May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Here’s my controversial opinion: we don’t need more mental health awareness. We need more tools to get well and stay well. We need practitioners willing to think outside the box, beyond the checklists and low-efficacy treatments.
At 18, I met the criteria for a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.
When I was diagnosed, I experienced symptoms of hypomania and mania that impaired functioning for weeks at a time, such as:
racing thoughts
lack of sleep
grandiosity
heightened energy
impulsivity
increased risk-taking
I also experienced symptoms of depression that impaired functioning, for weeks at a time, such as:
low mood
inability to get out of bed
sleeping too much
no joy in previously joyful activities
no motivation
fatigue
hopelessness
BUT there were many other things going on in my physical body that were not addressed. Nobody blinked at chronic antibiotic use, chronic strep infections, or mononucleosis occurring at the same time. Nobody looked at trauma, hormones, or cortisol. Nobody looked at lab data at all.
Getting a diagnosis to match my symptoms didn’t give me information about the cause of the disorder or a solution to manage it.
I had to figure that out on my own.
I was very aware that my mental health wasn’t okay.
I didn’t need “mental health awareness.” I needed tools. I needed to process what a diagnosis would look like for my future. I got a label and meds that came with terrible side effects (and did little to tame my symptoms or treat the root).
Breaking news for myself: I don’t need to pathologize my feelings. I can experience Big Feelings without having a mental health crisis. Experiencing feelings does not make me mentally unstable.
For so long, my feelings were scary. It wasn’t safe to feel them. While I have always enjoyed experiencing a wide range of emotions, from high school on, they met a list of symptoms on someone’s checklist. Hypomania? Categorized by racing thoughts, pressured speech, elation, high energy, increased goal-directed activity, distractibility, or talkativeness. Check. Depression? Categorized by fatigue, sadness, hopelessness, lethargy, too much sleep, tearfulness, feelings of worthlessness. Check. My real human emotions were analyzed and over-pathologized for so long–by me, by my parents, by the experts. It disrupted my life, and it made me feel shame for experiencing a wide range of emotions. So at some point, I stopped letting myself feel them. You know why? It’s easier not to feel than be worried your feelings are at the mercy of a brain, diagnosis, and prescriptions that are out of your control.
I created a disconnect between my body and brain. In some ways, I checked out of the experience of life. I activated autopilot mode. I cruised. This looked like packing my schedule and hyper-controlling my environment. I had routines that were predictable. I said yes to too much, so there was no room for thinking or feeling for too long. I planned for downtime, in case the overwhelm hit me. I stayed away from dramatic movies, series, or books. I didn’t want to be caught off guard. Sleep was a savior when life became too heavy.
I questioned every mood shift. Thankfully, my husband Richard pushed back on my questions. He reminded me, over and over again, that experiencing a wide range of emotions is okay–and is very human. It took me a long time to believe him.
Today, almost thirty years after I first experienced the darkness, I can use my feelings as a navigation system. They tell me where I need to re-adjust. They are alerts on the dashboard, indicating that it’s time to check in with myself.
If I’m feeling sad, overwhelmed, scattered, distracted, TOO energetic, or any other emotion that feels extreme, I ask myself what I need to feel regulated again. Sometimes, I check in with a feelings wheel (see below or click here). Simply identifying a feeling, naming it out loud, is like taking a big deep breath that’s been constricted in my chest for hours.
I do this often at the end of the day, usually as I verbally process with Richard, but sometimes as I pray myself to sleep. Saying the feeling normalizes the emotional wave driving the feeling, and then I can move on. When I don’t identify them, they build up. That’s when the dysregulation happens.
Now, hear me clearly: I’m not saying every time a person is experiencing depression or anxiety or a manic episode, it’s due to the fact that they can’t name their feelings. I get anxious when I eat a large cookie. My brain gets buzzed if I drink a too-sugary coffee drink. Alcoholic beverages can make me feel depressed and poorly impact my sleep. Skipping yoga too many times in a week can make me restless. There are very real physical triggers to my mood shifts, and I am constantly monitoring my responses to mood-altering substances like sugar, alcohol, gluten, dairy, and any overly processed standard American food.
I was medicated for bipolar disorder for 18 years. Ten years ago, I went off anti-psychotic medication. Eight years ago, I weaned off my remaining medication, an SSRI antidepressant.
