I pace frantically while I talk raucously into the telephone outside the college newspaper office. What began as a routine phone call to find out some more information for a story ends up turning into a diatribe about how I plan to take over the Massachusetts...
We all will rise with the burning sun, one day’s ended, the next one begun. As sure as time the light will prevail, breathe out stresses, let go, exhale. Each step you take feel the warmth all around, as the dew disappears from the warming ground. This...
In my last blog post ‘A Day in the Life of Hypomania,’ I posted a journal entry highlighting what it’s like to be hypomanic. In contrast, this blog post is a journal entry I wrote following that episode when I was moderately depressed. 6/6/2015. WINTER I wake up late...
“Oh Wow! So this whole time I was actually just stupid?!” Well hell, had I known that, I wouldn’t have needed to take my meds. What a relief. So I’ll go speak to my psychiatrist and ask them how to get “un-stupid” and then I’ll be cured! Said no-one ever. So I was...
First, let me say that I hate shopping. Not just grocery shopping, which I assume pretty much everyone hates, but all the kinds of shopping that women are stereo-typically supposed to love: clothing shopping, shoe shopping, makeup shopping, and furniture shopping. I...
“Youth is wasted on the young,” Irish playwright Oscar Wild is quoted as saying. It may be true, too, that happiness is wasted on those who have had no real trouble. Memories of my own youth surged through me recently when I met a 27-year-old woman who has her own...
I have tried to write this blog countless times over the course of the past few weeks, but the words would not come. Come to think of it, I’ve tried to do a lot of things over the past few weeks, until eventually I just gave up, sinking into my own private despair....
Finding purpose in a life with bipolar disorder and various other mental diseases is not easy. I had no aim in life. I was born, grew up under the shelter of my parents like every other normal kid, and then was suddenly pushed into the real world when my mother passed...
When I get depressed, I suffer from severe pain deep in my muscles and not many things help it. During a particularly rough few months, two different massage therapists asked me if I had considered trying running as an outlet. They each told me that my muscles felt...
(A picture from the mural I drew on my wall during that hypomanic episode.) A while ago while cleaning out my room I found diary entries of a hypomanic episode that I had at the start of 2015. The fact that I had written a diary entry is unusual because I don’t...
We’ve been nominated for Healthline’s Best Health Blog Contest! We need your vote to win! The contest lasts from November 22 – December 12, 2016. You can vote once per day, every day, during that time. Please take a minute to vote for us: 1. Go...
It’s been months since my last full scale manic episode. However, the road to today has been paved with mixed episodes, depression, and frustrating medication changes. Some days I despair that life is passing me by whilst I wrestle with the utter exhaustion of having...
Help us win Healthline’s Best Health Blog of the Year! Vote for International Bipolar Foundation here. Having been diagnosed with bipolar disorder in the year 2009, I have struggled with coping, not only with my mood and personal life, but also with my...
Help us win Healthline’s Best Health Blog of the Year! Vote for International Bipolar Foundation here. Traveling can be difficult for everyone, even more so for those that struggle with mental health conditions. Between packing, leaving your normal schedule,...
Remission and recovery from any mental illness, addiction, or both, bring with them, for most of us entirely new gifts. Some of us are fortunate enough to find a whole new way of living, one which we have never experienced or imagined possible. Not all days are easy,...
I have been very open about my diagnosis and journey to recovery and acceptance. I started my blog to chronicle the ups and downs that I experience during my journey. Recently my friends were open enough to ask me questions they have always wanted to know about living...
People who live with bipolar disorder grow used to – or at least familiar with – the cycle of manic highs and depressive lows. But what happens when the highs and lows come closer and closer together? What happens when they both occur at the same time? There are...
Author’s note: This post has political content, though my intent in publishing the article is to share what was for me a very big stressor (and how I dealt with it). I couldn’t figure out a way to tell the story effectively without including some of my political...
If you have experienced psychosis, you know that it’s a very hard thing to explain to someone who has never experienced it before. When you are in a state of psychosis, it’s extremely hard to be able to tell yourself what is happening to you, and it can be even more...
Trigger Warning: Rape Mention I was sitting in the room, a computer, a plant, and two chairs beside me. I was crying so hard; I didn’t want to tell anyone. I refused to. I knew it would break this person’s heart and I could not watch that happen. My psychiatrist has...
What does it mean to me, in terms of self-identity, to have a dual-diagnosis of bipolar type II disorder (classified as a “mood” disorder) and borderline personality disorder (classified as a “personality” disorder)? I looked up the (psychology) definition of the word...
Veteran support is an important aspect of mental health. Many veterans come back from serving their country and suffer from both physical and mental issues. Some don’t understand what is happening to them or don’t want to admit what is happening. This...
My bedroom was full of figures. I knew I wasn’t dreaming – I was wide awake and had the light on. The noises were extra loud. I thought the hourly trains were blowing their horns over and over. The airport was louder than ever as well, with planes taking off...
I’m a girl who has been trapped in a nightmare for the last twelve years. I have bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, anxiety, and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). My drowning in despair started when my mother passed away in 2004. The diseases were...
The bangs of my head felt somewhat hollow against the cold hospital walls, for some odd reason, everything feels cold here. The cold grasp of the nurses hands as she tried to comfort me back to sanity. But dear God, what IS sanity in it’s most organic form? Is it like...
