TIPS FOR HEALING
The following tips for seeking forgiveness and making amends come from Daniel L. Buccino, a licensed clinical social worker and clinical supervisor at the Adult Outpatient Community Psychiatry Program at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center and assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University.
- Bipolar disorder is what you have, not who you are. You still must live with it, stand up to it, accommodate yourself to it, resist it, accept it, manage it. Separating yourself from the problem in this way will allow your true character to help you decide how you want to live with your illness and its consequences. Stability begets stability.
- Apologize—genuinely, sincerely, deeply, specifically, and directly.
- Make reparations as best you can.
- Try to accept responsibility.
- Redouble your efforts to do the right and virtuous things to show that whatever behaviors you exhibited were the exception, not the rule.
- Remain humble and well-connected to treatment and find the best treatment providers you can.
- Everyone makes mistakes, but avoid repeatedly making the same mistakes.
- Strive to demonstrate good character by being responsible, reliable, trustworthy, competent, and focused.
- Recognize that rebuilding trust is a process, a staircase to climb at times, not an event.
Saturday
Making Amends
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5 comments:
This is really excellent way of putting this. It makes me see that there is a big seperation between my pre diagnosised behavior and now. i can get past it
Thank you. I will utilize these resources and pass them on. You are a blessing. I have been there , and continue to improve myself with all the resources available. NEW!! Yours.
Thank you for these inspiring tips. Here as I try to recover from a nearly 3 year bout with major depression (during which I've felt paralyzed) I recognize the fact that I, as an outcome of my depression, totally cut myself off from valuable friendships without a word of explanation. It's been almost 3 years since I've been in touch with the dear friends I had prior to this particular bout. A major pattern of my depression is isolation but that's no excuse. My friends had nothing to do with my depression. I just felt I couldn't deal with them as a result of it. Now as I recover I feel I have thrown out the baby with the bath water. My friends being the baby, my illness the dirty bath water. If I get to the point in my recovery that I feel I can renew these friendships these tips will help me with that phone call. These tips encourage me to take responsibility for my actions even though I was ill. I hadn't been willing to do that because I didn't realize 'till now that it's what I must do! I know now it's likely I'll feel better if I do! Unfortunately I'm not quite there yet. If I ultimately feel it's too late this time I'll keep these tips in mind for the next time I feel myself repeating this pattern. I 'm working on not repeating it but I know now that I must be prepared for the possibility that I will. At least I have learned to recognize the pattern and that I must take responsibility for my behavior, even though I have an illness. Thanks for the tools.
I still, after over ten years since my initial diagnosis, can't separate my bipolar illness from who I really am. I still live under the guise that I'm Kathie and I'm bipolar, instead of I'm Kathie and I live with a bipolar disorder. HELP!
'Be like water' ...... Google it
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