Twenty-five and a half years ago I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I’ve been living symptom-free for over a decade. I consider myself to be in "remission" from my mental illness, because I no longer have symptoms that plague me, so I no longer fit the diagnostic criteria for bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder comes with … Continue reading Keeping Bipolar Disorder in Remission
As a mental health advocate, functional medicine practitioner, and someone who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 18, there is a frequently used phrase about bipolar that makes me crazy. When someone says, “he is bipolar” or “she is bipolar” or “she’s acting bipolar,” I’ll likely get pretty defensive pretty fast. Bipolar disorder is NOT … Continue reading You Are Not Your Diagnosis
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 … Continue reading Do We Need More Mental Health Awareness?
Someone recently asked me, "What do you mean when you say you are a survivor of bipolar disorder?" I paused for a second. What does it mean? I ended up responding with this, “I no longer exhibit the symptoms of bipolar disorder.“ I’ve been thinking about this conversation ever since. Does not exhibiting symptoms of … Continue reading Mental Health Awareness Month: What it Means to Be a Survivor
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 … Continue reading Why I’m Not Bipolar – and Neither Is Anyone Else
“Sometimes I feel like being me takes up too much energy.” - me, 20 years ago. In 2001, I started documenting my journey with what we then called “manic depressive illness," after being unable to return to college with my friends due to my instability and frequent med changes. I forgot about the following journal … Continue reading A Glimpse into the Mental Illness Memory Vault
When I was 21, I made a suicide pact with myself. I felt the weight of the world on a consistent basis, as I struggled with depression, mania, and the chaos of jumping from one failed medication to the next. My mind was not my friend, and I didn’t feel safe in my body. At … Continue reading Freedom from the Mental Illness Shame Cycle
No amount of sugar or substance can make my brain buzz the way a dose of hypomania can. The ideas, the thoughts, and the LIFE that course through my head – all those are amplified in a time of crisis or extreme change. Being thrown off my daily routine or sleep schedule is a risk … Continue reading Being Bipolar in a Global Crisis
While my entire Facebook feed is filled with articles and comments about Kanye West's new album and recent conversion, I have stayed silent. Why? Because number one, I don't really know anything about Kanye to begin with (other than the time he hijacked Taylor Swift's speech on the VMAs and the famous rant about George … Continue reading Kanye, Bipolar Disorder, Religiosity, and My Thoughts