Today, I am mentally healthier than I’ve ever been, particularly in the last five years, since I have been (mostly) gluten free and eat a lower carbohydrate diet. In fact, my husband would agree that since I changed my eating habits, there has been more of an increase in my mental stability. The times that I consume a bit of gluten here and there, and eat a little more carbs than usual, I typically start to sense some mental instability creep up. The connection between gluten, carbohydrate content, and psychiatric disorders has much clinical evidence behind it, but I’ll get to that in a bit.
I always feel the need to offer a few disclaimers before I share more of my story. Number one, I never encourage anyone to go off medication cold turkey or without the support of a medical professional. Unfortunately, many medical professionals don’t offer much caution in the tapering of medication, so there must be more of a support team in place, in my opinion. Going off medication cold turkey can lead to many unfavorable side effects and can often lead to a person feeling worse than they did BEFORE medication, so it is a very bad idea.When I weaned off my last med, I had a support team in place, and I had established many health practices that had me in the best physical shape possible. It wasn’t a quick decision; it took a lot of detailed planning and prayer.
Number two, every mental illness manifests differently in every individual who experiences symptoms. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1999, back when they still called it manic-depressive illness and didn’t distinguish between bipolar 1 or 2 as they do now. The symptoms I experienced at the time met the diagnostic criteria. Unlike most clinical diagnoses, diagnosing a mental illness means checking boxes on a list of symptoms, not looking at a blood test – and definitely not a brain scan. Because of that, and because I no longer experience the same symptoms, I consider myself to be in remission from this illness.
Here are the symptoms I experienced at the time that categorized me with bipolar disorder: periods of depression, lasting longer than a week where I felt fatigue, loss of interest in regular activities, sadness, apathy, worthlessness, and an inability to get out of bed at all. I also experienced symptoms of mania and hypomania, which meant that for short periods of time I felt increased energy, euphoria, an inability to sleep or slow down, racing thoughts, distractibility, and an increase in risky behavior and impulsivity.
More people are prescribed psychiatric medication than ever before, so why are we seeing mental health issues continue to climb? How can we support our loved ones when the traditional treatments aren’t working for them?
Dr. Julia Britz specializes in supporting people who are struggling with mental health issues such as OCD, disorders eating and psychiatric medication tapering. Her passion for working with individuals suffering from these lonely conditions is that she too was a “hopeless case”, but got better. Dismissed by doctors, she was told over and over there was nothing else she could try beyond pharmacotherapy, and so was inspired to create myocddiary.com, a site dedicated to documenting the daily life of OCD and related disorders. Through this project and holistic therapies, she found new levels of wellness, and in 2014 did a TED talk called “MyOCDdiary: an imperfect story.”
She utilizes natural and integrative modalities including targeted amino acid therapy, peptide therapy, micronutrient therapy, bioresonance, botanical medicine and epigenetic analysis, many of which are discussed in this episode.
Download this episode here or find wherever you get podcasts.
This month, I’m taking a break from the regular podcast content to bring episodes focused on bringing awareness to all the tools that support our mental health. Contrary to what the media may tell you, you can change your brain. You can heal from mental illness. You can access resources beyond medication and more sleep, and many of those resources are free, like these episodes.
In Episode 135, I share my story of overcoming PTSD, depression, and bipolar disorder in a way I haven’t shared before.
Key Topics:
The growing epidemic of mental health issues in teens
The root causes to my own mental health issues and how I struggled to find treatment that supported my mental well-being
The medication weaning process and how I was able to get off medication I had been on for 18 years
The tools I used to support healing and how I continue to prioritize my mental health to prevent recurring issues
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I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder (what they then called “manic depressive illness”) in 1999. While the diagnosis matched the symptoms I was experiencing, the treatment I received never seemed to make things better… and they never treated the root of why I was struggling.
While I have shared about my personal experience with bipolar disorder, PTSD, and depression and I have interviewed many different experts who share ways to treat the root of chronic disease, I have never devoted the majority of an episode to bipolar disorder and its root causes.
Ellen Vora, MD received her B.A. from Yale University and attended Columbia University medical school. She’s a board-certified psychiatrist, medical acupuncturist, and yoga teacher. Dr. Vora takes a functional medicine approach to mental health—considering the whole person and addressing imbalance at the root, rather than reflexively prescribing medication. Dr. Vora’s book, The Anatomy of Anxiety, comes out in March 2022.
