One of the secrets to the great life I live is reducing stress and implementing strategies to avoid triggering symptoms. For example, if I have successful strategies for not forgetting to lock my car and not forgetting that I didn’t forget to lock my car, my OCD symptom that requires that I check the car’s lock status repeatedly gets triggered only every so often instead of nearly every time I park the car.
When I am confronted by evidence of my disabilities many times in a single day it causes anger, it lowers my self-esteem, it increases my stress level, it makes me anxious (I have GAD too) about whether I’m going to make a mistake that will hurt me (like a car accident or losing my purse), etc. Since I have ultra-rapid cycling bipolar disorder the stress of all these negative emotions getting riled up can easily trigger an episode.
