I’m bipolar. With that comes both therapy and medication. Therapy helps sort out my headspace and keeps tabs on where I am at any given moment, but medication is what really helps. Therapy is good for coping skills, for sounding off when frustrated, for validation and a kick in the pants when I’m being my own worst enemy. But because of medication my highs are less frequent and less damaging. The lows are different. They’re harder to medicate overall due to various problems I’ve had over the years. That’s where therapy really shines. But without those tools, I wouldn’t be here. Maybe if I didn’t need them, it wouldn’t have taken so long to get to the path I really wanted, but supposition helps no one.
The reality is, when I’m manic, I can’t focus at all. And on the rare occasions I can work through it my work is absolute trash. The vast majority of my manic writings get thrown out on a constant basis. That’s not to say this is true of everyone. No two people being alike I’m sure there are people that it does work for. But for me? It’s not useable.
It’s also easier to focus when my mood isn’t ping ponging back and forth constantly. It’s easier to make a schedule and stick to it. It’s also easier to tell which ideas are more viable than others.
Not to mention sleep. Sometimes it feels like I either get too much or not enough. Caffeine tends to help me focus a little bit, though it doesn’t make me sleepy, so I’ve taken to drinking coffee in the morning to help get my words done. Really, I can do them whenever. But lately I’ve had better luck at least trying to get them done first thing in the morning. The dreams I may or may not remember are still somewhat fresh (even if it’s just the emotions from them) and, well, it works out well.
That’s not to say all my writing is done in the morning. I will sometimes revisit ideas later on in the afternoon or evening. Some days I’ll even spend all day writing (though I have to be careful as that kind of energy isn’t always what is ideal for me.) Sometimes I need to take mental health breaks too. The goal, ultimately, is stability. It’s true of most people, I suspect, though everyone struggles differently. That doesn’t mean some people’s struggles are more valid than others, however.
For me, medication is a necessary component to the stability I both want and need. That’s not to say it’s been easy to find medication that works. That’s not to say medication is the end-all-be-all of mental health. It’s one tool in what should be a full toolbox, after all. Medication can only do so much and can often have side effects that many find undesirable. I can’t say if it’s right for anyone else, just that it’s right for me. It’s taken many years to find something that works, so if you decide to try don’t lose hope. It took over ten years for me to find the antipsychotic that really helps me with as few side effects as possible.
If you are concerned about your own mental health you can start by checking out https://nami.org/Home they’re a wonderful resource that helps a lot of people each year.