Hey, this is Ken Jensen. I beat bipolar disorder in an all natural fashion back in the mid 2 thousands. And believe it or not, that’s not even the coolest part of my story.

What I learned through that process and what came next and how that applied to bipolar and why bipolar was ever even part of the process, was mind blowing to say the least.

Bipolar has hidden within its strengths. I’m gonna show you what I mean and how they’ve shown up in my life so you can do the same. And everybody. Welcome to the show. This is Ken. You’re listening to episode 52.

Sometimes committed is a good word. I’m not being an asshole when I make up that title. I’ve been committed and ironically, darkly so I was committed, I think within just a few months if I recall after I used to be 1 of the people.

III had a I had a job as a guard and part of my duties took me to the psych lock lockdown ward where my job was to shut down the violent clients, the ones that were trying to harm themselves and everyone else around them.

As a quickest side, what I saw and took part in and and not that particular psych lockdown ward was the worst amount of violence I ever witnessed in my life before or since and half the time that was before I even had to physically jump in.

That’s to include the Gulf War.

That’s to include everything that happened to me in the marines. That’s to include when I was a bouncer, that’s to include all kinds of other shit where 1 could have his ass handed to him by somebody else.

Nothing was like that side cord. And then after I lost that job, like I said, just in a few months, I lost a job in large part because bipolar was taking me out of the picture.

I was violent and I ended up as a client in a different psych ward and I I didn’t do anything there because I was I was a mess by the time I got there, I was physically capable to doing much.

But even still the potential, the air around me for potential for violence seemed strong enough that they put 4 guys on me even though I was in a wheelchair to then roll me to the psych ward. They didn’t feel safe.

I looked the opposite of friendly as I recall and I had to I got a little bit of a history not with that place but word got out a little bit of what I was made of before this here nasty event took place in my life.

So being that I’ve, you know, I’ve worked it and I’ve been it. I’m definitely not making fun of it. But the kind of commitment I’m talking about is The problem whatever the problem is, it could be bipolar.

It could be as a highly function functional bipolar person. It could be the job at hand like with what I deal with now doing this and everything connected to it.

You’re gonna need some sort of heavy duty level of commitment and agreement you make with yourself to push through no matter what And if effort was all it took, then probably most of us would never have been bipolar in the first place or we wouldn’t have stuck with it as long as we did.

What I’m talking about is you’re gonna have to branch out, strike out in a new direction and be committed to Learning all you can as fast as you can from the feedback that that striking out creates to see if it’s still the correct path to take, doing review, doing research, learning, and processing all you can from anyone that’s done something similar to see if you can make it mad the way your life looks so that you can keep going down that path and that and that you can ensure it’s still the correct thing to do.

And then learning how to grit your teeth and getting through get through the hardest parts so that you can experience whatever improvement in your life you’re looking to gain. Now in my case fighting bipolar went out the window.

It’s coming up on 2 decades now. Other than lingering anxiety related issues, there there was nothing that could be called bipolar until cality left of of what I was dealing with really after 2006.

I stopped taking meds in 2004 because I had to. The all all they were doing was feeding the fire of bipolar.

That’s all they were doing. When I got rid of them and did all the things I did that I eventually learned to do and wrote about and talked about on stage and everything I got better, but it wasn’t overnight.

Took a took a couple years before I felt like I got this. It took a year before I felt like I’m I’m gonna I’m gonna pull this off. Then probably another year. So 2 total from when I stopped meds to where I just felt like a person again.

Still a certain amount of mania, still a certain amount of anxiety, but that’s that was it really. Not nothing else of of the illness remained and nothing else ever came back.

Mania and anxiety trickled away very slowly over the next bunch of years. And even now almost 20 years later anxiety is is super rare. I get these weird little bursts of it sometimes.

But I’ve come to understand sometimes a person just feels anxiety. For no reason I’m talking about, not like something’s happening, you can clearly pin an eye. Just that weird anxiety that comes out of nowhere. That has a lot of causes.

I’ve been able to identify what they all are for me and if and if there’s something completely out of the blue I realize it’s it’s probably just underlying stress, whatever things going on in my life, some dietary issues, things like this.

Again stuff that anybody would experience mania. I keep an eye on it.

I I don’t get manic Not mania, not full blown in any sense. But I can get a little more worked up a little more excitable than those around me to up to the point where I’m getting I’m getting I’m getting giddy and a little ridiculous.

I’m being too loud, things like this. And I don’t always catch it right away.

