A Stressful News Day

I’ve been having many coffees with women who have bipolar disorder for my documentary. Each woman deals with their disorder in different ways, either through alternative medicine or medication, and as I sit with them, I am always amazed at how much work we have to do on ourselves to be happy. That's true for everyone, not just women with bipolar.

Each woman had to figure out the things that cause them anxiety and not do them. They could be small like not standing behind people who walk too slowly down the street. Or bigger things like cutting people out of their lives that cause them misery. Each woman mentioned that they do not read or watch the news. They have friends or family mention things to them but it is too much for them to get all of that information at one time.

Think about the anxiety it brings you when it is a bad news day and then imagine if you had a mental illness. Your reactions to these things could either leave you in bed for a week or make you go on a manic spending spree or even worse things that I don't even want to get into. One woman told me that when she read the newspaper, she could literally envision all of the stories in her head. It would go on for days.

Today, I know exactly what she means. I just opened the newspaper and listened to NPR and couldn't deal with it. My head started to hurt and I just had this feeling like maybe doing that isn't always the right thing for me. Take a look at some of the highlights:

*Bush speaking at the RNC – I watched five minutes and just became so depressed that he was our president and that people were cheering for him.

*Pataki speaking at the RNC – see above and change President to Governor

*Clinton in the hospital for heart surgery – I can’t even talk about this at length. He is in my prayers and I never say stuff like that. You never really know how attached you are to someone until something bad happens to them.

*Soldiers storm school in Russia – NPR’s Morning Edition did interviews with people who are in Russia right now on the site. The death toll is unclear but hundreds have been injured.

This weekend I am staying out of the loop. If something happens, let me know. Otherwise, I'm just sitting around, having some coffee and napping.