Inside View of Bipolar Disorder: From Emotional Chaos to a Mental Health Warrior

Join Bruce Schutter in our latest podcast episode as we embark on a profound exploration of bipolar disorder, delving deep into its turbulent emotional landscape. With raw honesty, Bruce shares his journey of diagnosis at the age of 40, offering listeners an intimate glimpse into the unpredictable world of bipolar disorder.

Embracing becoming a Mental Health Warrior, the episode transcends mere survival to embrace grace and resilience amidst chaos. Bruce discusses personal tactics for forming an alliance with emotions, empowering listeners to view emotions not as adversaries but as powerful allies for deliberate living.

As layers of struggle are peeled back, the intricacies of bipolar disorder are illuminated, including unequal emotional states, mixed emotions, and rapid cycling. Insights on responding rather than reacting to symptoms provide a mindful approach to managing mental health. Moreover, the episode sheds light on less-discussed symptoms like irritability, racing thoughts, and disrupted sleep patterns, offering a comprehensive understanding and equipping listeners with knowledge to seek support.

With a clear message of hope, Bruce provides a wealth of resources, including books and a challenge coin symbolizing the mental health warrior's journey. It's an invitation to embrace the full spectrum of emotions and live life free from the constraints of bipolar disorder.

This empowering episode not only offers support and resources but also contributes to the broader conversation on mental health, reminding listeners that resilience and wellness are within reach, even amidst the swells of bipolar disorder.

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Bruce Schutter & the Mental Health Warrior Program:

After struggling with Bipolar, Alcoholism and Anxiety Disorder for over 20+ years, I reached a breaking point where I attempted suicide. But with a second chance at life, I set out to find an answer to my life’s challenges. I discovered that Mental Health is the key to triumphing over any challenge in life!

Armed with this knowledge, I created the Mental Health Warrior Program. A new self-help approach, centered on mindset and lifestyle changes, so you can triumph over your life’s challenges!

Each book in the program offers a unique solution, drawn from real-life experiences, for building strong mental health. These books are designed to serve as your daily companion, guiding you on a life-long path to mental wellness. And to further support your journey, I've designed the Mental Health Warrior Challenge Coin – that you can carry with you every day, so you

Chapters

• 0:00 Understanding Bipolar Disorder and Mental Health
• 10:59 Mental Health Warrior Triumph Over Bipolar

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi everybody, bruce Shooter here with the Mental Health Warrior Program podcast, no Surrender. And today what I want to talk about, I'm going to give you a little glimpse, an inside view, into one of my challenges bipolar disorder, and the reason being I want to give that inside glimpse for the people that are on the outside, so people that are friends, family, co-workers, things If you know somebody who's struggling with this, I want to give you some insights so that we can all be on the same playing field and be able to talk openly about this. Now, on the second hand, the second point, the reason I want to talk about bipolar disorder is, if you're struggling with it, I want you to know you're not alone and I want you to know there are things you can do as a mental health warrior to triumph over this challenge each and every day. Because before now, if you've heard my story before, just bear with me for a few seconds here. But before, bipolar disorder, alcoholism, anxiety disorders, all of these fear of emotions combined with those disorders, they led me to where I basically had no control over my life and each and every day I was pulled in numerous directions by those challenges. I had surrendered all control, gave up even trying to deal with my emotions and tried to drink them away. You can obviously tell this is what led me to a very bad place, to where, essentially, I didn't want to be part of this world anymore. Now that is what can happen when we don't take care of our mental health, and I know I've mentioned that before. But today I want to just give you that insight into bipolar, so that we do not let that happen, and I encourage you to become a mental health warrior so that you can gain back that power, like I did.

Speaker 1: 1:44

Now, what does bipolar mean and what has it meant for me? Well, I've had it for forever. I've had it even as a teenager. As a young kid I was probably there. I wasn't diagnosed okay, I didn't get diagnosed until I was 40. But again, I always struggled and always seemed to be on the emotional ends of the spectrum. So I was always bouncing between extreme highs of everything is great and extreme lows of everything is horrible, the worst ever. That really defines what bipolar is, and we're not going to get into all the scientific pieces, but essentially bipolar means you swing to those opposite ends of the emotional spectrum.

Speaker 1: 2:21

So one of the things that I found was I didn't spend equal times in those. So again, it's not one of those areas where you say, well, I was just on top of the world, oh, now I'm back and I'm feeling depressed, but it bounces out because it's a 50-50 split. No, I found a lot of times I spent a large amount of time into depression, pushed me into depression, and I believe that's because one it's a tougher emotion to deal with. Obviously, when things are going really well, you're on top of the world, you'll take on any challenge. But when you're depressed, even basic things like going to take a shower can be tough. So you can imagine, put that throughout your day and trying to exist or try to keep moving forward. If you will, put that throughout your day and trying to exist or try to keep moving forward if you will, I struggled a lot in just trying to keep going because I wanted to live life, but I was a lot of times in depression or on the edges of depression due to bipolar.

