By: Courtney Davey, MA, LMFT The holidays are a wonderful time: family, friends, feelings of good will etc. However, these additions to your schedule also can create high levels of stress. Holiday movies are notorious for making gags out of the difficulties with...
By: Andrienne Kennedy This is the most wonderful time of the year! For many people the holidays signifies happiness, family and fun. But what about those who struggle when holiday time comes around? While the meaning of the holidays is beautiful, it can be a rough...
By Allison Clemmons Hatch One of the most difficult seasons for many is upon us. Those of us who celebrate Christmas, not just those of us who grapple with the symptoms of bipolar disorder, have a tough time maintaining any sort of cheerful disposition, for a...
By: Lori Lane-Murphy Halloween is long over. Tell that to the demon climbing up my ribcage. I’m not sure even the Exorcist himself stood a chance against the terror that clutched at me last night with determined fingers and the express purpose to bring me down. I...
By: Liz Wilson “International Day of Persons with Disabilities (December 3) is an international observance promoted by the United Nations since 1992. It has been celebrated with varying degrees of success around the planet. The observance of the Day aims to promote an...
By: Conor Bezane I feel a lot of pressure. Pressure to take my meds and stay on them. Pressure to be a good son, brother, and uncle. Pressure to be a man. Pressure to conform and lead a healthy, happy life. It’s tough, but I’ve learned to maintain composure and grace...
By: Laura Sanscartier In the throes of my bipolar depression and psychosis, all I wanted to do was die. This has happened multiple times in my life. I have attempted suicide multiple times. I was sure that the only way to relieve the stress on my spouse and family was...
By: Tosha Maaks I am a lucky suicide survivor. In 2008 I tried to end my life after a hard day at my job. I came home, and I said good-bye to my children, and I climbed into bed to snuggle with my middle child and say my good-byes to him. My husband knew something...
By: Andrienne Kennedy “As you get older, you will discover that you have two hands. One for helping yourself, one for helping others.” – Audrey Hepburn Last year was a pivotal year for me. I was 39, and really started thinking about my 40th birthday which would...
I am a Writer/Author/Blogger. I am a twice divorced single Mother raising Two beautiful young girls. We also have two lovable puppy dogs who are very spoiled. I am also a recovering drug addict (Meth & Cocaine) and I used to have a pretty bad drinking habit too...
By Wendy Ward, Executive Director, The Youth Mental Health Project My first experiences with mental health conditions are the reasons that I co-founded The Youth Mental Health Project. I believe that by changing the way we talk about and how we act with regard to our...
By: Megan Malfi
By: Laura Sanscartier I am 37 years old. I have battled symptoms of bipolar disorder since I was a child, and was diagnosed when I was in my early 20s. Essentially, I have endured and tried to “fix” this disease, even cure it, for 30 years. I have gone to many,...
By: James Phelps, M.D. “Bipolar” is the wrong word. Worse than inaccurate — it’s directly misleading: 1. Depression is the main problem for most folks. Bipolar should be called “Depression Plus.” 2. Depression and manic symptoms frequently occur together,...
By: Danielle Workman I’ve said it in many other posts and even in my book, but the day I received my diagnosis and was told I had Bipolar Disorder, I truly felt alone. The days that followed, the feeling remained. The more I searched online and the more I dug, the...
By: Conor Bezane There are 5.7 million bipolar people in the US, and 60 percent of them are addicts, according to the Epidemiologic Catchment Area study. Co-occurring addiction is more common in bipolar people than in any other psychiatric group. We drink and use...
By: Michelle Vasiliu In 2015, my first picture book, My Happy Sad Mummy, was published. My Happy Sad Mummy is a Picture Book for 3-8 year olds. It is a story that portrays the emotional response of a young girl living with a mother who has bipolar disorder. The book...
By: Danielle Workman The day I received my diagnosis for Bipolar Disorder, I felt so alone. I remember it vividly, because it was so incredibly painful. I didn’t know anyone with Bipolar Disorder I could talk to about it. The people I knew that had anxiety and...
By: Serena Goldsmith As a peer counselor, speaker, and mental health clinician, many people have shared with me that they feel stigmatized by having a mental health diagnosis and they feel reluctant to tell others about it. I felt that way too for many years after I...
By: Aubrey Good I am an intern at the International Bipolar Foundation. I spend a few hours a week at the office finding articles, writers, resources, etc. that I believe are beneficial to educating the public on bipolar disorder and also offer hope and understanding....
By: Allison Strong When I first did intake for group dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), I sorta ‘flunked.’ Temporarily. It was determined that I’d been traumatized and I was transferred to their Trauma Resolution and Integration Program (T.R.I.P.) for individual...
By: Nic Fleming It has been almost 8 months since my last blog. It is hard to believe how much time has passed. I literally could not write- or read for that matter. So yes, I have been exceptionally unwell but I would like to share some aspects of my experience over...
By Mamotladi Ivy Matloga My name is Ivy Matloga and I am a public servant and an author. My brother lives and copes with a mental illness. I just released a novel, a work of fiction, inspired by my brother’s illness and the observations I have made, as well as...
