Category: Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar Disorder is Ageless

Bipolar Disorder is Ageless

Bipolar Disorder is a disorder seen throughout the aging process. It can start in childhood and continue on through into senior citizens. It is not just a disorder for young adults, criminals and the rich and famous. Bipolar disorder, also known as manic...

Goals, Not Resolutions

Goals, Not Resolutions

It’s the first month of the year and most people are posting about their New Year’s resolutions. There are plenty of articles with ideas and they’re almost all the same: work out, save more money for retirement, remove toxic friendships, eliminate processed foods, and...

What My Parents Need To Know About Me

What My Parents Need To Know About Me

I do not say much about my parents. There is nothing to be said about my folks outside my therapy sessions. Out of a need for privacy I usually keep my family members out of any advice I give on this blog. This Christmas I decided not to visit my parents in their new...

How Should I Approach Stigma At Work?

How Should I Approach Stigma At Work?

At work the other day I heard someone say something disrespectful about people who live with bipolar disorder. I think they felt comfortable saying this in front of me because they did not know I have a mental illness. I was surprised and offended when I heard it, but...

David Bowie: You’ll Always Be A Hero To Me

David Bowie: You’ll Always Be A Hero To Me

When tormented musicians perish I overrelate. It becomes more about me than the departed. This is about him. David Bowie. The King of ‘Sound and Vision,’ crossed divides of age, fame, race, sexuality, politics, and style with theatrical flair and...

I Can’t Guarantee I’ll Never Become Manic Again

I Can’t Guarantee I’ll Never Become Manic Again

I have only been hospitalised for mania once (you can read about my experience here). My memory of that time is hazy and distorted by the manic lenses I was wearing but to say that it was dramatic is putting it lightly. I had just turned 23, was newly diagnosed with...

9 Lessons Bipolar Disorder Has Taught Me This Year

9 Lessons Bipolar Disorder Has Taught Me This Year

As 2015 is drawing to a close I often find myself reflecting on the things bipolar disorder has taught me over the past 12 months. This year, like the last few years, has been a steep learning curve. However unlike last year where I became fully acquainted with my...

Avoiding Alcohol and The 3rd Degree

Avoiding Alcohol and The 3rd Degree

Alcoholism is well known in my family, on both of my parents’ sides. This doesn’t mean I do not drink because of this, but I have never been “drunk.” I have will power and know my limits. I don’t find the attraction in getting to the point where things are blurry and...

New Year, New Resolutions

New Year, New Resolutions

Every year like millions of others I create a New Year’s resolution. Most of the time, I don’t see it through and by the following New Year reflect on the failure of yet another resolution. This year I’m going to focus on positive change. A couple of my friends have...

My Search for Happiness

My Search for Happiness

The New Year is a great time to take a look at how you would like the next year to go, to plan, to see what you can do differently to make it a better year. I used to spend previous New Years (and most days in between) looking for changes that would bring me...

How “Christmas Vacation” Saves Me Every Year

How “Christmas Vacation” Saves Me Every Year

Have you seen the movie “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation”? Every year, our family settles in to watch it at least once between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. It’s a huge tradition with us.  We’ve been quoting it for years. “Save the neck for me, Clark,” is a...

Coping with the Pressure of Christmas

Coping with the Pressure of Christmas

Not too long ago, I wrote about Thanksgiving and about how it can be a difficult time. As I’m sure a lot of us know, Christmas can be just as hard to get through, if not harder. This is during a point of time in the year where we’re supposed to be reflective and put...

What Do You Eat For Breakfast?

What Do You Eat For Breakfast?

From my childhood until approximately five years ago, I never really thought about what I ate for breakfast. Like everyone else I had heard many times that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day”.  A common breakfast for me was orange juice...

Mania and Bipolar Disorder

Sarah describes what mania feels like for her and how she has learned to manage it. Sarah regularly blogs for IBPF and has done some YouTube Videos for their channel. She now writes on a regular basis for the Dallas Morning Post as...

Putting Meaning to the Holidays When Your Family Changes Over Time

Putting Meaning to the Holidays When Your Family Changes Over Time

It is that time of year again. The holidays. People often think that they should be a happy time of year, what with the music and the lights and the gatherings. But, actually, they can be a difficult time of the year for many people, and I don’t just mean people who...

Staying With School Through The Storm

Staying With School Through The Storm

I went back to school in August 2015 to City College of San Francisco feeling confident that I would do well with my studies. It was like a breath of fresh air as I passed test after test and scored A’s on my psychology papers. Then my life seemed to go down a road...