Speaker 1: 3:20

Now, one of the interesting things too. I want to bring up and let you know some interesting pieces on and excuse me, here the phone keeps dinging so we're going to turn that down. Didn't turn that off. Sorry about that. One of the things, though, with bipolar is it is also not clear-cut, in that you can actually experience both emotions at the same time. So there are times when I'm elated and completely depressed at the same time. I'm going to let that sink in for a second, because there's also times where I can be very elated and just completed a project, or just completed, maybe, a podcast, and not more than two minutes later, oh, I'm in depression. I messed up, I did terrible on that podcast. That's my type of thinking that bipolar brings to me, so you can imagine it can get very complicated up there in my head, and for people with bipolar, I can make a little joke about it, because it is not something. What I guess.

Speaker 1: 4:16

What I'm trying to say is bipolar is not something that follows the book, the playbook. Now, when we talked and gave an inside view of anxiety that I struggle with, I felt it was a little clear because I could almost sum it up and say fear and worry about everything. It's very hard to sum up bipolar disorder, and you can kind of get what I'm saying just from these first examples. So we have the emotional ends of the spectrum, we have us pinging between those emotional ends Remember, not a lot of middle ground, not where most days they're either depressed or everything's great. The next thing is we have them occurring simultaneously. We have them occurring and they call it rapid cycling, where you go back and forth, back and forth throughout the day and sometimes we also find that it will just send us into depression. Where you find depression because that is one of the tough emotions of the two that it brings up for no reason, like I said, when you're pinging back and forth a lot of time, there is no valid reason. So we have a very big plethora of challenges that we need to deal with Now.

Speaker 1: 5:23

At this point I want to stop and say I know we're trying to talk about a lot and you could imagine. This is why it's so difficult. This is why bipolar is such a tough mental health disorder to manage, because it has so many facets, so many angles to it, so many things to it, and it affects so many parts of your life. Then, because you can imagine, if you are just going to work and you get hit with those emotional ends of the spectrum, well, that's going to make it even tougher to do your job. So what we're going to do, what I want to let you know at this point, before we go any further, is the answer I found is to be a mental health warrior, which is why I created this whole program, because I found that when you can manage your emotions and I mean all emotions, and that is the goal and a goal as a mental health warrior my goal, and your goal too, is to be able to handle the entire emotional spectrum the spectrum of emotions, we'll call it where you have the entire bandwidth, from the greatest to the worst, because that is what life is defined by, that is what is part of life. We cannot skip through and get the full life experience if we don't embrace all of the emotions. So one of the goals as a warrior is to embrace and learn to ally with all our emotions. And I bring this up because that is one of the strengths in battling back and being able to triumph over bipolar depression, because a biggest win I've had is no matter where it sends me and spins me around, or if it sends me from depression to mania. Even at the same time, I have tools and I can get comfortable with those emotions where no longer do I have to seek short-term solutions like running out to drink to hide from things. So I want to put down as this point here's the first step.

Speaker 1: 7:18

Now, we have talked about this and it's one of the core pieces of being a warrior it is to learn to respond, not react to life's challenges. Now, you may have heard that before in some of these others. I will bring it up because it's a mindset rule. It is one of the warrior tools that are out there, and mindset rules number two is learn to respond, not react to life's challenges. I also put it on the Mental Health Warrior Challenge Coin, something we carry with us each and every day in our pocket, and the reason being is this approach, this mindset rule, is so powerful and, particularly for me, it is very powerful in dealing with the three, four, five I keep forgetting, because there's so many mental health disorders I struggle with. But that is because that is typically also what happens. Life rarely gives us one challenge at a time. Defeat it, move on. Usually, we're hit with a lot. So my plan was as warriors, we're going to be well prepared, and it really works well with bipolar, because it also brings a lot of challenges to us.

Speaker 1: 8:26

Now one of the things I wanted to bring up at this point. We kind of set the stage a little bit for what a little glimpse into what bipolar does. We know it's on the emotional ends of the spectrum. We know it can spin us around between those. One of the things, though, is there are these lesser known or other symptoms and things it brings in, and I just want to bring those up real quick because it is again not one of those clear-cut type mental health disorders, and so things like when you're struggling with bipolar, a lot of times your irritability levels are higher. I find I get irritated a little bit faster than a lot of people, which again obviously could lead to anger. Now, that can certainly happen when you're driving, one little thing sets you off. Next thing you're in full-blown road rage Again. Don't like to admit it has happened, but I've learned to respond, not react. So that plays a big role in helping me deal with that symptom.

Speaker 1: 9:20

Now, another symptom is we have trouble sleeping. I have trouble sleeping a lot, and that is because of racing thoughts. So we have the irritability. That's another symptom. We have these racing thoughts, which contributes to the inability to sleep and or sometimes even relax. So I'm kind of putting them together on a little umbrella.

