Inside Bipolar Podcast: Overcoming Negative Thoughts and Embracing Positivity with Bipolar Disorder

Producer’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Announcer: You’re listening to Inside Bipolar, a Healthline Media Podcast, where we tackle bipolar disorder using real-world examples and the latest research.

Gabe: Hey everybody, welcome to the podcast. My name is Gabe Howard and I live with bipolar disorder.

Dr. Nicole: And I’m Dr. Nicole Washington, a board-certified psychiatrist.

Gabe: And we just want to remind everybody that Dr. Nicole and I love to get your questions and feedback. Remember, if you have anything to tell us about the show, positive or negative, you can hit us up at show at PsychCentral.com. I swear that we love to hear from you. Now today we’re going to be discussing breaking the cycle of negative thinking with bipolar disorder. And I have to say, Dr. Nicole, I am very guilty of this negative cycle of thinking.

Dr. Nicole: Like in general, you’re just a glass half empty kind of guy.

Gabe: It’s really interesting that you ask the question like that, because I do wonder this. There are people who do not live with bipolar disorder who are pessimists, who the glass half empty and half full analogy that you just used wasn’t invented for bipolar disorder, but it seems like anywhere I google any support group I go to and I’m like, I ruminate on the negative all the time. People are like, yup, that’s bipolar disorder right there. And I and I think people with bipolar disorder have started to internalize that.

Dr. Nicole: Yeah, I know tons of folks who are glass half empty, kind of Eeyore-y kind of folks. And a lot of them do not have bipolar disorder. So I guess the question is, how do you how do you determine if it’s just your personality or if it’s if it’s the bipolar disorder?

Gabe: So I’ve thought about this a lot, and I’m glad that you framed the question that way. The first thing is, is I never miss an opportunity to point out that you might just be this way. This might not have anything to do with bipolar disorder at all. You just you just trend to the negative.

Dr. Nicole: That, that is possible.

Gabe: This,, this, yes. This could just be your personality. However, when, when it has to do with bipolar disorder, it’s sort of hard to remove that if you’re constantly thinking things like, I’m never going to get better, I’m never going to get well, nobody understands me. This mood state is never going to shift. Whatever symptom I’m in right now is the symptom I’m going to stay in forever and worse. I mean, I haven’t even gotten into, you know, the really, really scary symptoms of bipolar, like suicidality or suicidal thinking or self-harm. It’s really hard not to see that through the lens of bipolar disorder and

Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Gabe: Have somebody say, well, you’re just pessimistic. Well, yeah, but you’re pessimistic about bipolar disorder. Therefore we get back to breaking the cycle of negative thinking with bipolar disorder. So it tends to marinate together.

Dr. Nicole: No I agree that it does it, it may be that you think negatively about most things. And bipolar disorder just happens to be the thing of that moment. But I guess there are folks who are specifically negative just about their bipolar disorder symptoms and may find the ability to be positive about most other things.

Gabe: There’s also other things to consider. For example, if all of your negative thoughts are just bipolar disorder and everything else is fine, then that’s a pretty good indicator that it’s bipolar disorder. Or if this only comes up in certain mood states like for example, during a depressive episode, you’re very pessimistic. But

Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Gabe: Then during a normal mood state, you’re very optimistic or a realist or somewhere in between, because most people are not one thing most of the time. You know, it’s fascinating, right? When we talk about the negative thoughts associated with bipolar disorder, most people are like, well, yeah, there’s lots of negative thoughts associated with bipolar disorder. And then I’m like, what about when you’re manic? Oh no, the glass is super full. Then it’s not only full, it’s full of liquid gold.

Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

Gabe: Everything is beautiful. So even in this negative rumination state of bipolar disorder, there’s still the hypomania and mania and grandiose thinking where we tend to be extraordinarily optimistic to a fault.

Dr. Nicole: Yeah. The glass is overflowing for sure. When you. When you’re. When you’re manic and hypomanic. That glass is running over. But I think you bring up a really good point about knowing your symptoms and knowing your depression, and knowing if this is who you are at baseline, or is this one of your depression symptoms? That takes a lot of digging and a lot of a lot of hard work, it sounds like.

Gabe: It is a lot of hard work. Bipolar disorder is a lot of hard work. I, I’m, I’m super glad to hear a board-certified psychiatrist say that. And I imagine that our listeners are as well, because so often it gets tabled. And here’s another, you know, stinking thinking moment. So often it gets tabled as just be compliant. Just follow your doctor’s orders. Just take your medicine as prescribed and you will be well.