It’s it’s not it’s just the once in a blue moon and it’s usually when I’m having a good time. I can get a little carried away of myself but then again that’s something a lot of people can say with 0 bipolar in their history.

So What got me there was I was committed to the plan I made way back when I decided to start fighting bipolar. I knew that the medical profession could not help me. It was proven the very last doctor or I had agreed.

I’m not even agreed. It was his statement. I agreed with him. I’d still desperately wanted him to save me. I wanted to be saved. Wasn’t gonna happen. He told me you gotta go a different way.

There’s nothing left to do. We’ve tried to repill under the sun. Every combination of pills under the sun. There’s nothing left. You need something completely different but I don’t know what that might be because I’m a psychiatrist.

I know pills and I agreed with him and because he was a doctor and this particular gentleman, I trusted him implicitly and we always talked straight that was the seal of approval I needed to try something on my own that I would I wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t have told me to do it because I was too weak back then.

I didn’t I wasn’t there fully as a person. I needed someone in an authority to tell me how to proceed. Well, there was no plan.

I just started stumbling my way forward and learning things the hard way dealing with withdrawal from the many many psychotropic medications they had me on, Dealing would withdraw from the medical medications they had me on that were offsetting the physical health problems the psychotropic medications had caused.

And I had no net. I didn’t really know where I was going.

I only knew I I couldn’t go back. It was almost like it was almost like in a movie or something when the heroes running across a stone bridge and all the stones are are dropping behind him and he’s just staying ahead of the collapse.

That was me coming out of my bowler and I’m heading into a foreign land. I don’t even know if I wanna get to where I’m running to or what I’ll expect.

I just know I can’t go back. It was terrifying. I just stuck to my guns. I white knuckled a lot of really bad days and nights a lot. And I I eventually started stabilizing and I wasn’t just stopping meds.

I I developed a program. That’s all what’s available on my site now if you need it. And I got through. Now years go by First, I wanted to share the word about what I’d learned about my polar and I was so mad at the medical industry.

Now they just annoy me. But It’s not even them per se as it is the pill industry, but I digress. I stopped worrying about that shit really entirely and just focus more on how am I gonna make my life better.

These these fuckers are gonna do what they do. They own the world. You can’t fight city hall. They’re not coming after me anyway, so I’m I’m free to do things my way and I have to do things my way.

So just keep working on the plan. Experimentment, get feedback and whatever form that takes, make a decision, alter, keep going. Well, that’s what I’ve been doing online with everything I’ve been creating to get the word out.

Everything I’ve created to find people that I would want in my network to to help me, fellow peers, to build a business, I’ve been doing more iterations of me in the last at least 15 years trying to do something with what this experience taught me that then I can remember I’ve had multiple websites.

This is my third podcast. I wrote a book. I’ve written other books. I just didn’t publish. I’ve even written small books.

I’m talking like 10000 words. I didn’t I didn’t remember writing and this was not while bipolar. This was years later. I dig through my files on my computer looking for something to put on my website, and there’s a freaking entire book.

And or a really choice article and I’ll read it and sometimes based on, you know, what’s going on in that night. I forget I’m reading my own stuff and I’ll read. I’m like, this is fucking magnificent. Who’s who’s where did I find this?

I’m like, holy shit, I wrote this. Then I look and I’m trying to remember them, like, I I can’t. I don’t remember writing that. When the hell did I write this? I look at the day that file. I’m like shit. I don’t know.

I got an idea of what was happening in my life. I really seriously don’t remember writing this. Do I still agree with it? And not always, but usually usually I agree with what I wrote and it just I just find it incredibly cool.

Sometimes things I’ve learned things, of course, and I’ll I can take that same bit of information and just edit it a tiny bit, but the bulk of it still holds true for me.

The point is I’m committed to ever improving myself. And at at times that’s required a lot of sacrifice particularly in the form of sleep I love lifting weights.

I mean I love lifting weights. I’m 54. Been doing it since 14. I fucking love my hands on steel and iron and moving them somewhere. I love everything about lifting.

I’m a silverback now. I’m 54. I’m gray. I’m lumberjack built. I’m I’m I’m I’m just under 300 pounds and I like being that guy and I like being the guy with the group. Back when I was in a public gym, there’d be a handful of us.

To beat up older big guys. Would would would would would gray in their hair and a certain amount of belly. Still pushing heavy weight, still, like, with survive or like survivors. I like being part of that group.

And that has to set aside sometimes so that I can do this stuff on the Internet and and this podcast which I enjoy getting the word out, but the the technical aspects of it all are just trying to find the time.