Speaker 1: 9:43

But what happens a lot of times is I will find my thoughts take off, they start racing and those thoughts race because of the emotional state I'm in. So if I'm in a mania state, if I'm in everything is great state, they can take off and I can think of a hundred things we need to do today. And then, if I'm in depressive state, I can think of a hundred things I will never get to or will do wrong or will be wrong. So you can see the challenge there. What happens I find a lot with people is especially myself is these racing thoughts occur when I wake up and it's two in the morning and then my head kicks into gear. I'm going to snap my fingers real loud here, because that's what happens. It's like bam, I went from being peacefully asleep, I woke up, for whatever reason, and my mind started racing. Now this has also happened during the day, when I get involved in a lot of projects and things. I have to be a little careful there, because your mind can start racing and taking off and you may start taking on too many projects or setting unrealistic guidelines or deadlines, things like that Now, all of those, all of these things again racing thoughts, inability to sleep we can use warrior tools.

Speaker 1: 10:59

Now, today, I just want to keep focusing on remember to respond, not react. I'm not trying to downplay that we don't need a lot of tools. I'm not trying to say there are not, because the warrior has a wealth of tools and solutions that we can use, but what we want to do is have some core ones that we can use throughout each and every day. And when you learn to respond, not react, you give yourself a little pause to evaluate things, to make a real choice and see if those racing thoughts are telling the truth, and then make a calm answer, or actually do that at night, where I see all these things that are going on and I'll say, wait, I can handle all these, because half of these are just normal ones, that I'm on top of those projects. So again, you can start to see how powerful this is in helping deal with all the other symptoms of bipolar.

Speaker 1: 11:53

Now, another one is worry and anxiety. Now, again, sometimes it's hard because, again, a lot of these mental health disorders or a lot of mental health challenges. There's a lot of gray area in between them. So I have anxiety disorders and I have a generalized anxiety disorder, but my actual bipolar and putting me in those emotional states at the end of the spectrum and then doing things like racing thoughts or the irritability and the anger, well, it brings up the anxiety levels. So a lot of times it's very hard to tell exactly which challenge is causing it, but increased anxiety, increased worry about things, comes along with bipolar, and a lot of times that is what can occur, as I mentioned, when you get swung into it for no reason, but it brings in that worry.

Speaker 1: 12:46

Now, one of the things that we're trying to talk about here, one of the ideas is, by identifying all these different issues and symptoms, if you will, that this allows us to have starting points and this allows us to actually exercise our power as mental health warriors, because then there are specific tools we can stockpile into our arsenal. There are specific approaches we can use to slow the process down, like learning to respond, not react, and all of that will go towards helping you learn to manage and triumph over your bipolar disorder, because it will and has worked for me, because what it has done is it gives me time to process the emotions and then make better choices and not to basically take at face value what bipolar wants us to think. And I have found that is actually one of the strongest ways to triumph each day over bipolar disorder. Because you can imagine and I was even looking just now at my notes because I have a list of other lesser known symptoms and then I go back to the main symptoms and you can imagine at this point that you're probably a little overwhelmed, and I understand it, and I'm overwhelmed even talking to you about it, because there's so many angles and so many areas of bipolar disorder and that's why it's so tough to get a grasp on in order to triumph over. But I want to leave you with this last big thought, the biggest thing.

Speaker 1: 14:22

Everything we mentioned about today whether it's a lesser known symptom, some of the major symptoms, what is bipolar is defined at it is all about your emotions and again, this is exciting. This is powerful, because mental health warriors, their core piece of being a warrior is we are going to ally with our emotions, we're going to make friends with them, we're going to learn from them and we are going to get comfortable with them, because when you do that, you get to tap into their power and you can learn to then triumph over any challenge, including bipolar disorder, each and every day. And the reward for this and this is the best part then you get the full life experience. You get to not be held back or be afraid or stop a pursuit of something. You can do anything and go after anything because you'll be able to manage your emotions and that allows you to take any steps. You need to do those activities to follow that pursuit all along the way, triumphing over each and every challenge. Woo, now, I know that's a lot, but I wanna leave on a very positive message, because bipolar disorder took me down and ran my life for 20 years, but it has stopped having that power over me.

Speaker 1: 15:38

When I became a mental health warrior, make sure you go to BruceShootercom, type in mental health warrior program in any of the search engines and you should find your way there to our websites, and you will find a free book. You will find other books that are out there. There's nine books to help you be fully armed as a mental health warrior and they will help you in various areas of your life to take care of and build strong mental health. So, again, we can triumph over any challenge. You'll see more information about the Mental Health Warrior Challenge Coin and you'll just see more information about other free resources, like this podcast and other blog articles and things to keep you going each and every day. Because I'm going to leave this with you that last statement that I try to close and remember on most podcasts the power to change your life is within your grasp. The only question is are you going to say yes, and I know you will, so I look forward to seeing you there and being a mental health warrior with you. Thanks, talk to you later. Bye.