Dr. Nicole: And bipolar disorder is delicate. It you know, I’ve said before it’s it’s it’s not delicate like a flower. It’s delicate like a bomb. Like it’s delicate. We have to keep you or we want to keep you right in the middle. We don’t want you too high. We don’t want you too low.

Gabe: It is absolutely worth repeating that it is very difficult for people who live with bipolar disorder to know where they begin and where bipolar disorder ends, and vice versa. Speaking for me personally, I never really had to think about this before I was diagnosed because my moods just changed. Because that’s the cyclical nature of bipolar disorder. So I was very pessimistic in my depressive state. I was very optimistic in my grandiose and manic states, and I was much more reasonable and thoughtful in my middle states. And I didn’t really consider which was which because I wasn’t in control. So I think when you reach that recovery and you’re trying to decide, you’re looking at your past and you’re like, well, I, I was very optimistic about that job. And it just so happens to line up with one of those positive mood states, or I was very pessimistic about this relationship. Well, it just so happens that that lined up with a, a depressive mood state. But now you’re stable, you’re in recovery. And that new job or that new relationship or that new whatever starts and you’re trying to decide how to respond to it. For many of us, this is the first time that we’ve had full control of our faculties. We’re now in recovery. Bipolar disorder is no longer playing a giant role, and we’re like, well, I’m going to be very positive about the job because that worked out well, and I’m going to be very negative about relationships because that turned out poorly. And then everybody’s like, well, but wait a minute. You’re using history to decide how you feel about these things. And that that history is very colored by either poorly treated or untreated bipolar disorder. And I think that’s what makes it difficult for people like me with bipolar disorder, because I don’t I can’t use history. I’ve now got to learn to think for the very first time. And in my case, I was almost 30.

Dr. Nicole: Yeah, a lot of people lose time in those years. For some people, when they’re trying to achieve stability, they just lose time. People tell me all the time, I don’t even remember what I was like before I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, because I was either so young or so many years have passed and I and now I look back and I wonder how much of my life before I was officially diagnosed was affected by my bipolar illness that I didn’t know I had yet. So it is very difficult to figure it out. The longer you can be close to stable, the easier it becomes. So it’s a matter of getting there and then working your hips off to stay there so that you can start to establish a what is my baseline? A lot of times, especially in the hospital setting, when we’re making decisions about is this person ready to go home or not? You know, is this a symptom that we need to maybe keep them a little bit longer to manage? And one of the things that always comes up is, well, is, is this their baseline? Is this how they normally are? I don’t want to keep somebody in the hospital or keep trying to medicate somebody in my office for something that is just who they are at their core. It’s so it’s very hard on my end to, to try to figure out, what do I do? What do I offer this person? Do I offer them nothing? Or do we try to adjust to see if we can correct those things? But really the information comes the closer we can stay to that middle ground that we talked about.

Gabe: And the middle ground is different for every single person, which makes conversations like breaking negative thought cycles very, very difficult. Because, for example, I don’t think it’s a negative thought cycle when I think that I can’t go base jumping. Right. I’m almost 50 years old. I am not athletic, I am I am very anxiety ridden. I am not a person that should be jumping off of a building. Right? But for example, like you said, Dr. Nicole, if you have somebody who has this history of doing this, they’re a stunt person. They they’re very athletic. They’ve done this many times. And suddenly there is a sea change. They go from, hey, I have base jumped off every building in the world and now I’m afraid of it. That could be cause for concern. So I want to I want to put that analogy to the test. How do you do it when, when you’re talking to people and they say things like, I don’t want to base jump. How do you know? Well, that’s not good. You should want to, because I imagine that’s not something that you can push back so easily on, given you don’t know the person all that well.

Dr. Nicole: Listen, I’m never going to encourage anybody to go base jumping. I don’t care who they are, I don’t care. I don’t care if they’re my friends, family or patient. I am going, don’t do that. Like, that’s great. You should never do that again. Ever, ever, ever do that again. I’m not a risk taker. I’m not a I’m not, I’m not. So I’m not ever gonna encourage you to go base jumping. But I do have to be concerned with what were you like before? What kind of things do you like now and why? If your why is well, I’m taking meds now that I think don’t keep me as sharp as I, you know used to be when I was doing it before and I don’t want to put myself in that kind of danger. I can’t argue with you on that, because I can’t tell you that you don’t feel something. I can’t tell you that. So I wouldn’t I wouldn’t make an argument with you. I’d say, okay, so what are some things we can do to fulfill that same need, that same hole, that base jumping field for you? What are some things we can maybe put in its place? That’s a that’s a fantastic conversation to have.