Finding Your Place: The Greatest Gift for the Holidays

Finding Your Place: The Greatest Gift for the Holidays

I don’t know if it’s because I’m the middle child with a large age gap between both my older and younger siblings, but I’ve always struggled with my place in my family. My older siblings always had each other, they were two years apart and my younger siblings had each...

The Many Faces of Anxiety

The Many Faces of Anxiety

Everyone deals with anxiety at some point in their lives. When you’re getting ready to argue or fight, it is that exact emotion that causes your hands to shake. It can cause you to start to feel warm or even for you to start sweating a little. Those are our bodies’...

How Bipolar Disorder Is Viewed In Kenya

How Bipolar Disorder Is Viewed In Kenya

Kenya is a country on the East side of the African continent. Mental illness is still a taboo subject here. Even among the elite and educated citizens, witchcraft and curses are still considered the greatest cause of mental illness. It is common to read in the media...

Relationships and Bipolar Disorder

Relationships and Bipolar Disorder

Good evening readers, I hope this entry finds you all doing well. Tonight’s topic is relationships. How do we help those in our lives understand us and communicate in a gentle way with an understanding heart? Those who know me best know that I’m very people oriented;...

How I Manage Bipolar With A Helping Paw

How I Manage Bipolar With A Helping Paw

To my knowledge, I’ve never been without at least one animal in my life. That ranges from rabbits and hamsters to kittens and 100 pound dogs. I’ve always felt connected to animals. One of my pets is Baron, a German Shepherd close to 100 pounds. I trained my dog...

Grateful for Bipolar Disorder

Grateful for Bipolar Disorder

This week we’re celebrating Thanksgiving in the United States. Family, food, and gratitude mark this special time of year. It’s a time when I check in with myself, with my mind and my spirituality. It’s a time when I ask what I’m grateful for, and most importantly,...

Confessions of a Manic Mystery Shopper

Confessions of a Manic Mystery Shopper

I was once a high-valued corporate spy, investigating customer service everywhere I went by working as a mystery shopper. After a year of luxury brand espionage, I went inactive. Why would I forgo hitting posh hair salons on the house, free smells, scrubs, and...

The Dog

The Dog

Creativity in bipolar disorder is more often than not associated with hypomania/mania instead of depression. However, I wrote this description of depression eighteen months ago while I was in hospital and psychotically depressed: My dog has returned to me. Not my...

Messiah Complex

My name is Marek Danielewski and I have been diagnosed properly with Bipolar Disorder for about 9 years. While I know I suffered longer, I found ways of self-therapy and treatment. I wanted to submit my art and ideas on ‘bipolar and art’ to the blog to inform, inspire...

Surviving Bipolar Depression

Surviving Bipolar Depression

It’s like I’m Paralyzed. Not physically but mentally. It’s this gripping fear of facing the day when I can barely muster the strength to get up and hit snooze on my alarm clock for the fourth or fifth time in a row. There’s a relentless...

An Unnecessary Burden: Bipolar Disorder And The Sense of Guilt

An Unnecessary Burden: Bipolar Disorder And The Sense of Guilt

Guilt is undoubtedly a fundamental emotion that each and every one of us has experienced to a certain extent on various occasions in our lifetimes. As far back as the 19th century, Sigmund Freud, the father of modern psychanalysis, believed that guilt is the...

What Medications?

What Medications?

Mental illness can be an ugly disease to live with. People talk about the prejudice that they face when people know that they have a mental illness. I’ve been lucky. I’ve spoken before about sharing my condition with others and usually nothing too terrible...

Dealing with My Anxiety

Dealing with My Anxiety

I have bipolar disorder, but I also have an anxiety disorder. I really dislike feeling anxious so there are various things that I do to fight it. The first thing I do is try to see if there is anything to be anxious about. If there is then I see if I...

Getting Through Thanksgiving

Getting Through Thanksgiving

When you’re dealing with bipolar disorder, the holidays can be a tough time. Although I’m doing better than I was several years ago, this time of the year can still be a little tough. Everyone around me is just so happy and I start feeling a little melancholy. How do...

Swim With Me

Swim With Me

Self-loathing is something I do best. It never ends. I have knots in my stomach, bricks on my chest, a lump in my throat. I’m anxious and depressed at the same time. I try to be positive. I read articles about how to get myself out of this. But I can’t. It consumes...

Keeping Both Feet Firmly On The Ground

Keeping Both Feet Firmly On The Ground

“I think you’re becoming elevated” are words that make the ground fall out from under my feet. When I hear someone even hint that I am unusually energetic, cheerful, speedy or irritable it feels like my grip on reality is weakening. I can picture my ascent into mania...

