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Original poster

To ask whether you could give up your foremost passion?

128 replies

AuldJosey · 27/04/2019 00:20

In order to maintain your health?

Physical analogy would be no more sky dives as you've already broken 4 limbs.

Think having to not experience anything strong in the emotion department in order to keep you stable. You know that when you deny yourself this, you are better, but the expense to you is huge........

OP posts:
OnlineAlienator · 27/04/2019 01:58

I think i COULD, but the future would sure enough look bleak as a result. I'd only do it for my child.

JaneJeffer · 27/04/2019 02:03

I miss The Voice of Ireland. Way better than UK version!

I think Confused is right and you should seek help from a professional in order to be able to have music in your life in a safe way.

I wish you all the best Thanks

Original poster
AuldJosey · 27/04/2019 02:08

I'm sort of in crisis at the moment, so they keep ringing me and I just can't cope with talking.

I doubt I could get anyone to give me a safe playlist lol. I just end up listening to random stuff. And then latching onto it.

Jane - Dolores has since passed RIP.

OP posts:
JaneJeffer · 27/04/2019 02:12

Yes, very sad. I was actually thinking there was a few on that panel with their own MH issues.

Downunderduchess · 27/04/2019 02:13

JaneJeffer... best advice yet!

NameChangedNoImagination · 27/04/2019 02:20

I suspect I have EUPD and I am very much going for stable. I'm having most of the day be stable, then specific pockets of time where I can do all the emotions. The stability will make me feel happier and the pockets of depth will make me feel alive. I'm just implementing it at the moment.

RosemaryHoight · 27/04/2019 02:23

Sorry I thought you were talking about suicide when you have children. If it's about going for it, then do it.

PlasmaRain · 27/04/2019 02:30

It’s ok to be cryptic and nebulous OP, but, since it’s all
highly subjective, it’s highly unlikely anyone can give you whatever answers you are looking for.

No one wants to see a long road of nothing but grey stretching out in front of them but, on the other hand, even a road purely made up of rainbow vistas would eventually get pretty tiresome and lose its edge for me. It’s like I have a favorite food or two but if that’s all I had to live on, it would get old really fast. I have things I am passionate about but none of them are threat to my mental or physical well-being; my finances may be threatened if I over-indulge and also, if I let it get away from me, time I might otherwise devote to loved ones and other commitments.

To me the peaks AND the troughs AND even the level stretches are all necessary to fulfill and ground me or, in other words, I need some balance. All grey is not something I could live with but all rainbows would be ultimately just as unsatisfying and surely would lead to an ever increasing and exhausting need for more and more rainbows to maintain the same feeling of euphoria.

I know I need the downtimes, the periods of mundane nothingness, to be able to fully appreciate the short but intense burst of uptimes. I have maybe 3 things I am passionate about to the point of I’d be truly sad to let them go but none of them affects my physical or mental health so there’s no reason I would have to fully abandon them.

Original poster
AuldJosey · 27/04/2019 02:51

It's not uptimes/downtimes. It's something else. It's extreme visceral raw emotion. From listening to music or a song. And that can totally knock me for six.

OP posts:
Original poster
AuldJosey · 27/04/2019 02:55

Funny thing, but no music is played in psychiatric hospitals. Just a useless fact. You can watch tv like Jeremy Kyle during the day but if that's not your thing, you've nothing to do.

OP posts:
araiwa · 27/04/2019 02:55

I had to give up a sport id played for 35 years because it had wrecked my body and my injuries were getting worse.

I miss it hugely but id rather not play than be broken physically.

junebirthdaygirl · 27/04/2019 03:12

From the outset l thought you had bipolar and was being asked to take medication that would rob the manic highs you loved from you. My dh has bipolar and he was devastated to have to do that as the highs are amazingly creative for him. But in order for his relationships all round to survive he has to enter the world of medication that to him means grey and boring.
So if l were you l would follow all doctors advise as ending up in hospital is not an easy road either and lm sure your family just want you well.

BadLad · 27/04/2019 04:05

Right now I'm thinking no, I couldn't give it up.

My passion is travel, so I suppose the equivalent is being told I'm putting my health at risk if I ever fly again.

The thought makes me shudder, and my immediate reaction is that I'd never do that, but I imagine I might reconsider if actually faced with the problem.

Not much help, sorry.

ahola · 27/04/2019 08:51

I haven't come across the term EUPD before, so thank you for educating me this morning!