Dr. Nicole: But if you tell me that you’re not doing it because you just don’t enjoy it, you don’t have the motivation to do the things that you used to do. Then I may think, okay, well, maybe this is depression. Maybe this is depression talking. Maybe that’s why you don’t want to do that thing. But if you tell me, well, now that I have this bipolar disorder, I just think all the all the fun in life is gone. I’m bipolar, and I should just go sit at home and do nothing and do bipolar things. I don’t know what bipolar things are, but you know those, you know, if that. If that’s where you where you lie, then maybe it’s an acceptance issue. Like are we having an issue with you accepting like, oh, I have this thing. Because sometimes the stigma that you have about yourself far exceeds the stigma that anyone else can put on you. So, you know, that can also be a part of a person’s struggles with kind of going back to things that they used to enjoy. So we just have to talk and figure out what’s what.

Gabe: I’m really glad that you brought up acceptance, because accepting the illness and not accepting the illness, I think, is the most black and white example of positive thinking versus negative thinking. And I think if you don’t accept the illness, it is a form of negative thinking. Now, I’m going to make the broad assumption that the reason that you’re not accepting the illness is because of denial. We’re going to assume that you are 100% have bipolar disorder. I don’t get confused with people who are questioning their diagnosis, who are looking for more information, who are working with their Dr. Nicole’s, to make sure they have the right. That’s a completely separate thing. We are going to assume that 100% bipolar disorder, but you haven’t accepted yet.

Dr. Nicole: Sometimes that acceptance, though, isn’t the person who is saying, well, I don’t even think that’s what I have. Sometimes it’s a matter of accepting I have this thing, but it doesn’t mean my life is over. So it’s education. It’s it’s accepting the fact that I can still live life even though I have this thing, because I see a lot of people who are very aware they have bipolar disorder, they get it. They can identify their manic episodes, their depression episodes. They are very confident. And yes, that is what I have. Here’s what my episodes look like. It was terrible. And they take their meds and they do all those things. But there is this like black cloud of bipolar disorder that kind of hangs over them and everything that goes wrong for them. They assume, oh, it’s my bipolar disorder, or I can’t do this because it’s my bipolar disorder. It’s like they’re in a battle or they’re in a fight with their bipolar disorder, and their bipolar disorder is winning. There is this constant struggle of, well, I can’t do this. Because of that, something bad happened to me. It must be my bipolar disorder. It’s that I think I see that a whole lot more than the other.

Gabe: I do think that one of the negative cycles is to blame everything on bipolar disorder, because a lot of times, some of the worst things that have happened to us in, in our lives were when we were symptomatic. That’s it’s not trauma bonding, but it kind of is. Right. Like you went through this horrible experience with bipolar disorder. This thought was formed and wedged into your head. You have this very visceral reaction and fear to it coming back. And then somebody says, no, no, no, no, no, you don’t need to worry about it anymore because you’re treated. It’s hard to get rid of that negative cycle, because I do think there’s so much of it that is not only rooted in the disorder, but is also rooted in fear, fear of coming back there. So I think some of this negative thinking of it’s bipolar, it’s bipolar, it’s bipolar is because for some of us, myself included, it almost always was bipolar. But this is where we talk about and we’ve talked about on this show before that just because something was bipolar disorder doesn’t mean that it’s not your responsibility. And this is why I talk about how empowering it is. I think a fight against that negativity is to acknowledge that it happened,

Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Gabe: Acknowledge that, like it or not, you had some role in it. But you also need to acknowledge that you now have more control going to your Dr. Nicole taking your medicine, going to therapy, learning coping skills. Those are all positive things that you are doing to control that negativity. So when we talk about fighting the negative, you know, symptoms or the negative thoughts with bipolar disorder, we need to give ourselves credit for all the things that we’re doing. But I do want to say, Dr. Nicole, you’re right. If every single time something goes wrong you decide that it’s bipolar disorder, you’re going to miss all the times. It’s not. I would love to tell you, and I’m being as honest as I can every time I make a mistake. I would love to think that it was bipolar disorder, because that would mean that at my core, I’m perfect now. Anybody hearing this should think that’s ridiculous. Nobody’s perfect. And that’s kind of my point. Sometimes I just snap at my wife because I had a bad day and I made a mistake. And I’m human. Sometimes I make a bad decision because I’m human. And sometimes I’m experiencing a symptom of bipolar disorder. And I think blaming it 100% on bipolar disorder is sort of a scapegoat and feeds into that negative thinking.

