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
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?
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 … Continue reading Identifying Root Causes of Bipolar Disorder
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
