This essay won first place in our High School Essay Contest this year. Like a shadow, it cannot be shaken. It hides in corners and feasts in the dark, preying on its victims from afar. It alters their minds, forever distorting the way in which they view their own...
This essay won second place in our High School Essay Contest this year. No one would ever say, “It is just cancer. Get over it.” So why does society stigmatize people who suffer from mental illness? How come when people have a mental illness, society...
By Amadea Smith At my high school, it is not uncommon to hear put-downs in the hallways – Hes just trying to get attention, She’s so bipolar. These kinds of naive comments about mental illness are just as ubiquitous as a wad of gum under a chair....
This is the third 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...
Everyone I have ever talked to within the mental health community has an acute awareness of the social stigma of their condition. They could jeopardize their career, could lose their friendships, or even have their family torn away from them. We are all aware that...
Thankfully I normally get to sleep very quickly. However, about a month ago it took me a VERY long time to get to sleep. I had a bunch of ideas swirling in my head and my mind kept firing off new ones. They were exciting ideas about a variety of things: a fundraising...
I remember what it was like hitting rock bottom. I hit it hard. I had checked myself into the psych ward twice and was dealing with a dull, achy feeling. Whoo boy, was that hard! Thankfully, I had and still have God, my husband, and mom on my side. I also found the...
Sometimes the hardest part about being married to someone with bipolar disorder is trying to reconcile the actions of the illness from the actions of the person. When you live with someone long enough you get to know them pretty well. You become comfortable...
I consider mania to be the forgotten orphan of the two poles of bipolar disorder with depression being the most discussed. Depression gets all the attention, all the talk, all the focus and mania is left out in the cold. On the International Bipolar Foundations...
It’s so important with a mental illness to be vigilant of errant emotions because it could be a warning sign of the start of an episode. This has happened only a few times since I’ve been stable on medication. The first time was during the summer a couple of...
I decided to be open about my bipolar disorder over two years ago. I expected that there would be some stigma, but what I didn’t expect or prepare for was the hidden stigma. The kind of stigma that isn’t immediately obvious until you reflect upon it. One of these...
When I facilitate groups, I ask people to say their name, something about themselves unrelated to their mental health disorder and, “And I’m more than that.” Inevitably, a person says something like, “Hi. I’m John. I’m bipolar, and I’m not much more than that.” I’m...
There were a lot of warning signs that I had a mental illness, long before my first diagnosis. My mother was diagnosed with bipolar disorder when I was a child. I would have massive mood swings and extremely violent temper tantrums that often resulted in the...
It’s difficult to know what to do when your adult child has the symptoms of a mental illness. We encourage our children to be independent and take care of themselves. But what do we do as a parent if our adult child is struggling with depression, anxiety...
I have a secret. I am a superhero. In some ways we all are superheroes. I can hear the critics now, Bipolar disorder is a curse. Only suffering comes from a disease like that. Bah, I say. Bah. Life is what you make it. Bad...
This is the second 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...
I decided to start writing to help people like me but I didn’t really pursue it seriously until my sister passed away unexpectedly last year. I needed to transfer my grief into something productive (that’s just my personality) and so here I am, writing a blog...
You probably hear all the time that if you eat right and exercise, you’ll feel better both mentally and physically. This can be challenging when we live in a world that thrives on junk food and unrealistic expectations on how people should look. So, is it even worth...
When there is a big storm that will knock out your power you prepare for it, right? Typically, you keep water, a flashlight, and some food that doesnt require cooking because you might lose all power. To some extent, its the same when preparing for a low...
When I first met my wife she was invisible. Sometime after her bipolar diagnosis she was led to believe that her illness was not something to be discussed, it was something to be ashamed of. Most people that knew her diagnosis tried to be supportive of her “moodiness”...
Yesterday I was discharged from a psychiatric hospital after a five-week stay. I was hospitalised for mania and psychosis (you can read about it here). Instead of only feeling the expected excitement and joy, I also felt underlying apprehension and fear. But mostly,...
After living with bipolar for 8 years, I have noticed some thought patterns that I tend to have around when it comes to thinking about my emotions. Questioning one’s emotions is a useful tool in learning to manage them. As my psychologist and I have discussed,...
Jane and her fiance, Dana, each wrote about their relationship for our couples series. JaneWriting a blog set together is both an awesome and odd experience. I write without outlines, and pour everything out much like I deal with my moods. My fiance Dana needed...
Lynn and her husband, Bill, each wrote about their relationship for our Couples Series. Lynn I do almost everything on my own and find it hard to let people help me. What I have learned with this illness is that sometimes it’s ok to ask for help. It’s ok to...
Sean’s wife, Sarah, wrote a blog that goes with this one. We recommend reading them together. In terms of mental health, we live in the best possible time; and the future only looks to be even better. We have resources and treatments, and an impressive...
When I married my husband, who is in the US Air Force, I knew life would be tough as a military wife, but I had not realized how much harder it would be with my newly-diagnosed mental health condition – bipolar disorder type 1. I met my husband in England...