Dr. Nicole: Yeah, I don’t know that I ever thought about it that way. As far as because so many negative things happened in a mood episode, that that was where the negative thoughts came from. I think I always thought about it coming from a place of a lot of times before people are diagnosed, they have very negative thoughts about people who have bipolar disorder, and then once they’re diagnosed, then they are the thing that they had misinformed thoughts about. So then it takes away their confidence in what they can accomplish, what they will be able to accomplish. It takes away all the good things that they thought they were going to do in life, because of the negative thoughts that they had. People tell me all the time like, oh my gosh, even with just major depression, just unipolar depression, people have said to me, wow, like I never knew how people like, I just thought people were lazy or I just, I just thought they just weren’t trying hard enough. And I had no idea what it was like. And I see a lot of people internalize those thoughts about themselves, like, oh, I’ve just been real lazy this last month. I’m like, no, you’ve been depressed this last month, you haven’t been lazy. You’ve been depressed. That’s called low motivation. That’s called low energy. That’s called decreased interest. That’s anhedonia. That is not I’m being lazy. So I have always just thought, oh, that was what came from how they viewed the illness before they actually had the illness.

Gabe: I think you’re right. I know that when I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, the like literally the moment I was diagnosed, I was I was committed to a psychiatric hospital. They said, Gabe, you have bipolar disorder. And the first few thoughts in my head were, oh my God, my family was in danger because I could have been violent, because I believed that stereotype of mental illness and violence. The next thing I thought is, well, since I have bipolar disorder, it means I’m a mental patient. It means I need to live in a group home or some sort of asylum, because I believe that every single person with mental illness lived someplace. So you can imagine how. And I believed all kinds of other things, and I, I beat myself up over it for a lot, and I still trip over, you know, stigma things, for example. I don’t have children because at one point in my life I believed that I would not make a good father because I live with bipolar disorder.

Dr. Nicole: I see a lot of people do it career wise, or as far as their educational goals. I see people who say, oh, I wanted to do this. But then I got diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Oh, I, you know, wanted to be a doctor or I wanted to be a teacher. But then I got bipolar and I decided I wasn’t going to pursue that. I see it all the time. And trust me, I have people who are teachers and lawyers and doctors and judges and all kinds of things in my practice who have bipolar disorder and who are functioning and thriving in their careers. For some people, it might halt you in your tracks. You might decide, nope, not worth it to me anymore to do that. But I hate to see when people just automatically assume that having a diagnosis like bipolar disorder prevents them from achieving their educational or career goals. I don’t like that part of it, and I see that a lot.

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Dr. Nicole: And we’re back discussing breaking the cycle of negative thinking with bipolar disorder.

Gabe: I can absolutely relate to that 100%. I think that the average person listening when they hear anybody suffering from an anxiety disorder or panic attacks, they immediately think that you can’t be a public speaker. Well, I suffer from an anxiety disorder and I have panic attacks and well, I run my mouth constantly on every stage. And everybody who give me a microphone because that’s not what does it. So if you do believe these things, I, I’m 100% aligned with what you’re saying. Dr. Nicole if you believe the stereotype, if you believe that people with anxiety disorders can’t be public speakers and you want to be a public speaker, you’re going to decide not to be. I think the solution to that and the takeaway for the audience is one, there’s all kinds of examples of people with bipolar disorder who are doing all of the things that people were told they couldn’t do. Two, there’s lots of examples throughout American history of people being told that they can’t do something because of their, their, their race, their culture, their gender, etc. and they rise to the occasion time and time and time again. So I think we need to have that mindset with bipolar disorder that there’s a big difference between it will be more difficult because you have bipolar disorder

Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Gabe: And it’s impossible because you have bipolar disorder. Having that correct mindset, I think is a is a huge protective factor against those negative thoughts.