Recording this episode was personal for me. It helped me put together the puzzle pieces of my health even further. Download here or listen wherever you get podcasts.
It is well-known that chronic stress contributes to chronic disease. Research shows that as much as 90% of illness is attributed to the impact of stress. Finding a way to manage stress in our very busy world of constant notifications is a challenge. So I was excited to connect with Erica Cuni for this recent podcast episode. Spoiler: multiple listeners have written in to tell me that this is their favorite one!
Erica Cuni, known as “The Burnout Professor,” is a stress and burnout expert. She teaches high-achievers how to consciously thrive through an integrative approach. Erica is the founder of “The C.U.N.I. Method” – which stands for Create Undeniable Natural Impact. She is a former Trauma Psychotherapist, Clinical Director, and Adjunct Lecturer and Clinical Professor at Central Connecticut State University. Her mission is to help make the mental health field more effective, accessible, decolonized, and non-stigmatizing.
Download this episode here or listen wherever you get podcasts.
22 years ago, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder (or manic depressive illness, as they called it back then) based on a set of symptoms, according to the DSM and failure to respond well to SSRI medication. My identity is not in my diagnosis, and neither is yours.
Imagine if we also said, “I am depression,” “I am anxiety,” “I am Hashimoto’s,” or “I am diabetes.” The phrasing doesn’t work for any other diagnosis. I’d also suggest that anytime we turn our diagnosis into an “I am” statement, we are attaching our unique identity to a set of symptoms, and putting our worth in our limitations.
22 years ago, I was suffering from the symptoms of bipolar disorder. I experienced bouts of glorious manic/hypomanic highs, where the world looked brighter and more alive, when I could stay up all night even with an illness like mono, when I felt charming and unstoppable and like the most brilliant person in the room. I also experienced waves of crushing depression, where I was unable to leave my bed, my body frozen, exhausted, and the world was a dark hole I couldn’t climb out of. It confused me because I was taking an anti-depressant at the time. So we upped the medication amount, and the highs got higher. I didn’t have any other tools for support (except my psychiatrist did mention there was emerging research on omega 3 supplements and brain health – too bad I hated burping up fish).
But here is the point I really want to get across:
Just because you were diagnosed with a mental illness by one person, based on a set of symptoms during one period of your life, doesn’t mean you will struggle with those symptoms for the rest of your life. That’s an archaic school of thought, and it doesn’t line up with newer research on brain health.
Often when we ONLY treat symptoms, instead of looking to the interconnecting root causes in each individual body, we don’t heal, and we limit the opportunity to find healing.
There are so many evidence-based tools to support mental WEALTH. Does rapid relief through medication possibly play a role? Sure! But remember, for some people, like me, it may exacerbate symptoms or make things worse, leading to new diagnoses and treatment cycle.
What are the puzzle pieces in my story that potentially led to a diagnosis of bipolar disorder? Some would say I have a genetic predisposition and leave it at that. But based on what we know of epigenetics, we know that our genes are only as influential in the way they express, and they express according to our environment.
December is my mental slump month. I recently posted about the top triggers for holiday anxiety, but to be honest, holiday anxiety is not something I struggle with throughout the month. But my “December Blahs?” They’re definitely a struggle and always have been.
Though I’ve never been formally diagnosed with Seasonal Affective Disorder, my mood definitely shifts after Thanksgiving. The husband often catches it before I do. This year, I started feeling it earlier than usual. For me, it shows up as complete lack of motivation and willingness to engage. That’s the first symptom. I know from past history that if I let it linger there, I’ll take a deeper dive into true depression.
Last week, I made a trip to the library to load up on some fun holiday reading. As I gathered my stack of no less than seven books, I had this sudden despairing thought that it seemed like such a task to start a new book. Listen – new books bring me so much joy, so that thought was definitely an alert for me. When things that I consider fun stop feeling fun, that’s a sign that my mood is starting to tank.
At that moment, I realized I needed to take a step back and slow it down. I made no plans to fight the lack of motivation with excess activity, to beat my brain and body into submission like I used to. Instead, I came to the realization that for the rest of December, I’m committing myself to erasing to-do items off my lists. I’m not going to fight the blah. Instead, I’m going to recognize it for what it is, and re-adjust my expectations of myself.
This is a difficult mindset shift for me. I like to fill my schedule, I thrive with activity and overscheduling, and I love to have a thousand different plates spinning at one time.
