Author: Natalia A. Beiser My need for dialysis started largely because of long term Lithium use. I began taking Lithium in 1994 at the age of twenty two and have what is described as lithium induced nephropathy. This means that I have small cysts all over my...
Author: Natalia Beiser Please note: These are the experiences of this writer and do not reflect the outcomes of every patient taking Lithium Carbonate. I have taken Lithium Carbonate since I was twenty two years old. I am now approaching my fiftieth birthday and have...
Author: Natalia Beiser At the age of eighteen, I experienced my first full blown manic episode. I was not diagnosed with bipolar disorder at that time; it is not uncommon for bipolar patients to be misdiagnosed with schizophrenia. In 1990, there were few treatment...
Author: Sasha Kildare I recently read a very long blog, “The Movement Against Psychiatry,” on MentalHealthExcellence.org that has since been pulled down but can still be found on Vice.com. It discusses different facets of mental health including the anti-psychiatry...
Author: Kim Barnett I have been struggling with Hypomania for over two months now, and I’m extremely irritated, frustrated and exhausted. For those who do not know, hypomania is defined as a mild form of mania, marked by elation and hyperactivity. Thank God, I’ve...
Author: Kim Barnett I was born in 1982 in a small city in Ventura County. I had two loving parents, two siblings, and we all lived in a nice house. We were one of the first black families to move into this predominantly white and Hispanic city. As a child this was a...
Author: Scott Walker When I returned to Japan, I was fortunate to be part time at work. At the time, I was a participant in the JET Programme through the Japanese government where I was able to work in the public-school system. I spent four days a week as an assistant...
By: Ivory Smith Have you ever gone to a restaurant and had a big meal only to feel hungry 2 hours later? Do you eat that 4th meal of the day at 3:00 am at night standing in the kitchen? Have you watched your clothes get tight and hope that it is because the dryer that...
By: Cassandra Stout Medication interactions are serious business. You could take two medications which counteract each other, which could make you sick enough to end up in the emergency room, or even die. October 21st is National Check Your Meds Day in the US. Making...
By: Natalia Beiser Most days I feel grateful and blessed. I have a good life. I have friends and people that love me. I am employed part time, even with chronic mental illness. I have a home, and even two great cats. My car is almost paid off. I have much of the...
By: Carissa Martos For the first time in a decade, I’m on a new mental-health medication. This is a huge event for me, as I have navigated most of my life as someone with anxiety, bipolar, PTSD, and chronic pain with…close to nothing, chemically. I’ve been on daily...
By: Tosha Maaks Remaining balanced when you live life with bipolar disorder isn’t some magical trick and it isn’t some tricky formula that only those who have super powers have figured out. However, stability I can say is a magical place to be after years of living in...
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 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: 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...
There are a large variety of medications to help treat bipolar disorder including mood stabilizers, anti-depressants, and anti-psychotics, just to name a few. Some people take only one medication or treatment, while others take multiple medication and treatments;...
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...
Approximately three years ago I started noticing that something wasn’t quite right. At first it was little things, like putting my glasses in a desk drawer instead of on my nightstand like I normally would. That was just the beginning. It progressed rapidly. Within...
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...
Medications can be an excellent form of treatment for bipolar disorder. There are multiple forms of medications including anti-psychotics, anti-depressants, mood stabilizers and anti-anxiety. For me, the most difficult aspect of taking medications is waiting for them...
Im not who I say I am. Thats because my family would prefer I not use my given name. Many of them dont believe in bipolar disorder. They think my difficulties were created by using street stimulants during my halcyon Hollywood years, struggling to stay...
I was diagnosed over a decade ago. I was young, a teenager, lost with no clue what to do. My first psychiatrist, who I met at age 14, didn’t want to diagnose me when I was too young. He waited a couple years to officially diagnose me with bipolar 1 disorder; I respect...
Have you ever felt that you were the patient treatment wouldnt 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...
I think its safe to say that many of us who have bipolar disorder struggle with weight gain. The main reason is that medications can affect our appetite. My medication makes me crave sweets like never before. A woman I met in my bipolar support group had just...
In this video, Sarah talks about the dull feeling she had when she first starting taking medication. It eventually went away after she worked with her psychiatrist to adjust the medication to what works best for her. Read more of Sarah’s posts for IBPF here....
