Here’s a post I didn’t think I’d ever write! I have been on what is considered to be the best mood stabilizer for over a year, and my mood symptoms have been totally under control. No ups, no downs. I have also been taken off the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) by my doctor, so there is absolutely no cycling. In the past, I would be...
You are here
Depression
Tips on Minimizing The Damage of Emotional Eating
July 14, 2016
Most people can say that they’ve been emotional eaters before, whether it’s crying over Chinese food after a breakup or eating too much cake on your 20th birthday. Even I can’t lie and say that my hand was not in a box of Cheez-Its just before I started writing this. Emotions, whether they be excitement, restlessness, anxiety, sadness, happiness...
Share
There's Nothing Romantic About Mental Illnesses
July 14, 2016
We have seen a lot of movies that put the spotlight on mental illness. Movies like "Girl, Interrupted," "Prozac Nation," "Rain man" and very recently, "Silver Linings Playbook" and "Infinite Polar Bear," to name a few. These movies portray what it is like to have mental illness. Lately, the important issue of mental illness has made it to...
Share
An Open Letter to Bipolar Disorder
July 12, 2016
Dear Bipolar, You have been my closest companion over the years. You found me in high school and refused to leave my side. You convinced everyone that I was always low and moody, making me lose friends in the process. You convinced me that I was less of a person because you chose to live with me, but I tell you now that you are no longer...
Share
Riding the Waves of Depression
July 5, 2016
Help us win Healthline's Best Health Blog of the Year! Vote for International Bipolar Foundation here. Depression can swiftly overtake you like the tide rolling in, its current pulling you out to sea. It is like drowning, like suffocating beneath the surface as the world goes on above you. The water muffles sound and slows your movements...
Share
Dealing with the Loneliness of Mental Illness in India
June 30, 2016
There's a reason many of us have trouble sharing our personal battles with mental illness. The reason is the label our society has put on mental health; that anyone who visits a mental health specialist is “crazy," or “insane." Mental illness is treated as a passing phase or a hedonistic lifestyle here in India. Living in India and having...
Share
Overcoming Fear With Understanding
June 30, 2016
After 11 years of suffering quietly, I resolved to speak out about something most of us decide is a secret to take to their early graves. For years, decades, lifetimes of silence makes the thing nonexistent to the world. The only reason for this silence is the fear of judgment — from loved ones, friends, relatives —people who matter, and also,...
Share
Divorce: Writing and My Recovery
June 28, 2016
“I want a divorce.” The sentence I was afraid of was coming finally came from his mouth. It felt like a ton of bricks and an ache in my stomach. I felt like I was in a movie where the camera zooms out and shows you like an ant.Shortly after he moved out, I overdosed on pills. I was struggling with an addiction to prescription pain pills and had...
Share
5 Things Bipolar II Disorder Has Taught Me
June 17, 2016
This year my psychiatrist changed my initial diagnosis of severe depression to Bipolar II Disorder. For a moment I felt like my world had stopped spinning. I felt lost and betrayed because I did not know what this new diagnosis meant for me. For days I lived in denial and refused to accept it. However, a few weeks away from home taught me the...
Share
My Path to Mental Health Advocacy
June 17, 2016
Until I was 16, I thought that my uncle had died of cancer rather than suicide. There was always a dark joke in the family that we have a history of mental illness in our lineage. There is the distant cousin who lived in a tiger cage because, well, he thought he was a tiger. My beloved older brother was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia when...
Share
Your buttocks are cold and aching because you’ve been pressing them for too long against those filthy concrete steps on the hallway, in front of the elevator. There are cigarette stumps and ashes all over the place, but that does not bother you in the least. You’re happy that human transit is sparse on the 4th floor, though you hear the elevator...
Share
Faith and Prayer When Going Through Depression
June 6, 2016
Madeleine Breen
How do I pray, as someone who lives with bipolar disorder? In my younger years when I was fairly stabilized on medicine, the daily Scriptures were my prayer and my study, sometimes studying several hours with my commentaries and allowing the silence to foster the Holy Spirit’s voice. During daily Mass and throughout the day new things might...
Share