By: Sophie Prosolek When I started grad-school I was full of optimism. I was 21 years old and I had just graduated with a strong first class honours from a good university; I skipped the MSc, easily securing a place straight onto a prestigious PhD programme where I...
My name is Sophie, I’m a research scientist from Mansfield, England and I live with bipolar (type II) disorder. I decided to start speaking out about mental health after realising how little my condition was understood in some professional circles. When I first got...
By: Megan Malfi Megan Malfi describes her experience with seeking mental health aid at college.
Anonymous I’ve always told myself that I would never submit anything anonymously. I guess the vain part of me wanted the glory. It wasn’t until I considered telling this part of my story that I felt I couldn’t truly be me. That’s not to say that I’m ashamed of what...
By: John Poehler When I am depressed, I only want to lay in bed and sleep. My motivation and energy level are completely nonexistent and I do not feel like being around other people. I become hypersensitive and I end up second guessing my thoughts, feelings and...
By: Alexis Zinkerman I wanted to find out more about this new terminology going around the internet called nutrition psychiatry. I interviewed Dr. Drew Ramsey who can be found at drewramseymd.com. Dr. Ramsey is a psychiatrist, author, farmer, and founder of the Brain...
By: Natalia Beiser Dear Mrs. Martin: I was insecure when entering your College Prep English class in the year of 1989. I worked really hard and earned an “A” each quarter. You fostered my love of writing, one that I never had nurtured. We had a huge...
By: Lori Lane Murphy Summer started with a bang for me the first of June. My husband and best friend had a stroke. He’s ok. No lasting physical damage, but there are certainly some psychological ones we are both trying to manage. If I’m honest, it’s mostly me that’s...
By: Conor Bezane Common people do not have a monopoly on feeling hopeless and suicidal. It can happen to anyone, including celebrities. When a depressed Sinéad O’Connor sequestered herself in a New Jersey motel room in 2015, crying out for help in a 12-minute YouTube...
By: Courtney Davey, MA, MFT When you care for someone who lives with Bipolar Disorder, there can be a variety of questions around how to handle discussions that involve their symptoms or their behaviors. Wanting to be sensitive and not overstep is common, and...
By: Laura Sanscartier In the battle against Bipolar Disorder, one often feels alone. This is nothing new. The disease is such that we are left feeling powerless. No one will ever feel the way that we feel, will never know the highs and lows, will never know the agony...
by The Secret Psychiatrist When we think of therapy, what pops into our head? Before becoming a psychiatrist, I would think of a stereotypical image of an American Freudian counselor analysing a patient lying on a couch. Of course, this does indeed still happen, and I...
The Secret Psychiatrist is a female doctor and psychiatrist working currently in London. She has a degree in medicine and philosophy, as well as co-founding her own charity abroad in Romania helping children with learning disabilities. She enjoys sharing tales of her...
By: Liz Wilson When I did my training to become a Peer Support Specialist, I also took 20 hours of Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP) Training. The idea behind a WRAP is to create a deeper understanding of when and how to help you. The key is YOU. Your normalcy,...
By: Tosha Maaks I am what I consider a true manic these days. For me, I teeter more towards mania than depression more often than I use too. It is still a constant balancing act and I still have rough days where I have depression. However, it is not the suicidal...
By: Carissa Martos The first time I really contemplated suicide, I was a teenager, and there were two feelings, and only two feelings. The first was an inexorable exhaustion, one that had been dogging me for months, had finally grabbed hold of me, and I felt I...
By: Danielle Workman If you’re anything like me, the mere thought of the 4th of July, Chinese New Year, or even smaller firework related holidays and events make your skin crawl. These holidays come with a wide range of emotions, and all of them royally mess up what...
By: Julie A. Fast People with bipolar disorder live on the edge of mood swings. This means that what we do in our every day lives affects how we wake up the next morning. The internet, constant access to binge watching on Netflix and other channels, 24 hour stores...
By: Laura Sanscartier When I was 20, I was sexually assaulted. The details of such an incident are my own, and not anything of any use in a blog post, but they caused a condition called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. PTSD is found in the DSM-V, and many who...
Carissa is a teacher, mother, wife, and writer who lives in the Pacific Northwest. Now in her mid-thirties, she has lived with bipolar since she was a teen, as well as having a diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder and C-PTSD. She also lives with blinding ocular...
By: Carissa Martos When multiple diagnoses exist in the same person, and impact each other, they are known as co-morbid conditions. My bipolar diagnosis came when I was 19, but I’d struggled with the cycles of manic function and depressed inability since...
By: Liz Wilson Trauma: An incident and its physiological and psychological effects on victims and/or witnesses to the event. The DSM describes 5 types of PTSD, the label most commonly associated with trauma. I want to talk about comorbid PTSD; a diagnosis given when...
By: Tosha Maaks When my father became sick about three years ago, I started to wake up almost nightly with night terrors. I would begin to cry and scream in my sleep to the point that my husband would wake up from a sound sleep and hold me as I tried to regain my...
By: Jayson Blair I woke up late in the morning. It was a little after 7 a.m. I have been sick for the past few days so I decided to not rush into work. I made a cup of coffee in my kitchen and then walked over to the living room. Standing between the couch and my...
