Refined Sugar

[CRSeaside]

I do better without refined sugar in my diet with my bipolar challenges.
  There's something wrong with sugar & mental health.
     What do you think?

[CRSeaside]

I never learned to type & only have this iPhone to work with. OR I'd write longer posts like yours. Ha!

[weaver71]

"So to be a healthy Bipolar also entails having perfect body health. ( nearly impossible)."

There is some of that all-or-nothing thinking, that my opiate use made me very familiar with. Either I have to be in "perfect body health," or it is nearly impossible to be healthy at all. That puts conditions on potential, either/or becomes the only choices to consider. Like liberal or conservative, Christian or Pagan, Right or Wrong, everything in our world is bipolar, there are no other options, according to people's limited ability to think for themselves. My opiate addiction and first 2 years off opiates kept me thinking this way, though I was trying not to and couldn't see how to stop thinking in a limited way. I think that physical health does play a major role, but I don't think prefect health or psychosis are the only choices to consider for me.

Just like I made adjustments to mostly eliminate simple sugars, I have learned ways to MOSTLY eliminate my physical limitations. Part of that was practicing acceptance, by not allowing myself to develop expectations of myself or anything. I have desires, dreams, ambition, but cannot afford to be attached to the outcome of any effort or anything that happens to me. I was always complimented for doing the work of 3 men, but I was destroying my body, by mind over matter.  As I age, mind over matter will work, but the consequences have escalated. Now, mind over matter means letting go of the expectation of doing something in a certain time, or doing something at all. I've had to reduce how much I do in a day, not do some things that I know I used to always do. My mind is what prevents me from exhausting my body and my body is what prevents me from exhausting my mind. Body nor mind have to be in "perfect health," but they neither one can be allowed to get really sick either. Balance is the key for me on this one, all-or-nothing will leave me with nothing.

When my mind is racing and tired, I use my body to control myself, as much as I can. I go rest. When my body is pushing and slow, I use my mind to control myself, as much as I can, I go rest. That was a very frustrating practice at first, I never 'feel' like resting my manic mind or my energetic/tired body. Because my feelings and needs don't line up all the time, I have to have the plans in place and slowly change my MO to even realize resting and letting go of the situation is an option. I don't feel guilt or shame, for needing to rest or retreat, that probably took longest, still have to work on that some, continually.

Anyway, each little thing I do, like cut out simple sugars, is slowly making this process easier. I am not saying I feel good all the time, I don't really feel a whole lot different than I have most my life, but how I respond is changing and the consequences seem to be less and less. If I have a party I am committed to go to, but my mood changes, I simply don't go. It doesn't matter what is expected of me. I have stopped caring what anyone thinks or how my life is in the material world. I only care about being a good person, no matter how I feel, which can be a real chore, as anyone who has lost control of actions and thoughts in mania can testify.

I still have pain, less than I did on opiates, but enough to stop me in my tracks sometimes. With permanent fractured vertebrae, mild scoliosis, and degenerative arthritis, I have been in pain since age 11 and will feel pain the rest of my life, does that mean it is "nearly impossible" for me to be a healthy bipolar? Does that REALLY mean a life of psychosis is my only remaining option?  Well, I am not letting that limit my potential. It may be true, but I will use my manic delusions to my advantage on this one. Impossible means lack of hope, which is not a state of mind I can afford to be in. My mind goes way outside the box, so just because nobody has thought of how to do it yet, doesn't mean it can't be done. My therapist worries when I say, "I will be the one to discover the true nature of bipolar and how to cope, I will be a "healthy bipolar!" She's coming around though, all my out of this world ambition and lack of limitations of my mind make me a unique case of bipolar, according to my therapist. Faith CAN and DOES move mountains.

Maybe I am the one, maybe I am not, it doesn't really matter to me. What matters is that I continue to believe in myself and ability to find new and better ways to cope than ever before. If it helps someone else, even better, but for now, I have to keep believing in my limitless potential, no matter how I feel.

[Bubulous]

It is hard for me to maintain perfect body health although I agree that it is very important for those with a chemical imbalance.  Every time I went to treatment in Louisville they really incorporated physical activity into my treatment plan and when I worked it right I could totally break free from depression and became resilient to the negative thoughts that caused it.  Great topic bud.

[CRSeaside]

Like the heat exhaustion, or the sugar spikes, anything wrong health wise can send a healthy bipolar into a psychotic break.
  My last episode, for example started with a UTI. It wasn't going away with natural or Pharmacuticals  
  Then while swimming I sunburnt my nose. It refused to heal.
  Well turns out to fight those two infections left me so weak the Bipolar psychosis took hold. I refused to eat drink or sleep.
  Became so psychotic that I lost the ability to speak. ( 2nd time on that weirdness)
  Then as you said. The whole worlds pain became my pain.
   So to be a healthy Bipolar also entails having perfect body health. ( nearly impossible. )

[weaver71]

I was close to heat exhaustion, which is easy for me in mania, while living in Texas. I forget about my physical needs sometimes. I decided to cut out corn syrup and refined sugar, which was only an occasional thing I consumed. Even though I didn't drink or eat much simple sugar anyway, I still had a noticeable difference in endurance and clarity through my days. I think simple sugars ARE a drug, manufactured by man. They go straight to our brain, with very little assimilation or metabolites necessary. Then there is the crash. Those spikes and valleys of sugar highs very easily throw off the balance in the brain. A diabetic is a good example of how extreme this drug can affect a person, it can kill. My kids are also a great example. We have allowed them to eat as much of whatever sugar they want, when they were small and trick or treating. They would spike, they even said they felt manic, like how I act sometimes. Then, they crashed hard, negative, lethargic, and had a hard time concentrating. As important as it is for me to be able to guide or channel my thoughts, simple sugars in high doses are a dangerous drug. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. My kids learned a valuable lesson, they do not consume sugar on those levels, because they could feel how the high was not worth the low. I call simple sugar kid crack, but it effects adults the same way, just takes more sugar to make up for body mass. Caffeine has as much an affect as simple sugars do. I see my kids craving sugar, like it's Oxycontin, it has a powerful affect on the body and mind. They don't eat huge amounts, but they do want to, if it wasn't for the bad side affects, they would be sugar addicts.