Gift, if you dont to analize bp dont click on discussion please

[Judy W]

I have read a couple of books not related to bp recently. Both said to of course acknowledge and accept an illness (of any kind). Then one went on to encourage you to find a way to see the illness as a gift. So I am just curious if any of you guys here can see bp as a gift.
I guess I would say that I can be a sounding board for people other people with mental illness and that would make me feel useful and hopefully help someone. Hopefully I can learn to be patient and understanding with other people with mental illness and just people with their own little quirks. If you think its all hog wash I understand completely. Hopefully no one gets offended here.

[Daisy]

Maybe another way to say it is to take advantage of the side effects such as the energy that we get from the hypo-mania/mania, the extra insight, the creativity, etc.
I'm also not a lawyer but part of my job before going onto disability was negotiating contracts with the lawyers. I liked it but we were always negotiating against another company as powerful as we were. I was never stepping on anyone or being stepped on.

[withavengeance]

Sue, that's exactly what I'm trying to do right now...channel the hypomania and self-talk.

[Donna]

I've never really thought of my bipolar as a gift, it took me a long time to accept that mental illness is an illness like any other you can get. I, too, wish I could educate kids, or write a book, to try to find a reason for my bp. I look at my life as a gift now. I almost died 2 times and really wanted to at the time. Never thinking of anyone else or the pain they would have felt if I was gone. Then I lost my 44 year old brother to a sudden heart attack and realized that if I had died, I would have hurt alot of my family and friends. I guess what I am trying to say is that I now handle my illness to the best of my ability, take my meds, see my docs, and pray to God I never try to take my precious life again.

[kat]

If it is a gift, I hate it, can't return or exchange it, so I've got to find a use for it because no one else wants it. I'm still looking for some use for it...it does make a pretty good living for anyone in the mental health professions...