It ain’t easy. And and I hate that I gotta give up gym time. In other things, my freaking fish need their water changed. They’re getting sluggish.

That’s a bit of a job, but I’m gonna actually have to do that tonight. Can’t can’t let my baby suffer, but there’s a cost to being committed in a good way and you gotta pay it. It’s the only way anybody gets out of and through anything.

There’s another saying I’ve heard more than once and it’s I’m gonna be honest with you. It’s taken me years to accept it in the face of a potential way around it. No one’s coming to save you.

That is 1 of the ugliest nastiest phrases I’ve ever heard. No 1 is coming to save you. It’s on you. It’s all of us. It’s on us to do something regardless of what kind of help you have and assistance and other people in your life.

Sure. People are gonna help. But it’s on you to use their help properly. It’s on you to secure their help in the first place.

It’s on you to take their help and assess it and make sure that it’s what you actually needed. As you get as you get better, do you still need it? Do you still agree with why you got it in the first place?

These are all things you’ve got to ask yourself as you’d create many iterations of you as you get through your life and whatever way that looks like, but You gotta be committed to the long range plan.

You gotta be committed to hang in there, come hell or high water, no matter how much it hurts. And it’s the it’s the only way the only way out is through. It’s another 1.

The only way out is through. No one’s gonna pluck you from above what a helicopter in a rope. You gotta push through. Thing is once you push through, stay committed to your plan and push through. You’re not gonna be the same person.

You’re gonna be some better version of yourself. And it’s probably not even gonna be what you thought you’d be. As you get through it. Everything changes as you go, but you gotta go. You gotta have a plan.

You gotta stick to it. It’s the only way you’re gonna serve it’s the only way you’re gonna survive. It’s the only way you’re gonna grow. It’s the only way you’re gonna properly give to the world whatever it is you got put here to do.

I believe we’re all here to make life better. In some fashion for our our our being here. I don’t know how you feel about that, but I I figure even if you don’t believe it in any kind of spiritual sense or what have you.

I’m I’m not here to push any kind of whatever. Isn’t it just a cool way to live? To know that as you move through this world, many people around you are happy that you did it, that you did the things you did, said what you said.

That you took care of people the way you you have. I mean, what what money or not. It’s it’s just a nice way to to live. As you get older, as you mature on every level, you start realizing it has to be this way.

Pretty much after your twenties. Your twenties are your twenties, you get to be completely selfish, and it’s necessary because that is a learning process that has to happen.

There’s very few young people that can go right into Saint Hood, if you want to call it, without skipping the middle of thrashing around in the muck and having a good time and seeing what you’re made of and finding out, you know, where you’re at on any 1 topic.

You gotta do all that before you really branch out and become a force for good in the world, but you gotta remain committed to the plan. It’s the only thing that’s gonna push you through when it gets really hard to stick to that plan.

I’ve been through all of that this entire week and it feels pretty good. I I have lists. I do lists. I’m dead in the water without a list. I love scratching shit off my list. I scratched a ton of stuff off my list.

Some stuff I’ve been looking at for 2 months. I kind of build. I sit and look in pick and hem and haul and dick around a little bit and eventually I do stuff here and there. I do this podcast which has to be done no matter what.

But there’s usually a pile of things I don’t feel like doing that eventually get assaulted all in in 1 short stretch of time and then they’re out of my life, and I can breathe better.

And I just did that this last week. And it was all I laughed I’ve been doing this for many years.

I laugh because once I get through a particularly nasty part, I’m like, I didn’t realize I was gonna get that screwed up, and then I laugh. You did. I kill, I lost a count of how many times I’ve made that statement.

I didn’t realize it was gonna go that wrong. Yes, you did. It always does. I’m just smart enough to sort of get things done right in the technical world in a lot of areas.

So I have to commit to just putting up with the bullshit of my own inability to do these things well and easily. I I lose my shit when I see these videos online with people like particularly with software and graphic manipulation.

How you go there, you click there, you change that color, you drop that there, you go to there, you grab distance. See how beautiful that is? You’re like, oh, here it is. I could do that. That’s easy.

2 days later, I finally got something that half ass looks like what that person built and it works mostly the way he said it would and I gotta call it a day because I’ve already lost a couple more hairs off the top of my head and stress.

It cracks me up. It’s well, stay committed, guys. Pick a plan. Stick to it, beat it to death, until it either works, some iteration of it works, or it’s clear that it’s the wrong friggin plan.

But ring everything out of it you can and learn before you make a new plan. But always have a plan and always stick to it. Stay committed. Take care, guys.