Last week, I suffered from extreme irritability, which is often a part of my bipolar illness. I felt absolutely miserable, and I knew I was perfectly awful to be around. I yelled at my husband and my son and flew off the handle continuously.
The problem was I needed to be on more of one of my meds, but due to pride, I was trying to get through that irritable phase on a low dosage of anti-anxiety pills.
Pride can really screw you up if you’re bipolar. Pride can keep you from taking your medicine or keep you from increasing your dosage when you need to. Pride can kill you.
If you have bipolar illness, humility is of the utmost importance. You have to humble yourself and admit that you need help or medication to literally survive.
But the good news is, once I admitted to myself that I was on too low of a dosage of anti-anxiety meds and took the proper dose, I felt much better. I felt like I could cope again.
Through this whole experience I’ve learned that you can (sort of) die from irritability because irritability can snowball into something much worse.
So at the onset of negative feelings, don’t let your pride keep you from doing what you need to do. Take your meds when you need to.