By: Megan Malfi Check out Redefining Success Part 2, here! For more vlogs from Megan Malfi, check out the playlist here.
By: Allison Strong A year ago, I wrote about Zen, Mindfulness and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT). DBT is an update on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy—both written by Marsha M Linehan, Ph D. Originally, DBT was strictly for the treatment of borderline personality...
By: Scott Walker
By Melanie Luxenberg You don’t want anxiety to win, but let’s face it; sometimes it happens. I say don’t be hard on yourself when it does. Anxiety and bipolar disorder seem to really like each other- a lot. Or at least that’s what my experience has been. Anxiety...
By Megan Malfi
By Megan Malfi
By Allison Clemmons I have been very excited about sharing my recent remission story with the world. I have bipolar disorder, PTSD, and ADHD. I have struggled all of my life to some degree. Traumatic events involving my family a few years ago sent me into a tailspin,...
By Janet Coburn You may think that your psychiatrist and your psychotherapist constitute your treatment team. You can add your caregiver, your bipolar friends, and your online groups and call them your support system. But there’s one person you’ve left...
By Megan Shultz I have Bipolar Disorder. At the end of January 2016 I finished a course of 15 ECT treatments for a severe episode of depression. A couple of weeks after I finished the ECT I started to become very angry and irritable. The mania was setting in. You...
By Pieter Steyn I want to ask you, how are you? What heaviness are you carrying? What tears are you holding back? What pain and what fears are you keeping inside? People often ask you how you are and you reply “fine”, but you are not fine. They will never know that....
by Kelly C. Kirby, MS, LPCC I oscillate between thinking of my bipolar disorder diagnosis as my enemy and my partner in life. When I reflect on this ideological difference, I wish I could blame external events or influential people for my shifting perspective;...
By Jen Teh In a recent conversation with a good friend, we talked about a mutual friend who appeared to be showing signs of bipolar disorder but who was quite closed to the possibility of a problem. The conversation meandered to what it was like when I was first...
#TheUnseen is when mental and/or emotional fatigue leads to withdrawing, and depressed thought loops. It is when “I’m tired or “I don’t feel good” mean so much more. It is when you can’t even handle being around the people you love....
I’ve always been extremely hard on myself. I think those of us who struggle with depression frequently are. I know that I have a tendency to compare myself to others who don’t have to deal with mental illness. Are they more successful than I am? Do they have a better...
Like many people, my bipolar disorder was misdiagnosed for years. On average, people wait six years for a proper diagnosis. For me, it was decades. In hindsight, my new diagnosis made so much sense and explained so much of what I had been through over the years. It...
Q: How do you support your partner when, in the midst of a hypomanic episode, they tell you that they want to end the relationship and move out on their own? How can you tell if that’s what they’re truly feeling, or if it’s a result of their episode? Beka: From a...
By: Ros Limbo Seasonal Affective Disorder. This is the first thing that came to mind on the 2nd of April, when Namibia officially changed to winter time. The change in time signals the transition from summer to fall; nights begin to get longer while days are limited...
By: Farida Raj “My son needs help. He has bipolar disorder. Bipolar! How can a seven year old child have bipolar?” I, a Remedial Educator, was sitting with a parent who had recently relocated from Canada to Hyderabad, India. A pediatric psychiatrist had diagnosed her...
By: Carrie Elizabeth Lin This is the seventh 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...
Long time married couple Ron and Beka Owens answer your questions about relationships and bipolar disorder. Do arguments about issues in your relationship with your husband ever trigger manic or depressive episodes? How do you deal with any issues you may have if you...
By: Karen Meadows In retrospect, during my daughter’s battle with mental illness, I wasted a lot of energy worrying about things I couldn’t control. When I learned about a framework called Three Concentric Circles at work, I realized this was a powerful approach I...
By: Allison Strong This is an update on an IBPF blog that I wrote a few years ago, “Move Over, Movement Disorder,” about my Tardive Dyskinesia (TD) and all the hoops I had to jump through to attain symptom control. I also did two TD videos you can view on our YouTube...
Inspired to Stabilize By: Kryss Jobes So, this year I want to make changes in how I live my life. For the past few years, I have told myself I will do this, but it never lasts. It is all too easy to get distracted and put off important tasks, or to miss one day and...
Stigma a small six letter word, But blocks the way; Too unconfident to be heard. You beastly biased blighted word, You block the light you’re so absurd. Stigma stands blocking our path, Scared alone or scared they’ll laugh. You disgust me with your...
Life is like a treasure hunt. We keep searching for the answers to unlock mysteries presented to us by life. We are always on a wild goose chase thinking we are nearing the key that will unravel the mystery, and we end up with another puzzle on our hands. A few lucky...
Ever since our twenty-something daughter was diagnosed as suffering with bipolar depression accompanied by manic episodes and anxiety, I’ve learned volumes about this disease. Some of this knowledge comes from personal experiences, talking with parents, or information...
Support animals can be incredibly helpful for those that need them. Although they are widely used, many are still ignorant to them. While there are many laws and other tidbits I don’t mention in this post, here’s a general overview of support animals. What is a...
