back down the stairs at the speed of a sloth, my world spun faster with every step. Each whirl pushed any thought of food out of my head.

I collapsed back onto my bed, pulling my blue micro-plush blanket over my head, begging for as much darkness as it could give me.

Five minutes later, the room still spinning with the violence of a centrifuge, I had to give in.

There was no way I was going anywhere and not even another minute of work would get done that day.

Learning your limitations

We all have limitations, whether we like to admit them or not. Even the Olympic gold-medal-winning swimmer Katie Ledecky knows she has a point she shouldn’t cross.

Limitations have a purpose: to protect us from going too far. They are the fences that stop off from walking off a cliff and the concrete barriers that prevent our cars from driving through store windows.

With bipolar disorder, though, limitations can feel like the enemy.

“I’ve stayed up all night organizing closets before,” you tell yourself. “I can do it again.”

Except, limitations with chronic illness are not like the literal fences and barricades. Instead, they are often moving targets. Yesterday’s barrier may have been a mile away, but today’s is just a few steps in front of you.

It’s up to you to recognize your limitations and then pay attention when you reach them.

During my shower Friday night, after a full day’s work, I knew I was in rough shape. But I also knew there were hours of work to be done and only so much time with the comfortable outside temperatures.

No matter how tired I was, I had to work Saturday as well.

Like a dutiful soldier, I pushed my butt out of bed on Saturday morning. Then I pushed further, hour by hour, until my legs were so shaky I feared collapse while balancing on the deck stairs.

I worked far beyond my limitations, and the violation carried a hefty fine.

Paying the price

Sunday, I spent the entire day in bed. I never got dressed beyond my red hoodie and black sweatpants.

Lying as still as possible in bed, I fought the mother of all migraines as I prayed for the sun to stop shining and for me to go deaf.

If you’ve never suffered a migraine, every flicker of light and every tick of the wall clock can feel like daggers piercing your skull.

By Monday morning, the pain was less intense, but my body still throbbed in revolt.

“You need to sleep,” my muscles screamed, but like a defiant teenager, I waved my hand.

“I have work to do,” I scolded my body. “Hanging out at home is not an option.”

Every movement was an effort, but I got showered and dressed and forced myself out the door.

I wasn’t at work for more than 15 minutes when my boss popped into my office.

He glanced me up and down and said, “You’re not firing on all cylinders today, are ya?”

“No,” I laughed, like all the pain inside was funny. “I’m dragging a bit today.”

Still, I had work to do, so I pushed harder to get it done. I lasted until 3:00 p.m. on Monday and then went home and returned to bed.

Suffering on and on

Tuesday was another battle.

“Just stay in bed,” my body pleaded with me, but I wouldn’t have it. Back in the shower and then out the door. I still had work to do.

Every second at my desk on Tuesday was painful, and the whole time, my bipolar brain was shouting insults about how stupid I was to push myself so far.

Then another part of my mind fought back, saying I had to keep working no matter what. No one else was going to pay my bills.

When I met with a potential new client, I stumbled through brain fog to find the correct words to say and lost my place in the conversation several times.

I asked the clients their names several times despite the fact I had written them down when the couple first sat in the black leather chairs in front of me.

I’m sure I made a less than ideal first impression, and my bipolar brain loved to harp on that failing as well.

The clients gone, I fumbled through a series of phone calls until my body screamed, “No more!”

It was noon, but all I could do was drive home and crash into the plush comfort of my bed. Back in stillness, back in darkness.

Living and learning

I have known I’m fighting bipolar disorder since 1995 and Familial Mediterranean Fever since 2016. I know I have limitations, and I understand the price of ignoring them.

Even so, I often push past those barriers, and pay a hefty price every time.

I should have quit working Friday, earlier than I did. On Saturday, I should have rested and given my body time to recharge.

But I hoped this time would be different, so I pressed on.

My stubbornness led to a poor performance at work and made most of Monday and Tuesday pass in the blurred blink of an eye.

It wasn’t until Thursday, after spending most of four days in bed, that I felt remotely like myself. I made it through a full day of work but then had to rest again all day Friday.

Teaching a lesson

All of this is my long-winded way of saying: pay attention to your limitations.

Here’s how:

• Keep a journal. Track the things you eat and do and then how you feel afterward. Especially after strenuous activities, monitor how you feel mentally and physically.
• Look for trends. A few times a year, sit down and review your journal. Find the trends where working too hard or pushing yourself to go out with friends caused problems. Use that insight to set new boundaries.
• Stick to your limitations. Like me, you won’t always succeed. Sometimes, the only option is to keep going, even when you know you’re already so far past your limitation that you can barely see it. The rest of the time, though, note where your boundary should be and then refuse to move past it.

I hate limitations, but they are a healthy boundary for everyone to keep in mind. It may frustrate you to have your boundaries closer than a person without illness, but really, it doesn’t matter what anyone else can do.

Your job is to take care of you, so find your limitations and then stick to the positive side of them.

As I write this on Saturday afternoon, there’s still a twinge of an after-migraine presence dancing around in my head. My muscles still complain although they have rested most of the week, but I will recover.

Save yourself the pain and don’t be like me. Mark those boundaries and stick to them. It will make you happier in the long run.

Until next time, keep fighting.

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Additional Reading:

• ​Daylight Saving Time and Bipolar Disorder​
• ​How I Ignored All the Good Advice and Started a Relationship After My Bipolar Diagnosis​
• ​Is Self-Harm About Seeking Attention?​
• ​Red Pill or Blue Pill: Would You Take One to Change Your Life Forever?​
• ​The Frequency of Having ADHD with Bipolar Disorder​
• ​Archive Newsletters​