Reddit reviews The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook for Bipolar Disorder: Using DBT to Regain Control of Your Emotions and Your Life (A New Harbinger Self-Help Workbook)

Dialectical behavior therapy is often recommended. It includes four skill sets, all of which can help to improve relationships: mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. DBT may be available in your area. There is a also DBT workbook specifically for bipolar.

I would get a second opinion ASAP just for peace of mind for your parents if nothing else. If you do go off meds, consistent therapy and exercise, a healthy diet, and good sleep hygiene will be key (easier said than done, I know).

Depending on your diet and how much sunlight you get, you may want to look into supplementing with Vitamin D & K, Magnesium, Zinc, and high EPA fish oil.

Modafinil wouldn't be an everyday, long-term solution but I find that it does help reduce depressive symptoms and make me at least slightly more functional. It may be worth mentioning to your pdoc, assuming you haven't already tried it and the side effects are bearable.

These two books have both helped me quite a bit and I highly recommend them.

Bipolar, Not So Much and The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook for Bipolar Disorder

An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison

The Bipolar Disorder Survival Guide by Stephen Miklowitz PhD.

DBT Therapy for Bipolar Disorder

These are my three go-to recommendations. An Unquiet Mind is written from the perspective of someone with BP1 with psychotic features, who is also a professional psychologist and has studied BD for a very long time.

The BD Survival Guide was the first book I read on the subject after my diagnosis. It grounded me, it informed me about the disease and all the ways it can manifest, gave me an idea about the buildup and duration of episodes, as well as providing several enlightening vignettes throughout the text to illustrate points and concepts. 10/10, I consider this mandatory reading for the newly diagnosed or underinformed.

The DBT therapy workbook--truth be told I haven't done much work with it yet, but DBT is regularly touted as one of the most effective treatments for bipolar. So I thought I'd include that.

Best of luck!

There's a nice workbook you could try out first to see if DBT for bipolar disorder appeals to you. It helped me.

https://www.amazon.com/Dialectical-Behavior-Therapy-Workbook-Disorder/dp/1572246286

Great news!

To keep her stable encourage regularly scheduled and plenty of sleep, meds at the same time every day, regular daily routine, consider DBT for bipolar.

Yes, we have some aggression during emotionally tumultuous times. Always directed at me though, never at our son.

The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook for Bipolar Disorder is also helpful to me. I've used the same book you're referring to, but this book works for me as well because of the similarities between BPD and Bipolar Disorder. I have been diagnosed as both Bipolar and Borderline, however the exercises in this workbook might be helpful to you regardless.

I think this speaks for itself when it comes to what I need and what I need to help keep my relationship happy through my illness.

I think it's both a matter of their diminishing in frequency over time as well as building skills to cope better when they do happen. It sounds like you could use something to help with coping better.

DBT was originally created for women with borderline personality disorder who were in crisis and may have been also suicidal (she developed it while working with women who were inpatient, I believe). It can be helpful for anyone of any gender who wants to learn to cope with emotions better, or improve how they handle interpersonal situations. DBT incorporates multiple methods, so you will see CBT elements as part of it which may seem familiar, it adds additional skills. There are DBT programs and you can also find workbooks. Perhaps you could check out a workbook and see if it might be useful?

I met a couple of people who were working on The DBT skills workbook for bipolar disorder and said they found it helpful. https://www.amazon.com/Dialectical-Behavior-Therapy-Workbook-Disorder/dp/1572246286 The same company publishes a regular DBT skills workbook. I'm not sure of the difference, if any, between the two workbooks. Maybe others on the bp subs might have more experience with this and can say more.

http://www.amazon.com/Dialectical-Behavior-Therapy-Workbook-Disorder/dp/1572246286