By: Courtney Davey MA, MFT Talking about Bipolar Disorder can sometimes be difficult to do with people that you care about. It can be exhausting to educate people that you care about on the way that you interact with your symptoms and the world when you experience...
By: Rwenshaun Miller, MA, LPCA
By: John Poehler When it comes to the topic of male stigma, I have quite the extensive experience. Right now, I am a 39 year-old male. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder right before my 21st birthday. The Beginning The expectations how a man is supposed to act and...
By: Danielle Workman Earlier this year I started to suffer from chronic, painful, daily migraines. The pain is constant and intense, taking away my drive to eat at all, removing my drive to exercise, and after days on end of constant and consistent migraines, I am...
By: Natalia Beiser I have been on medications for bipolar disorder my entire adult life. The prescriptions and I have an avid love/hate relationship. I need medications to function with the most amount of mental clarity. I resent my medications and am treatment...
By: Courtney Davey, MA, MFT We as humans are social creatures. Our relationships with family who raise us, partners who love us and friends who care for us influence our understanding of ourselves, others and the world. While family is assigned to us and partner(s)...
By: Kryss Jobes It seems innocent enough on the surface, but let’s take a closer look. Imagine you’re going through a rough time. You feel that downward swing in motion and you are overwhelmed. You’re doing your best to take care of yourself and your responsibilities,...
By: Geoff Crain How Are The Two Related? According the the National Institute of Mental Health, bipolar disorder is a brain disorder that causes unusual shifts in mood, energy, activity levels and the ability to carry out day to day tasks. If you have bipolar...
By: Conor Bezane It was in rehab in 2012 that I decided to carry the flag for the mentally ill. I’d received my diagnosis of bipolar four years earlier and ended up in treatment because I was drinking two six-packs of beer or two bottles of wine — or more — every...
By: Liz Wilson A cursory look at the research demonstrates that there is still misinformation in the entertainment industry in regards to mental illness, too few role models who are public about their mental illness/es, and that measurable strides have been made by...
By: Carol R. Ray, Ph.D. The jails and prison systems are the de facto mental health institution (Abramsky and Fellner, 2003). There is a prison within the prison, that those with mental health conditions, are subjected to. That is the practice of “solitary...
By: Danielle Workman To the Beautiful, Bold, Bipolar; The culture of today is fast paced, moving at a breakneck speed. With the technological savviness of social media sitting in the forefront of most of our minds, our culture has come to not only know but expect...
By: John Poehler I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder type 1 back in 1999. I use this as the official date to the start of my journey. Before then, I was just treading water to try and keep afloat. My symptoms actually began in the early 1990’s. My diagnosis took a...
By: Nancy Travers If you’ve been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression, it’s important to understand there are many forms of depression. Basically, Bipolar Disorder involves episodes of depression and mania. Bipolar I Disorder involves severe...
By: Natalia Beiser When I experienced my first manic episode at eighteen, my family was oblivious to my struggle. My mother stated that I had done something to bring the illness onto myself. She expressed that she believed that the trigger was that I had previously...
By: Laura Sanscartier I first knew there was something different about me when I was about 7. I kept my mouth shut, as I was the oldest of 4 kids, and mom and dad had many things to take care of. I could feel my body shift into moments of extreme anger, sadness, or...
By: Tosha Maaks I get to speak with a lot of different types of people every day. It often comes up that I am a mental health advocate; most of the time I get very positive responses. I will hear things like “thank you for the work you do” or “we need more people like...
Tosha Maaks is a mom and a wife who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder when her youngest boys were only 2 years old. She raised all four of her children in a house where the topic of mental health was openly discussed. After going back to school in 2012 and a turn of...
By: Courtney Davey, MA, MFT Emotions are the foundation of a romantic relationship. They are an inherent part of the attachment we have to our partner, and our emotions surrounding the person, behaviors and events all affect are feelings about the relationship itself....
By: Christine Marie Frey One of the most important things to remember in life is that everybody needs help sometimes. When I was first diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I refused any help that came my way. I didn’t want help from my parents, my teachers, or even my...
By: Richard Hansler Bipolar glasses? Are they the ones they give you when you go to see a 3D movie? No? You say they are designed to help people with bipolar disorder sleep better and help them control their moods. Awesome!! Tell me more. The idea that wearing glasses...
By Lori Lane Murphy There are times when I bore myself silly. Living with my mental illness is like living with that one person who corners you at every party. You know the one? The one who won’t stop talking. Not only will they not stop talking, they usually have...
By: John Poehler April is Stress Awareness Month in the UK. Stress is a huge trigger of bipolar disorder. There is no way to completely get rid of stress. Noone lives in a bubble, but there are ways to reduce and manage the stress in your life. How Stress Affects...
By: Natalia Beiser After a serious depression, I was declared to be legally disabled and experienced extreme social phobia. I was rarely able to go in public, except in the middle of the night. I was afraid that I would be seen by people that I had known in my...
By: Sasha Kildare Sometimes desperation inspires action. A while back, the desperation of homelessness ended my eight-year cycle of hospitalizations for bipolar disorder that had begun in my teens. Sixteen years ago, I was struggling with secondary infertility....
Sasha Kildare’s memoir and information guide Intact: Untangle the Web of Bipolar Depression, Addiction, and Trauma is due to be published in January 2021. She is a storyteller with a passion for mental health advocacy and integrative treatment. Her blog...
