: Symptoms are like a vehicle and triggers are like your gas.
Your wife reacts to certain situations and actions with symptoms, because of bipolar disorder. So for a very long time your wife has been treated probably with therapy and mood stabilizing drugs (This is a very important part of stabilizing your wife) but once she has become stabile it is vital that you both dig deeper and find out what is making the vehicle drive. Triggers are the gas, and a vehicle cannot drive very far or at all for that matter if there is no gas in the car. When we look at bipolar in this way we can quickly see that we do need to treat symptoms and triggers simultaneously to really get the most out of preventing bipolar disorder to take control of your wife. Outside of medication, this is a very important technique that we must take into action for helping our wives. This technique can be accomplished rather easily anywhere and at anytime.
I would like for you to make a list of triggers, if your wife is capable of partaking in this activity with you that would be very beneficial. You both should be able to come up with a list of triggers almost effortlessly if you‘ve been dealing with this for some time now, I imagine you know at least a couple of potential triggers that can set your wife into the symptoms category. I will give you a quick list of some of my wife’s triggers so that you can get the idea of what I’m talking about. I made this list about 6 months ago, the list has been added to quite a bit, and some things have been removed as well.
COMMON TRIGGERS FOR MY WIFE
• Arguments(this is a top trigger for my wife)
• Routine changes
• Stress related with a toddler
• Caffeine use
• Shopping
• Social events
• Poor diet( consuming to much sugar, another wife biggie)
• Alcohol use( another popular trigger for my wife)
• Lack of exercise
• Lack of sleep
• Too much sleep
• Listening to negative internal dialogue( research shows people with bipolar disorder are very susceptible to this trigger, often without being conscious of it)
• Everyday tasks
• Housework
• Feeling overly committed
• Feeling bored/stir crazy
That is a good portion of my wife’s trigger list that we created together. Like I said some things have been removed and some have been added over time, that’s ok though. It’s good to have the list handy and available for review at any time.
It is extremely important that we give ourselves and our wives slack during difficult times associated with bipolar disorder. Because of your wife’s bipolar disorder she may have a very small allowance for meeting demands, and once that cup overflows she shuts down and triggers create her bipolar symptoms. We must remember that it does not mean that you are strong and your wife is weak because of bipolar disorder, it simply means that your wife’s brain chemistry is wired much different than yours. This can cause confusion in partners at times, certain situations, events, people; all are experienced in a different way than you. Usually your wife cannot handle everyday stress in the same manner as you or I would. It can be very challenging to accept this at times, and realize that they are beautiful for thinking so differently. It is very common trait in bipolar disorder for people (especially women) to be very sensitive during stressful situations.
Where‘s the closest gas station?
It is very important for your wife to realize that triggers are the seed that creates bipolar symptoms. If we stop fueling the car (triggers), we cannot drive (symptoms). Most often medical help is given to help treat the symptoms, because that is usually the most dangerous part of bipolar episodes when they are unstable. We must help our wives make a trigger list, and become consciously aware of their common, high triggers. It is not uncommon for a small trigger to get set into motion and not manifest into symptoms for days or weeks. In fact it is extremely common for bipolar patients to hit a very small trigger, let’s bad traffic(small trigger), that then leads into them being late for work(medium trigger). Where people without bipolar could usually shake this off and carry on throughout our day without a second thought. Someone with bipolar disorder might get so stressed about the traffic that caused them to be late, that they then feel like they are having a panic attack (large trigger). These triggers very often have snowball effects and can happen almost daily unless consciously practiced to realize triggers and use techniques to help level them out again, along with their medications and therapy.
