20/20 Hindsight on Bipolar Disorder

Hey, y'all --

I was just thinking today about how I seemed to have such good hindsight (20/20) on bad choices and bad decisions when it came to my alcoholism and addiction, could I have that with my bipolar disorder as well? And the real question -- can I have it beforehand so I don't have to go thru the episode???

Why can't I see the episode coming beforehand? Why do I miss the signs? I was thinking about my last episode, and why I completely missed it until it was right on top of me and it was too late for me to do anything about it. Then I had to deal with it in hindsight and learned how NOT to do that again. Oh well, at least I DID learn how NOT to do that again!

There are some lessons that we just have to learn the hard way. Oh God, I sound like my mother! LOL

I guess I'm getting old, if I'm sounding like my mother. But it's true -- the hardest lessons are the ones we remember the best. Because those are the most painful ones, and we certainly do NOT want to repeat them! Especially because we remember the pain.

Dave has coined a phrase called the Post-Episode Analysis, where we sit down with our loved one AFTER the episode and go over what caused the episode, so that we don't do that again. Or we identify a trigger we didn't know about before. Things like that. Like with me, for example, my last episode we uncovered a physical cause for my episode, which totally took me by surprise.

Some of you may remember, it was last May, I think -- and the episode was caused by drinking too much water! Which caused my body to be depleted of potassium, which caused me to go into a manic episode because it caused distorted thinking.

So what I learned from it (the hard way, of course) was #1 - I hadn't checked with my doctor first about going on the diet I went on, and #2 - not all episodes are caused by mental or emotional triggers. And that was a VERY important lesson.

Isn't 20/20 hindsight wonderful? :)

Remember that God loves you and so do I!
Michele