I don't think I could live without music, no. It's so innate in me, it would be impossible. But I am becoming deaf (have been since early 20s) and it's a real possibility that I will have to face up to the loss of it eventually. I honestly don't know how I will deal with that when it arrives.

Keep speaking to your crisis team- that's what they're for. Choose positive songs, and keep listening.
Thanks

chipsandgin · 27/04/2019 09:34

Asking unqualified strangers a vague question about how to deal with a serious mental health condition with no context or background isn’t going to give you the answers I’m afraid. The best advice will come from a mental health professional who understands both your condition and has an understanding of your history. Or possibly others with personal experience of the same problem who have managed to get to a better place.

It’s not fair to judge the well meaning answers on this thread as they were clearly given from completely different perspectives (& if you look at the original OP & subsequent posts they could be interpreted in a multitude of ways & clearly were).

Honestly you’d be better off on the mental health board with a question like ‘has anyone else got EUPD and given up their triggers’ or similar..

BTW to hear you are in a bad place right now, I hope you find the answers you need.

Lastly wins this thread! :)

ReanimatedSGB · 27/04/2019 11:10

I agree with PP that no one on this thread has the qualifications to give you proper advice and I wish you well. FWIW I would think it's pretty much impossible to 'give up' music entirely unless you are institutionalised or housebound, so your MH care team need to work with you on devising strategies to lessen the potential damage.

thecatsthecats · 27/04/2019 11:24

I have been in this position for some months, as my passion is writing, and my condition is migraines.

My work is screen based. Coming home and sitting writing for hours is not ideal. I have also been working on my weight, leaving me very little free time after exercise and cooking.

What's the answer? I don't know. Moderation and being a grown up, probably. But I know that I can't live my life, as you say, in black and white. Not after finding what life can be with writing.

willthisworkornot · 27/04/2019 12:45

@Nnnnnineteen Oh that's so sad.

OP I did. I have been advised not to sky dive or scuba dive because I have a risk of my lung collapsing. It is sad because scuba diving is literally the most amazing thing in the world, and I didn't appreciate it enough while I had it, but I am glad I had the chance to do it.

I could just say to hell with the risks, and part of me fantasises about it sometimes, but I'm not really going to.

Never thought about why but I guess, in this order:

It would be a burden to others
Cost in money, time and emotional impact if it went wrong
Logically I should follow medical advice
Survival instinct

It was a hobby, not a career, I guess giving up something bigger is harder, but it's the same kind of thing and you find something else.

I decided I can snorkel instead so that gets close to it.

Gth1234 · 27/04/2019 15:57

hard to tell without knowing what it is. If it's really skydiving, it's hardly an issue. You must be able to find an adrenalin alternative.

I can't imagine there is much that you would need to give up that would make you think life wasn't worth living.

SimonJT · 27/04/2019 16:00

I gave up rugby, I regret it massively. I can’t wait to get back into it when my son starts school.

Original poster
AuldJosey · 27/04/2019 17:29

@Gth1234
I have later in the thread explained that it's music.

To the OP who mentioned bipolar - I don't have that.

OP posts:
Original poster
AuldJosey · 27/04/2019 17:30

EUPD and Bipolar are two extraordinarily different diagnoses.

OP posts:
Original poster
AuldJosey · 27/04/2019 17:49

The most stark difference being that there is no 'treatment' as such for EUPD, whereas medication can treat Bipolar.

For EUPD, you need to meet several criteria of behaviour more or less over a sustained period. Bipolar is much easier to diagnose I believe.

There isn't anything necessarily psychiatrically wrong with you when you have EUPD - as in, it's not a chemical imbalance. It's different.

OP posts:
Original poster
AuldJosey · 27/04/2019 17:55

My experience of EUPD is that I feel emotions in the extreme. That's it really. Rejection is a particularly difficult one for me to feel and can be felt for the slightest perceived snub. Whereas a normal person might feel somewhat affronted having being snubbed at a party, I will dwell on it to the extent that 'that's it, everybody hates me, might as well kill myself'.

It's hard to describe.

The music thing is a manifestation of that emotional instability I suppose.

OP posts:
Jux · 27/04/2019 18:02

I have. I had to. I didn't want to.I

My life is safe and stable and oh so so so boring. It's a long grey line stretching back 20 years and from here to death. Grey. Dull. Boring.

I can't tell you what to do. The choice is really live fast die young or live safe.