Dr. Nicole: I think that’s great that you brought up the fact that it might be harder. So you have to make some decisions if you want to be a doctor. Being in the E.R. might not be the best setting for you as a physician, because of the way the shifts go and the overnights and the days and the midday shifts. And that particular sleep pattern just might not be conducive to you being successful as an emergency medicine doctor. But maybe there are other areas that you can go into that have a more stable sleep pattern that historically have a more stable sleep pattern to help you out. If you’re someone who your sleep is very vital to your stability. We may have to make some adjustments to how you practice medicine, or how you practice law or how you schedule your day, or what that looks like. We may have to make some adjustments because of the fact that you have this illness that can be very sensitive, but it doesn’t mean you can’t do it at all.

Gabe: And there’s the takeaway to combat negative thinking, you can be realistic that it’s going to be harder. And one of the things that you kept saying, Dr. Nicole, is that you might have to you might have well, you’ve got to figure out what those mights are, right?

Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Gabe: And that is work. It’s some people can walk in to a room and it’s easy for them. Other people walk into a room and it’s easy for them because they’ve worked really hard at it and more often than not, from our vantage point, we don’t know who is who. And I think that’s really important to understand. We people living with bipolar disorder often psych themselves out. We decide that it cannot be done versus deciding that it can be done. But we have to be open and honest with our Dr. Nicole’s, with our support system, with our therapists. We’re going to have to put in this extra effort and then maybe eventually we won’t have to put in that extra effort. We’ll reach the promised land and will be the one who walks in and makes it look easy. It is certainly easier to be a podcaster in year ten than it was ten years ago, but that doesn’t make it easy. And it doesn’t mean that I didn’t overcome a lot to do it. And I think people do need to understand that. We tend to judge ourselves by where we are now, and we judge others by where they are now. The problem is, is they’re much further in the journey because we tend to look up to people who are where we want to be. And, you know, it’d be really easy for me to say, well, Dr. Nicole became a doctor and it was really easy. I mean, she practices every day, but I probably wouldn’t have felt that way if I knew you year one of medical school. You know, I’m going to I’m just going to take a I’m going to assume that at least once you had a hard time on a test making a I’m going to assume at least once you were worried. I’m

Dr. Nicole: [Laughter] At least once.

Gabe: Imagining it wasn’t all smooth sailing.

Dr. Nicole: At least once. I might have had a sleepless night. Maybe one time. So. But. But even comparing yourself with someone who has bipolar disorder. Because no two people’s bipolar disorder are the same, some people have to be more diligent about some things than others, so you can’t even compare yourself to other people with illness. So I think that’s why it’s very important to know your illness. So you become an expert on you and your bipolar disorder. Because while yes, there are general criteria and generalities that we can use for everyone, you know your illness and you know what you need and you know who you are and what is you and what is your bipolar disorder? That that’s very unique to you. So it is important to know those things. And really you’re only in competition with yesterday’s you not necessarily the other person who has bipolar disorder. Because even that you’ll fall down a hole that is a dark and just not a good place to be.

Gabe: As you were talking, Dr. Nicole, I was also thinking about how often we don’t give ourselves credit for our success. Now you’re probably thinking, what does that have to do with negative thinking? Well, if all you’re doing is thinking about all the times you stumbled, all of your shortcomings, all of the issues that you were caused by bipolar disorder, it’s really easy to get stuck in this mindset that everything is terrible. When we’re talking about a protective factor to stop these negative thoughts, we’ve got to give ourselves credit for our success. It’s certainly okay to acknowledge that you snapped at a friend or that you said something insensitive, but it’s also important to acknowledge that you are a good friend and that you made amends for that. I think so often we focus on the I got tired, I got symptomatic, I was depressed, I let the person down because of bipolar disorder, that we don’t give ourselves credit for all the times we showed up,

Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Gabe: And I know I have this problem a lot. I think a lot of my friendships all the time. That bipolar disorder caused me to be snippy or caused me to no call, no show. But I don’t think about all the times that they called and I showed about all the times I. I rode in on the horse and saved the day. I

Dr. Nicole: [Laughter]

Gabe: Never think about those when I lie awake at night, I don’t think about the times I help my friends moved.

Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Gabe: I think about the time I said something mean, got angry and drove home. And that doesn’t serve me because it creates this idea that I’m 100% bad and 0% good, when in actuality, if I really take a deep breath and look at the whole picture. Yes, those things that I described are wrong and I owe my friends amends, but I but I have dozens upon dozens of things that are well.

