What is one thought you have learned to challenge?
I’ve had to learn to challenge the thought that if I just get a little more—more excitement, more stimulation, more connection—it will finally be enough. It never is.
My brain is really convincing. It can make something feel exciting, harmless, even right in the moment. But what feels good on the inside can quietly create damage on the outside that I don’t fully see until it’s already happened. And that damage doesn’t just affect me. It affects the people I love. My family has felt the impact of decisions that didn’t feel like a problem at the time, and that’s something I have to own.
At the same time, I’ve had to challenge the thoughts on the other end. The ones that tell me nothing matters, that I’m too much, or that it would be easier to disappear. Those thoughts feel just as real.
Living with bipolar for me isn’t just highs and lows. It’s learning not to trust every thought at either extreme, because whether it feels amazing or hopeless, it doesn’t always mean it’s true.
How do you reset after a hard moment?
Sometimes I don’t reset. I just stop myself from making it worse. That alone has been progress.
There are moments where everything feels urgent, like I need to act or chase something right now. There are also moments where everything feels heavy and hard to move through at all. Both can pull me in different directions.
When I can, I rely on movement. Lifting, pickleball, anything that brings me back into my body. Structure helps too, even when I don’t feel like following it.
But the biggest shift has been learning to sit in discomfort instead of reacting to it or shutting down completely. Not every feeling needs to be acted on. Sometimes the win is just getting through the moment without adding more damage to it.
What makes you feel safe with someone?
I feel safest with people who don’t expect consistency from me that I can’t always give.
One of the hardest things for me to accept is how much bipolar has affected my ability to maintain close relationships. I can feel deeply connected one moment, and then pull away the next. It’s not because I don’t care. Something internally just shifts.
That hot and cold has made close friendships really hard for me to sustain. For a long time, I felt like I was failing people. Now I’m learning to be more honest about it, with myself and with others.
I’ve started to accept that I may function better with a wider circle of acquaintances and connections that don’t require constant closeness, instead of forcing relationships I struggle to maintain.
What makes me feel safe is not being expected to be the same version of myself all the time, and not being judged when I’m not.
What makes you feel most alive?
I feel most alive when I’m fully in something and not stuck in my head.
When I’m playing pickleball, lifting, or pushing my body, everything quiets down. I’m not negotiating with my thoughts. I’m just there.
That matters more than people probably realize, because there have been long stretches where my mind felt like a place I didn’t want to be.
There’s also something about honesty that has changed things for me. For a long time, I looked put together on the outside while struggling with both ends of this. Feeling too much, and at times, feeling like nothing at all.
Letting people see even a small part of that has made me feel more alive than trying to hide it ever did.
I’m still learning. Still catching patterns I don’t always get right. But I’m doing it with more awareness, more ownership, and a lot less pretending.
