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: Emily McGuigan “If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.” ~ Edward Hopper As an artist with Generalized Anxiety Disorder(GAD) and Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), I have primarily used drawing and painting to help me cope with and explain...
By: Aubrey G. 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. I...
By: Allison Strong I’m in a year-long Dialectical Behavioral Therapy program. Many people repeat the course. More than once! They say in their first year they felt more like passengers than patients because there’s so much material to cover. I agree. Now that we’re...
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...
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...
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....
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...
Learn more about #DearTeenageMe at http://sayitforwardcampaign.org/ Dear scared Ros, I know you tried it again last night, like you try every week. You spend hours crying and pouring your emotions into your little black book hoping that someone will finally hear your...
When I wrote about my bipolar disorder, anxiety and PTSD, I thought it was the hardest thing I did. But now I realise that what Im writing about today is the hardest thing I have ever done. The only reason this has taken me so long is the same reason why I kept quiet...
I roll over to the edge of my bed and start searching for my pills: white pill, purple pill and a couple of other pills my psychiatrist said I needed. I’m not ready to get out of bed, but I know I can’t miss another day at work. By the time I’m in...
Prior to my diagnosis and starting my treatment, I spent countless hours each day stuck in a cycle of worry and panic. I would ruminate, the worst moments of my life and every single mistake I’ve ever made surfacing in my mind and stuck in an infinite replay....
Some days, I want to get off the ride. Some days, I just want to be “normal.” I don’t want to deal with unpleasant side effects of medications. I don’t want to endure my lows or spiral out of control during my highs. I don’t want to be crazy. I don’t want to fall...
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...
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...
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...
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. There is only darkness below,...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Your buttocks are cold and aching because youve 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. Youre...
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...
Mania You wake up after only four hours asleep, but that’s ok, you feel fine. Today is going to be a great day, a productive day, one of the best days of your life. You get in the shower and sing every song you know, and keep singing as you dress up and do your...
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...
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...
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...
Lights, candy canes, Christmas trees, Santa, nutcrackers, snowmen, gingerbread men, cookies, cakes, pies, ham, turkey, wine, sparkling wine, stockings, gift boxes, Christmas carols, and garland this list goes on. This brings happy times right? Not for...
Have you seen the movie National Lampoons Christmas Vacation? Every year, our family settles in to watch it at least once between Thanksgiving and New Years. Its a huge tradition with us. Weve been quoting it for years. Save the neck for me, Clark, is a...
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...
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...
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. Im 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 cant. It consumes...
In my last blog post ‘My Experience with Psychotic Depression: Part 1’, I wrote about how I became suicidally depressed and psychotic, which lead to a hospitalisation. In this post I will write about the changing point of my depression and how I got better. I was...
Several posts ago I wrote about my experience with psychotic mania (‘My Manic Summer’) and now I want to write about when I was psychotically depressed. I said in ‘My Manic Summer’ that I have only experienced psychosis once and that was when I was manic, but I was...
Quite a while ago I was told that during spring and summer I would most likely be controlling underlying mania and during winter I would be fighting depression. This is because medication doesn’t work very well for me, my moods are very seasonal and I have the type of...
In the past week I had an in-depth conversation about bipolar disorder with a friend of mine who knows very little about it. I appreciated her honesty and being open to learn about something that has been a big part of my life. One question that she asked me really...
through the depression. I felt, without a body, something in agony or maybe a body without a soul, stiff and too heavy to pull from the bed. Yes – an obese body, my own flesh and grief, too heavy for my body to lift. There...
I had been out of work for five years and then four months ago, I began working part time. The job completely drained me and so I quit Thursday a week ago. I couldn’t believe how relieved I was afterwards. Then Friday came; I began second-guessing myself...
Paradoxically, I’ve found newfound perspectives of patience, humor, and focus borne of depression itself that have strengthened my resolve to survive and recover. I’m hoping that through this blog, you can grab onto a positive idea to bridge whatever mental...
‘It feels like a long way down.’ Yes it certainly does. The crashing fall from the highest peaks of manic elation to the deepest depths of despairing depression is devastating. My mood swings are like clockwork and for the past few years I would become gradually...
The first time I truly got depressed was when I was 20 years old and the guy I was involved with told me that although he really liked me, he was still in love (with his ex-girlfriend). It was downhill from there. Failed relationship after failed relationship. More...
I’ve recently been discharged from a psychiatric clinic for a depression episode. I’ve been writing and thinking a lot about my current state as well as my experiences within the clinic, but mainly what I want in my life. This piece touches on my state of mind...
“Music washes away from the soul, the dust of everyday life”- Berthold AuerbachGrowing up, music was a big part of my household. Not that any of us played musical instruments but just, enjoying it. Dancing around the house. Singing at the top of our lungs....
I have been battling a depressive episode for the last two months. We fool around with my medications but I haven’t felt like myself in about five months. Three days ago I posted a photo on my Instagram account about recovery and thought a quote about recovery...
2/25/15 Mania. I am manic as hell right now. I can’t sit still. Nothing is enough. It’s insatiable. I smoke too much, want sex too much, shop too much. And it’s never enough. Never. I have to keep going, keep seeking out...
One of the reasons I am glad that I moved to Florida is that it led me to a peer run drop in center near my house called Rebels Drop In. In my small county, Broward, between Palm Beach and Miami-Dade, we have 5 of these centers. Peer run drop in centers average 5 per...
Melancholy Its winter.I knew youd be knocking at my door soon.Your familiar spirit–always unwelcomed–but persistent. She asked me What are you depressed about?I wanted to shout About the serotonin depletion,The change in weather that makes...
This is the first part in a 3 part series. We recommend reading them together.Part 2: Understanding Triggers and Vulnerabilities in Bipolar DisorderPart 3: Management Strategies for Successful Relapse PreventionI recently watched a documentary called...
What is ‘stable’? After 6 years of constant ups and downs I wouldn’t know what euthymia was like if it slapped me in the face. I was diagnosed with unipolar depression when I was 20 and up until 22 (when I was re-diagnosed with bipolar), I thought I had been...
