Pax Nortona – A Blog by Joel Sax

I heartily recommend support groups for folks suffering from mood disorders (especially DBSA). You will have off days, however. Yesterday, I ramped up into a mania during a support group meeting mostly because of the style of feedback being offered. Imagine yourself being given rapid-fire advice after telling people about your dissociation issues. “Do this this this this this this” accurately summarizes the line. (Among them was to not write if my writing makes me manic. Excuse me?) I found myself dissociating, jumping out of my own head into a place where, in this instance, I floated around until the feedback was over. “OK,” was all I said.

Principles that I strive to follow: Listen before you decide to speak. Affirm the feelings, no matter how horrendous the actions might be. When someone is in depression, encourage. When someone is in mania, just shut up and listen. It is better to say “I feel your pain and I want you to know that you are not alone. I’m here to listen” than to say “This is how I get rid of that” which often amounts to “How can you be so stupid as to get yourself in that position?” The aim is to help the person stabilize, not to give them a guilt trip for becoming unbalanced. And remember that your words do affect others.

Some would say that I shouldn’t go to a support group meeting when I am on the edge of mania. I blink at that. We have a disease, dammit, and it gets the better of us sometimes. We’re there to receive positive energy so that we can survive.