Dr. Nicole: That’s where therapy comes in. You know, we

Gabe: Yes.

Dr. Nicole: Talk so much about medication and bipolar disorder and take your meds, take your meds, take your meds. And that is very important. But this is a great place for therapy to be valuable and for you to be able to say, oh, this is something I can definitely work on in therapy, because so often my patients with bipolar disorder are looking at me thinking, why do I need to go to therapy? Therapy and going to stop me from getting manic therapy? It’s gonna keep me stable. But this is it. This is what therapy is helpful for. It’s helpful for you to see who are you and who are you within your illness, and what are the good things you’ve done and what are the maybe not so great things you’ve done? I mean, we touched on earlier, sometimes we blame things on the bipolar disorder, that it’s not bipolar disorder. You just may be an angry little nugget at baseline. So maybe you’re just maybe you’re just an angry nugget and that’s just who you are as a person. That might be something you want to work on, if nothing else for you to figure out. How do I differentiate my anger at baseline from the anger I experience when I’m depressed, or the anger I experienced when I’m in a manic episode? Those are fantastic things to uncover in therapy and to really work on, to try to identify. So, this is ripe. This is ripe for the picking. This is therapy stuff right here.

Gabe: One of the things I love about therapy is no matter how hard any Dr. Nicole in the world tries, there will never be a medication that can reframe something. Now, reframing is a coping skill that I learned very early on, where you take the thing that happens to you and you reframe it in another way. And the example that was given to me when I first learned this is your car breaks down. Reframe it as I own a car. Okay, so your car breaking down is a negative, but you owning a car is a positive. You owning a car, a reasonable conclusion of car ownership is maintenance or breaking down. So yes, it’s frustrating, but you also need to acknowledge that you’re in a position to own a car. Another reframe on that is I put some money aside, or at least I have savings, etc. So, yes, you’re still acknowledging the negative of the car breaking down, but you’re acknowledging the positives of owning the car, being able to afford the car, having a mechanic in the family who can help you out, or whatever your case may be. I utilize this a lot because it’s just so easy to to get bogged down in the quagmire of this is terrible, this is terrible, this is terrible. And when I reframe these things, I have to acknowledge, hey, you own a car. In order to have a bad day at work, you have to have a job. In order to get into a disagreement with a friend. You have to have a friend in order for your wife to snap at you, or your spouse to snap at you, you have to have a spouse. These things aren’t great. You wish these things wouldn’t happen, but they are reasonable outcomes of having cars, jobs, lives, friends and wives and spouses, etc. That really spoke to me in a really, really big way because I was only seeing things

Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Gabe: Negatively and the reframing technique helped me a lot.

Dr. Nicole: And let’s face it, the world’s a pretty negative place. Like, I mean, it just is a pretty negative place. People can be disappointing. The world can be disappointing. It can just be very it can be a very negative place to try to function in. And so reframing is really a great tool that most of us can use because think about everything we see on the news is negative. You rarely see positive uplifting stories on the news. We are a very negative focused, pessimistic society. I feel like and I think it’s so easy. It’s so easy to always focus on the negative stuff. It takes a very intentional person to take the effort to be more positive, or to reframe, or to try to resist all the negativity that’s coming your way. It’s very hard to do, but it can be done. Shout out to all the therapists out there helping people get it together one day at a time.

Gabe: I think that is the takeaway of the episode, that you have to be intentional to be positive and notice you didn’t say people with bipolar disorder have to be intentional to be positive. You said people. And I think this is where we need to acknowledge that people with bipolar disorder live in the same pessimistic, dog-eat-dog world as the rest of us. I do think that our society is trained to look at the negative before we look at the positive, look at our media. What’s the phrase? If it bleeds, it leads. It’s not. If it’s awesome, it goes first. I know that doesn’t have as good of a rhyme, but sincerely, it’s always bad news that leads the front page that leads the news. It’s almost never positive. And in fact, whenever it is positive, we all pessimistically say, huh, slow news day. So even when something positive occurs, we look at it through the lens of negativity. So I think this is partially human nature, but I think that bipolar disorder does have a way of dumping gas on that human nature. But I also want to add in a little negativity and say that it takes work. It’s not an easy thing. You’re not going to just listen to this podcast, decide, oh, I’m a positive person now. We have to work at it and we have to continuously work at it. And I think that’s important for people to understand.

