Transience
It would seem that the main thing anyone with bipolar should learn first is the idea of transience. That everything changes is a fundamental aspect of being bipolar, yet it is very hard to remember, to learn in the first place. All moods feel like unchangeable moods. Maybe that’s their fundamental aspect. And yet all moods change. To be stuck in a single mood is to become inhuman, to be an animal stuck in its aspect for life. Yet even animals shift their moods from time to time, so perhaps nothing changes more than mood. When I’m depressed I’m doomed to my mood and when I’m up, I’m blessed with my mood but in both cases I don’t believe that this mood is going to change. But everything passes away, and if I can accept the transience of other things, I must accept the transience of my moods and feel better. I’m in a down mood and have been for over a week, but there’s no reason to believe that it will continue. It won’t continue. I’m taking drugs to keep the bad mood from becoming worse, to put a floor under my emotions so I don’t become suicidal, the ultimate mood that cannot change. So, maybe to be suicidal is to finally and ultimately believe that moods cannot change. Then we must always remember transience.
Painting by http://www.amberas.blogspot.com/