Red Light/Yellow Light

Wait a minute....I thought the game was red light/green light?  A fun game full of running and freezing in reach of your final destination.  The game was red light/green light.  However, this post is not about a childhood game.  It is about a great coping mechanism I have learned through counseling.  Through counseling, I have begun to recognize there are symptoms surrounding my bipolar episodes.  These symptoms have proven to help me with early recognition of depression or hyper manic times.  Support system is a very important part of this technique.  Complete transparency with others.  Here is what you do:  You brainstorm what we call yellow light behaviors.  What are the downslides that you consistently see prior to depression?  What are the signs that you seen slipping into mania?  For me, the list was really quite simple to figure out.  Yellow lights of depression:  Sleeping before regular bedtime without being sick.  Hygiene and self care issues, Checking/Zoning out of parenting and being a wife.  Laundry and dishes piling up.  Stopping and/or losing the desire to test.  The common theme between all of these is that I didn't care.  Not only were the symptoms present, but it didn't bother me that they were.  There were also yellow light thoughts surrounding depression.  Being hopeless because everything is too much and people anxiety.  With the mania, these were quite easy as well.  Implementing too many things at once.  Working excessively at my job. Desire to spend money on non-necessities.  My yellow light thoughts were racing thoughts and the feeling that I can do and fix everything now that I have energy.  Here is the problem:  These symptoms were cyclic.  Once manic, you feel good at first.  All that energy to do everything.  However, everything is an impossibility.  So, life began to feel overwhelming.  I can't do ALL this.  So, then the depression would set in.  Here is what I have learned:  You have to break the cycle somewhere.  These Yellow Lights have taught me how and when to break the cycle.  In fact, I have shared my lights with some of my support system and all they have to say is I see yellow and I know it's time to put things into perspective and check myself.  To each behavior, you assign a "tool" that will help you break the cycle at that point.  Depending upon where you are, you pull the tool out of your pocket and get to work.  Work, yes, sometimes it is a lot of work.  But, in the long run, you are successful.  Succeed, not conquer.  Why all the jibber jabber?  I feel like all of us have ups and downs in our lives that are hard to snap out of.  This tool has really helped me to climb out of that dark space or come off my high horse and face a level, realistic life.  If you are struggling with mental illness, know that there are tools in your back pocket and start living!