The vile potion of madness struck her like a lightening bolt gone astray. For what are we more than but a misty cloud roaming the night sky in the search for a shining star to give us the light and hope we are forever searching for. She walks the streets alone, every...
To all the hurting souls, My leaps and twirls; do they travel to you? That enduring energy flowing through the crisp air; do you eat it? When it rains, my dear, I dance in it. I laugh as the rain drops fall upon my nose. Do you feel the rhythm transcend through my...
“Oh my God,” my sister said, “you sounded just like Dad when you screamed at your wife during an argument!” She said that my head turned in a certain way just like our dad’s used to when he was in one of his frequent rages. “I thought he rose from the dead for a...
Living with mental illness is hard enough without outside interference, but no one can avoid the outside interference of everyday life. Whether you work full time, go to school, have hectic family lives, or any combination of these things; they all add more weight to...
I am a mom of three kids – four if you count my bipolar disorder, which can act just as (if not more) juvenile than my kids sometimes. I also take care of my two aging in-laws; they are both 73 years old. Then, of course, I am a wife. I take two medications for my...
The year is 2000. I’m working as a journalist in a small Connecticut shoreline town. I’m barely hanging on. My brain is shorting out. No one on or off staff knows how to help me. During this time, I would stay up all night working on stories, then come into work the...
This is the sixth in a series of 26 posts covering a variety of stress management tools and techniques, starting with the letter A. For some background information on stress and bipolar disorder, the blogger recommends reading her three-part series, “Getting a Handle...
Being a parent and having a bipolar diagnosis is hard. Before I was diagnosed with bipolar, my world revolved around parenting. As a stay at home mom, that was my job. I would have to say I was a really good parent at that time. My son was my pride and joy. He always...
She rubbed her pretty little eyes with cold clenched fists, and collapsed to her knees in angst and defeat on the cold and dust plagued cement. There was dust everywhere, it seemed, in every fraction of the air there was at least 10 million dust particles filling the...
“Get a support system.” That seems to be the number one thing I have heard since being diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I would look at doctors and therapists and tell them I didn’t have anyone. What about family? No. Spouse? No. Friends? They wouldn’t understand. I...
This is a painfully personal blog post. I considered writing the sub-title as “Meth and Madness” to balance two one-word nouns, but “madness” is a stigmatizing word, in my opinion. This is a personal blog post because six members of my family (immediate and extended)...
A year and a half ago, I submitted myself to a series of psychological assessments. It wasn’t my first experience with the mental health field. I’d been to treatment facilities and therapy in the past because of anorexia. But I knew something was going on, something...
This is Part 5 in a 5-Part Series: “When the World is Too Bright: An Intensive View of Mania from On the Ground” (Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 here) Dear Future Manic Krystal, Mania and you go together like peanut butter and jelly. After five...
This is Part 4 in a 5-Part Series: “When the World is Too Bright: An Intensive View of Mania from On the Ground” (Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 5 here) I moved back home with my mother a few years ago for financial reasons. Now that I’m back in...
This is Part 2 in a 5-Part Series: “When the World is Too Bright: An Intensive View of Mania from On the Ground” (Read Part 1, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5 here) I recently came across the poetry of Nayyirah Waheed. I follow her on Instagram and she posts...
This is Part 1 in a 5-Part Series: “When the World is Too Bright: An Intensive View of Mania from On the Ground” (Read Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5 here) This is my fifth mania in the nine years since I have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder....
Having been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I have not only been feeling physically, emotionally, and mentally ill, but financially as well. The cost of medicine is sickening considering that I need to buy it for maintenance. I work as a teacher in the Philippines,...
Episodes can occur in patients with bipolar disorder for numerous reasons; sometimes episodes occur for no known reason at all. I have learned to pay attention to my triggers so I can try to stay ahead of my episodes; sometimes it’s helpful, sometimes it’s not. I also...
If I could tell myself anything when it all started, it would be the following: ‘Reach out to your parents and tell them what’s going on with you emotionally. Lean on your family for help. They will be very understanding and supportive; they only want what’s best for...
To the girl who told me I was beautiful, so what do I have to be depressed about? I remember one time that I shared a personal story about depression on my Facebook page. This was one girl’s comment on the story: “Please don’t share such things on Facebook. You...
There has been no greater motivation for my recovery than fatherhood. Alone, I could go for long stretches of mood dysregulation. Even married, I was afforded the opportunity to sleep excessively and spend large amounts of time devoted to my self-care. Such privileges...
Have you ever been out shopping and witnessed a child have one of those nuclear meltdown kind of tantrums? The parent is obviously embarrassed and frustrated and they must take action. They can reprimand the child, they can snatch them up by the arm and hurry away or...
“The only true joy on earth is to escape from the prison of our own false self, and enter by love into union with the Life Who dwells and sings within the essence of every creature and in the core of our own souls…” – Thomas Merton To say that I grew up in a...
Allison Clemmons was born and raised in the South. Allison likes to refer to herself as “a southern lady, raised by a far better southern lady.” She is an only child to two very attentive and loving parents who loved her very much, but never really...
Our hearts are packed with medicine, our eyes are blinded of dismay and anguished distance between life itself and the voices in our minds that tell us not to try, not to live, not to survive. The doctors tattoo a label upon our head that feeds itself into our blood...