Dr. Nicole: I don’t think that’s negative to say you gotta to work, that’s that there is work to be done and I can do it. That that is the reframe. We’re not going to make having to work for something a negative. So I do not think it’s a negative. I think your ability to recognize it as something that you have to work at, and then to have the ability to put the work in is truly a positive.

Gabe: I do want to take a second and put a little fly in the ointment here. I am all for acknowledging that bipolar disorder is negative. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst nightmare if there was a shot that I could take to cure it. So if I’m trying to get rid of bipolar disorder, it’s hard to say. I’m positive and I, I think maybe I’ve done a little bit of a disservice in the way that I’ve been discussing it. Maybe by saying, you’ve got to be positive, you’ve got to be positive, you’ve got to be. Because then what I’m really afraid of, Dr. Nicole, is that we’re getting into the realm of toxic positivity. Isn’t it okay to think that bipolar disorder is bad? I mean, objectively, isn’t it bad? You’re a doctor trying to prevent people from suffering from bipolar disorder. You’re not a doctor who’s trying to give people bipolar disorder. So I think we can acknowledge that some negativity surrounding bipolar disorder isn’t the illness it. It’s just a reasonable, realistic way of looking at the disorder.

Dr. Nicole: What? I mean, I think what we’re saying is, yes, it sucks. Bipolar disorder is not anything that anybody’s signing up for. But if you have it, it doesn’t mean that you should just view everything as all doom and gloom and nothing’s ever going to go right for you. And you can say that about just about any diagnosis. It’s cancer. It’s diabetes, it’s heart disease. Yes, they all suck. We would not wish them on anybody. But just because you are diagnosed with bipolar disorder doesn’t mean that you just go lay down and just think, well, I might as well give up and go eat worms because I have this thing like there’s still a way for you to find enjoyment in life, even through the struggle of having to deal with this very difficult thing.

Gabe: I think this is where nuance really matters, right? Acknowledging that bipolar disorder is bad isn’t necessarily negative thinking. It’s realistic thinking.

Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Gabe: Right? Illnesses are in fact bad. Acknowledging that something has gone wrong isn’t negative thinking. It’s arguably living in the moment. I acknowledge that this did not go well,

Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Gabe: But if you don’t do anything about it, if you just dwell on the fact that it’s not going well, dwell on the fact that things if you just get stuck in this cycle of negativity that, like you said, I’m just going to go eat worms because everything sucks. You’re never going to get past it. And I think that’s the negative cycle that we’re talking about. I guess I was just worried for a moment that people might hear that we’re trying to, like, elevate bipolar disorder to, hey, it’s awesome. And I really, really, really don’t like to ever give bipolar disorder credit for anything. And as you know, Dr. Nicole people have said, well, you have your career because of bipolar disorder. I’m like, no, I have my career because I worked hard, because I learned podcasting, because I saw an opportunity. I have my topic because

Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Gabe: Of bipolar disorder. And even that one hurts.

Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

Gabe: Even that one hurts to say. So I guess some acknowledgment of negativity is in fact, positive thinking.

Dr. Nicole: It is. And for all you people out there saying that, I think Gabe would be talking about some other random topic on a microphone if he did not have bipolar disorder, because I think he just likes talking loudly about things. So it’s his jam.

Gabe: It is my jam, and I want everybody listening to know that if there was no bipolar disorder, I think you’d still be a doctor, because that’s your jam curing people.

Dr. Nicole: I would still be a doctor. That is accurate.

Gabe: Dr. Nicole, you are awesome as always. All right, everybody, we need a couple of favors as we get out of here. First, wherever you downloaded this episode, please follow or subscribe. It is absolutely free and it ensures that you don’t miss anything. Next, we need you to recommend this to everybody you know. Share the podcast. Share your favorite episode on social media. Send somebody a text message. Mention it in a support group. Don’t make the Inside Bipolar podcast the best kept secret there is any longer. My name is Gabe Howard, and I’m an award-winning public speaker, and I could be available for your next event. I’m also the author of the book “Mental Illness Is an Asshole and Other Observations,” which you can get on Amazon because everything, everything under the sun is on Amazon. But if you want a signed copy with some free swag, hit me up at my website, gabehoward.com.

Dr. Nicole: And I’m Dr. Nicole. You can find me on all social media platforms @DrNicolePsych to see all the things I’m doing at any given moment.

Gabe: And we will see everybody next time on Inside Bipolar.

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