Apologies in advance for replying on Phnee's behalf.
It's not Birthdays and Holidays in general. It's only the ones than fall between November and February. I.e. Christmas and her birthday. This is because her bipolar disorder has a seasonal aspect, and so she suffers lower lows in winter. So, yes, there is a physiological aspect: the number of hours of daylight, which affects brain chemistry. And so tweaking the meds is an attempt to redress this imbalance.
"Bending the stressors" is a nice idea, but it's not really very realistic. When you're is doing such a delicate mental balancing act to begin with *anything* (from having to shovel the front walk to breaking a coffee cup) can set you off. And yes, I'm speaking from experience.
If money was no object, then, yeah, I could probably arrange my life so that I spent November-March doing only fun things that made me happy and getting exactly the right amounts of sleep, exercise, and sunlight, and then I wouldn't need to take my meds, either. Life, unfortunately, tends not to work out that way.
Re: Medical interventions
It's not Birthdays and Holidays in general. It's only the ones than fall between November and February. I.e. Christmas and her birthday. This is because her bipolar disorder has a seasonal aspect, and so she suffers lower lows in winter. So, yes, there is a physiological aspect: the number of hours of daylight, which affects brain chemistry. And so tweaking the meds is an attempt to redress this imbalance.
"Bending the stressors" is a nice idea, but it's not really very realistic. When you're is doing such a delicate mental balancing act to begin with *anything* (from having to shovel the front walk to breaking a coffee cup) can set you off. And yes, I'm speaking from experience.
If money was no object, then, yeah, I could probably arrange my life so that I spent November-March doing only fun things that made me happy and getting exactly the right amounts of sleep, exercise, and sunlight, and then I wouldn't need to take my meds, either. Life, unfortunately, tends not to work out that way.