No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path. – Buddha There are a lot of scary statistics out there. Mortality rates. Higher risk for diabetes, metabolic conditions, earlier deaths. Adverse medication side...
Stephanie’s husband, Don, wrote an accompanying blog to his post for our Couples Series. We recommend reading them together. Relationships are hard. Add to them the element of a mental illness and they become almost impossible. But Ive learned a lot from...
Don’s wife, Stephanie, wrote a blog that compliments this one for our Couples Series. We recommend reading them together. Stephanie and I, after being together for 9 years, finally got married last October. The question that I often get asked afterwards by...
My last blog post, “My Manic Summer Take Two”, was written while I was in a psychiatric hospital for psychotic mania. Well, nothing much has changed as I am still hospitalised for that episode and am writing from hospital. To be clear, I am not writing this while...
Daniel’s wife Melanie wrote a blog that goes with this one for our Couples Series, we recommend reading them together. I have known my wife Melanie for over 9 years, and we got married in May of 2015. When we first met I was so happy because I had never been in...
Melanie’s husband, Daniel, wrote an accompanying blog post for our Couples Series. We recommend reading the two posts together. My sister messaged me on Whatsapp the other day and said she liked my profile picture, and that I looked genuinely happy in it....
Beka’s husband wrote an accompanying blog to this post for our Couples Series. We recommend reading the 2 posts together. I previously wrote an article about how I found happiness, or actually contentedness. It was during my search that I said the most...
Beka is one of our bloggers and her husband, Ron, wrote this post for our couples series. Read Beka’s accompanying post here.I read somewhere recently that the divorce rate when one marriage partner has bipolar disorder is 90%. While it seems kind of high to me,...
It was January 2013 when I started dating my first boyfriend, and it was under precarious circumstances. We had met five months earlier in a speech course during the first semester of my college career, and we sat next to each other on the first day. We casually...
It’s classic, Shakespearean even. (Romeo and Juliet). Boy Meets Girl in rehab, AA or group therapy and they fall ‘in love.’ Warnings fall on deaf ears. Their focus shifts from recovery to each other while they float off on a pink cloud. Then the...
Don’t let others negativity bring you down. Being diagnosed with and dealing with bipolar disorder on a daily basis is already a lot to handle. It’s hard enough to keep your moods in check and on an even level. It’s already difficult to have to take...
Valentine’s Day is all about the romantic, idealistic side of love. While it can be fun and meaningful to celebrate your relationship with your spouse or partner (if you have one), the reality is that relationships can be hard. The Hollywood, happily-ever-after ideal...
Mentally ill persons increasingly receive care provided by correctional agencies. In 1959, nearly 559,000 mentally ill patients were housed in state mental hospitals (Lamb, 1998). A shift to “deinstitutionalize” mentally ill persons had, by the late...
Being diagnosed with bipolar disorder was one of the most traumatic events of my life. The illness presented itself in my teens and at the time I was unaware of the possibility that my experiences had a diagnosis and that things could get better. By the time I began...
After my husband and I had been married for 16 years, his liver became damaged from Hepatitis B. A year later he had a liver transplant which he survived for five and a half years. At the end of that period, the Hepatitis destroyed his new liver and he...
It seems that my last blog post was somewhat prophetic. I am currently sitting on a bed, in a psychiatric hospital, recovering from my second psychotic manic episode. This episode evolved much like the last did, with me becoming so elevated that I lost insight...
Many people that Ive met who are diagnosed with bipolar disorder are very intelligent and creative individuals. Sometimes those same people have very high expectations of themselves due to being smart. Another potential tie-in for some is that when manic...
Youre right, Im a terrible mother, Im a horrible wife, I just cant do anything right! I confessed as I faced my husband following his recital of my shortcomings after coming home to a messy house and 2 unkept daughters. That night I decided that my husband...
Life with bipolar has a lot of ups and downs…and not just for moods. I think relationships, romantic ones, become one of the hardest parts of your life to manage and to keep balanced when you have a mental disorder. Romantic relationships include allowing...
When my husband and I first started our relationship, we weren’t ready to be in one. I had just received my bipolar diagnosis a year before we started dating so I was still learning about how to function in life with a Bipolar diagnosis and he was trying to figure out...
My version of love has changed from the past several years. When I was younger, love to me was an infatuation. When I was in my 20’s, love was lust – yes, there is a difference, but the label of love was used. Now, in my late 30’s, love is completely...
It’s hard being in a relationship and having bipolar disorder. My disorder played a key factor into why I had a few relationships fail. Sure, we weren’t meant to be, but what I put them through didn’t help. I will say that I honestly didn’t know about my mental...
I am writing this blog after an awful fight on the phone I picked with my mom. She ended up telling me that she finally understood why I want to become a psychiatrist and that there is indeed no other career that would suit me better because only such a crazy person...
Society likes to group everyone with bipolar together. They insist we are all alike. We are all violent. Every time something violent is done in this country it is blamed on bipolar. The person must certainly have bipolar. I can’t speak for others, but for me,...