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...
What Tools Do You Consistently Use to Effectively Manage Your Bipolar Disorder? The intention of this post is to get people sharing what works for them. And for those who are not as far along in their path to mental stability and wellness, it can serve as...
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...
Disclaimer: the purpose of this blog is not to discourage you from taking meds, but to be informed about the meds you take and to be open with your doctor about the side effects you experience. I haven’t always been full of self-confidence or high self-esteem....
“Hey, how are you?” Oh man. Yikes. Whoa. Here we go again. I pause and consider my options in response to this question. If you have bipolar or experience any other form of mental illness, you probably understand why this question can be so tricky to answer. Do I...
This is the million dollar question. If you’re newly diagnosed, the idea of being on medication for the rest of your life can be terrifying. If you’ve been on medications for years and now they have stopped working, the possibility of no...
May cause depression. Three of the scariest words I’ve ever read. May. Cause. Depression. As a person living with bipolar, moods are a central point when making decisions. If I take this job will I be happy? Will I be forced to give up free time and activities...
The summer of 2013/2014 was magnificent, exhilarating and glorious. It was also a manic summer. I had just come out of one of the darkest winters of my life, where I was hospitalised and everything had ground to a halt for months. Spring came around, and with it...
For many of us who have had bipolar disorder for several years, we may need to undergo a medication change for various reasons. When you are taking medications over the long term, they may stop working as well as they did initially. Or a new drug might...
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...
Thats not a real illness. I dont believe in mental health. If you dont need medication, you must not really have bipolar. These are just a few of the long stream of comments from people in my life, the most recent being You know, I dont think youre...
I want to talk to you all about something that I experienced very intensely when I first started taking medication. What happened was I felt a very strong dull feeling inside. I was no longer feeling the lows, but I was also no longer feeling the highs either. So, I...
I have been on an emotional roller coaster lately. I was feeling really anxious and depressed, so my psychiatrist upped my meds. I then felt worse. Crying every day. Crying for no reason. My parents came over one day while I was crying,...
A few of my friends who know that I have been diagnosed with bipolar have come to ask for advice on how to help someone they know, someone who seems to be going off the rails. Recently an ex-colleague asked about how to engage a friend who has stopped taking his...
When I’m high, I can fly. When I’m low, I sink into the deepest, darkest place. I keep wishing I could change this.One of my medications in particular gets me through the day. It’s actually supposed to help with anxiety, but it sort of has the...
Therapists are useful in helping a consumer understand how one is feeling and thinking, this is also known as talk therapy. Many issues are discussed and it has been proven useful to help with stability and managing symptoms. But what do you do when you’re struggling...
I hope my readers are taking it day by day. Remember don’t ever let the light inside of you dim. This month’s topic I’m going to address is ”Why hospitalization is so important and what important and positive role does it play in a person’s...
Last month I gave a webinar for International Bipolar Foundation (IBPF) entitled Removing Obstacles: A Naturopathic Perspective on Treatment. In that webinar I discussed the philosophy and therapeutic order of naturopathic medicine and gave some examples related...
This Monday I cried tears of joy for the first time in many years. Probably since my diagnosis, thirteen years ago. I didn’t even cry at my wedding, and my husband is everything to me. So what made me weep openly with happiness? A new...
Pills. Ah, pills. Pill is such an innocuous-sounding word, but anyone with bipolar disorder who takes medication knows that pills are anything but harmless. However, unless you depend on medications to keep you stable, and unless you’ve...
I’m so happy it’s the middle of the week already! Nothing major or stressful has happened, but I’m looking forward to the kiddos having a three day weekend. No stress in getting everyone around in the morning for three days will be nice. Believe me, I’m happy I don’t...
I never knew what “pdoc” meant until I was diagnosed with bipolar one disorder, and learned that it’s a shorthand term used for psychiatrists by those in the bipolar community.My pdoc is wonderful. Out of the myriad of doctors I’ve seen...
This is the third blog in a series about a recent psychiatric hospital stay that I had in December of 2013. To read the first post click here. On the second day of my hospital stay last December, I had a big realization. I was not on ANY...
