The words still ring in my head, “We believe you have Bipolar Disorder”. On the one hand, there is a relief to finally identify the problem. On the other hand, there is fear — fear of the diagnosis, fear of change, fear of the uncertainty and what it all means.

Now, if you’re like me, the symptoms of Bipolar Disorder were prevalent long before the official diagnosis. Whether it was disguised as depression or the flight of ideas and energy associated with the early stages of a manic episode, the signs were there. However, the problem is these clues are only realized in hindsight. The causes become clearer only after you’ve reached the edge. Only after you’ve experienced both the highs and lows, which is what makes the disease so troubling.

Bipolar Disorder is unsettling because it becomes hard to trust your brain. It can trick you into believing things are the best and everything is amazing or that the world is over and there is nothing left for you. It can be hard for some to give up that ‘high’. They believe that their elated sense of self is the new them — they believe they’ve finally ‘solved’ life. They have been deceived by the one thing we as human beings unconditionally trust, our minds.

What follows the ‘high’ is the darkest low. You lose it all and you look back and realize you never really had it, that it was in your head. Maybe some of your hypo/manic ideas were great. Maybe you were the best version of yourself. Maybe you wish that’s how life could always be. Inevitably, you will swirl back down to reality and it will all catch up to you. Every high has an equal and opposite low. Some believe the payoff is worth it, they will suffer the low to enjoy the high — most of those people don’t make it.  Most of those people are unmedicated.

In order to manage, survive, and thrive, those of us with Bipolar Disorder must find the right medication. We have a ‘safe zone’ we just don’t always see it. Our moods soar high and then crash but we can change that. With medication, these swings become smaller. We still have our ups and downs but we become much more stable. We become safer.

Medication can be a tricky subject. Some believe they don’t need it or they don’t have access to it. Others believe medication makes them a zombie. I will be blunt here, medication is the difference between life and death. Medication is the most important factor in saving you from yourself. Without it, you risk the caged beast being let out at any moment. Medication is the key to the cage. However, you need a few armed guards on watch as well.

These guards serve as your support system. They can be your friends and family, they can be a therapist, or they can be any sort of entity that is there to listen, help, and act. They only take up their post once the bad happens. They may have been in your life all along but now they’ve taken up arms to help you. They’re your offensive line protecting you from the rush.

I’ve found that the combination of friends, family, and therapy have been an integral saving grace in remaining sane. Friends and family are close to you. They know your idiosyncrasies, they know your mannerisms, they know when you aren’t yourself.

In the same vein, therapists are your unbiased third party. They let you discuss everything in your head without judgment. They provide you with tools to cope. They provide you with a safe space. They teach you to understand your brain and how it works. They teach you introspection and how to understand your thought patterns. They teach you that your thoughts are simply…thoughts and that they will pass like water down a stream. You see, this whole process will teach you a lot about yourself if anything.

The learning process is not easy. You probably spent a lot of your life having unhealthy, even destructive, tendencies and habits. You probably stayed up late at night wondering why there is an omnipresent faceless barrier preventing you from this notion of ‘happiness’. You probably got anxiety that festered inside you until you couldn’t function.

You may have had spurts of genius, in your own right. You’ve probably had all of this brewing inside without figuring out the origins; slowly sending you deeper and deeper into your own ‘thought’ hole. This thought hole does not help us understand ourselves — in fact, it does the opposite. It convinces us that we have to be a certain way and makes us feel guilty if we are not. We feel like failures because we are not who we think we need to or should be.

Then it happens. Your genes are triggered, your environment has turned on you, and you are swooped up into a storm all the while not understanding where it came from – not understanding yourself. But your brain adapts.

Whether you had a traumatic experience or were fortunate enough to catch it early, a bipolar diagnosis necessarily teaches you to redefine yourself in the context of your life-long illness and teaches you to understand your heaven and hell of a mind. Once you understand your own internal opponent and once you know who your team is, you can win.

You can manage. You can survive. You’ll learn to notice that negative thought and let it go. Not to dwell, not to fester, because you’ve seen it before. This process does not happen immediately, like any skill or learning process it takes time and repetition but you will learn. How very meta, the brain trying to understand itself while you try to understand you.

Once you start to notice how you think, why you think that way, and how to manage those thoughts, you will become a new person – a new you. Once you find that new baseline for yourself, you will get another chance at life. A fresh start with a fresh outlook. You’ll have the keys to the cage fastened tightly around your belt, you’ll have an army of guards ready to pick up arms at a second’s notice, and you’ll have yourself – your new self. With this team and these tools at your disposal, you can have the life you always wanted. And your diagnosis? Will only be a thought.