The Ancient Greeks Thought Bipolar Disorder was a Divine Gift

The Ancient Greeks Thought Bipolar Disorder was a Divine Gift

Did you know that two of the first human diseases described by the classical Greek physicians are “mania” (mixture of anger, rage, and euphoria) and “melancholia” (sadness)? Jules Angst and Andreas Marneros wrote a paper that scoured ancient writings for...

Move Over Movement Disorder

Move Over Movement Disorder

Have you ever felt that you were the patient treatment wouldn’t help? After three years of searching for relief from Tardive Dyskinesia I was defeated. Out cold. Counted to ten. My saving grace was my husband because he would not let me give up. We were both up every...

Mania, Anger, and Guilt

Mania, Anger, and Guilt

Mania is a very tough subject for me. When I’d go through the manic episodes it was very painful. I’ll admit, after I dealt with it in therapy, I just wanted to forget about it, but I know that’s not right for our readers. So, here goes… I deal with mania a lot....

Yoga Philosophy for Bipolar Disorder 101: Part 3, Asteya

Yoga Philosophy for Bipolar Disorder 101: Part 3, Asteya

This is part of a series on the the basic “do’s” and “don’ts” of Yoga philosophy, called the ‘Yamas’ and ‘Niyamas.’ Previous posts covered the first Yama: ahimsa, or nonviolence, and the second Yama: satya, or non-lying, honesty, and...

No Longer A Number

No Longer A Number

Just like my bipolar disorder, my eating disorder started in bits and pieces and later formed a cycle. Did you know that as many as 14% of people with bipolar disorder have a co-occurring eating disorder? And it’s not just women! There are male anorexics,...

How to Support a Loved One Dealing with Mania

How to Support a Loved One Dealing with Mania

Sometimes mania seems like the ugly stepchild of the bipolar duo of mania and depression. Depression seems to get all the hype, all the attention. And mania sits in a corner like Baby from Dirty Dancing. But if any of you have seen a loved one (or you yourself) have...

5 Ways Service Dogs Can Help People Living With Bipolar Disorder

5 Ways Service Dogs Can Help People Living With Bipolar Disorder

Can those with psychiatric disorders such as bipolar disorder benefit from interaction with animals? For most people the answer is a resounding “YES!” There are an increasing number of dogs being trained to assist individuals with a range of disabilities. It has been...

How To Tell Someone You Have Bipolar Disorder

Sarah shares tips for telling someone that you have bipolar disorder, and what to do when someone has a negative reaction. She is speaking from her personal experience living with bipolar disorder. Sarah regularly blogs for IBPF and has done some...

Explaining Bipolar Disorder to My Son

Explaining Bipolar Disorder to My Son

I was standing at the kitchen sink crying. I had just screamed at my 7 year old again. Albeit he was being really annoying, and he talked back to me for the umpteenth time, but it was no reason to scream at him. I just couldn’t control my anger. I was in...

I Think I Have Bipolar Disorder

I Think I Have Bipolar Disorder

Emotions and moods fluctuate for everyone. When life is going our way we are happy and when things are rough we can be down. This ebb and flow of moods is normal; it is what makes us human. So what is the difference between ‘normal’ and ‘bipolar’? Bipolar...

My Formula for Recovery

My Formula for Recovery

It took me a few years to figure out just what I need to stay mentally healthy with no risk of relapse. I had been on the road to recovery so long that I forgot how important all the things I do every day are. I learned the hard way that I need to stay on my plan...

Guys Supporting Guy Friends

Guys Supporting Guy Friends

Often I hear of women getting together with one or more friends to do things to support one person and/or another. Some examples are getting a manicure, meeting for coffee, or going to a movie. Sadly this isn’t as common in guys doing things together with their...

How Do You Know If You Are Making an Emotional Decision?

How Do You Know If You Are Making an Emotional Decision?

I used to think that I could tell easily whether or not I was feeling emotional. But recently, I have realised that it isn’t as easy as I thought. There have been times that I thought I was calm enough when talking to my partner after a disagreement – only to find out...

What does a Headache Have to do with It?

What does a Headache Have to do with It?

Headaches have been my companion off and on for years. I usually take Excedrine and Tylenol and put a cold pack on my neck. I often have to lie down as well. I even suffered with migraines for a time and lived with shots, dark rooms, and tremors. Having bipolar...

Another Diagnosis

Another Diagnosis

A month ago it was just another Tuesday morning: wake up, shower and dress, drink some coffee, then leave my husband and puppy at home to drive 45min to my doctor’s appointment. It felt like the same as before: go in for 45 min, talk, get refill prescriptions if I...

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