The best I can manage while hypomanic is to try and channel the excess energy into something positive and productive, like writing or housework or exercise. Sometimes the anxiety and irritability mount to the point where all I want to do is hide and play mindless video games or watch mindless TV shows-- anything I can do to distract myself from racing thoughts and irrational fears.
Tonight I had my weekly DBSA (Depression-Bipolar Support Alliance) meeting, and I was asked to co-facilitate (help lead the discussion) for the first time. This was at once an exciting honor and a mildly terrifying new territory, but my co-facilitator had lots of experience and helped me a lot. We talked about our anxiety levels over the course of the week, as well as what we did to deal with stress and anxiety.
I realized that I am not the only person who deals with stress and anxiety in either an unhealthy way (drinking, drugs, self-harm, cigarettes, isolation, etc.) or else by trying to find a distraction. I am aware that unhealthy stress relief is a distraction of sorts but I obviously don't recommend or condone it, even if I've done everything on that example list and still haven't quit cigarettes. But for people who are managing their illness and using healthy methods, distraction from bad anxiety or stress is sometimes the best method.
Not all distractions are bad, either. Watching a fun movie or an episode of a TV show, reading an interesting book (if you can focus; if not, don't stress about it), playing a game, going for a walk or another type of exercise like yoga, gardening, meditation, prayer, making art or music, writing-- all of these are healthy distractions. Not all of them might work for every individual, of course. I can tell you that I'm truly awful at gardening and the thought of watering plants and weeding flowerbeds stresses me out at least on a low level. But obviously writing helps me somewhat.
Everyone at the meeting has their own chosen distraction. One woman loves exercise, another man loves art, while still another loves gardening. What I felt I should do as facilitator was to listen to what caused people anxiety, and then to ask what they did for stress relief and what made them feel happy. It taught me a lot, and hopefully it helped people to focus on the positive action they could take as opposed to the negative feelings.
To be clear, people come to DBSA and other forms of therapy when they are ready to start taking their treatment seriously and managing their lives. Every level of trying to deal with our illnesses is present in the meetings, from people who have been successfully managing their disease for years to people like me who are only just starting to take their treatment seriously and get their lives on track. I would recommend it to anyone who is dealing with depression, anxiety, bipolar, or borderline personality disorder, and to their friends or family. It's free, first of all, and it can be a huge help to know that you're not alone (at least it was for me).
I'm still riding that hypomanic wave, trying to stay on the surf- or skateboard or whatever hideous piece of too-narrow support is between me and the turbulence. Every time I go to a meeting and talk to people with similar illnesses, if not always similar problems, it gives me a bit more hope that I, too, can manage my disease successfully.
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