Currently, there seems to be no sufficient language of insanity. What I mean, is that for those of us who experience highly unusual cognitive states, there is no adequate way of describing them. “Mood disorder”, “hypomania”, “anxiety”, and all those other psychological/psychiatric terms just don’t do it. Insanity needs its own language.
Read More
Suicide is, sadly, something that happens every day. And while, in many cases, we will never know why the person chose to take his or her life, in some cases, suicide seems to be caused by, or at least partially contributed by, someone else telling the person to commit suicide. Such is said to be the case of a recent suicide in San Antonio which may have been part of the “Blue Whale Challenge” or “Blue Whale Game”. Think no one would kill themselves because someone told them to? The evidence, and I, beg to differ.
Read More
I know that anxiety is not a symptom of bipolar disorder, but many with bipolar disorder also suffer from anxiety, whether it’s an official anxiety disorder or not. And when my anxiety gets really bad, which it has been lately, I become absolutely incapacitated by anxiety. I, literally, sit on the couch unable to move to do anything. And writing or working is right out. Anxiety causing an inability to act is having a devastating effect on my life.
Read More
I suffer from anhedonia in bipolar depression and this leads to a lack of motivation. And when I say “suffer” I mean freaking suffer. I mean it’s horrible. I mean it’s probably the worst part about my bipolar depressions. Anhedonia is the inability to experience pleasure. Most people cannot conceptualize of this, but believe me, anhedonia in depression is a real thing and a real problem.
Read More
People have said to me, “Stop being so negative about bipolar disorder!” People feel free to critique me at any moment and make sweeping statements like that at any time. It comes with being read by so many, I suppose. So when someone says I’m writing about bipolar disorder too negatively, it is not the first time and I would imagine it won’t be the last. I, however, feel I am quite realistic about bipolar – not overly negative or positive.
Read More
Assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) is finally coming into its own. After so many people fighting for the rights of the seriously mentally ill for a decade, this lifesaving treatment option is finally available in the vast majority of states. But many people feel that assisted outpatient treatment denies civil liberties. I would argue, however, assisted outpatient treatment actually upholds civil liberties, not to mention upholds societal ethics.
Read More
There is no amount of bipolar pain that can kill you, we have the ultimate power over suicide. I have suffered and suffered and suffered for so long that I know this to be true. Yes, people attempt/commit suicide, I know. But it isn’t because of the amount of pain, per se, it’s because they don’t see a way out of it. Because emotionally, I can hit you and hit you and hit you and you just won’t, cannot, die. Some days I wish this weren’t true. Some days I wish that the extreme pain would just kill me, that I would just get walloped that one last time and die. Like running into the final brick wall that bipolar offers only to find it really took my head clean off. I have learned, though, that I have the ultimate power over a death by suicide.
Read More
Bipolar disorder has changed me forever. When I was first diagnosed with a mood disorder, they said this wouldn’t happen. When I was first diagnosed with a mood disorder, they said I would go back to who I was before it started. When I was first diagnosed with a mood disorder, every question they asked what about comparing my medicated self to my old self. But they were wrong and their questions were irrelevant, bipolar disorder has changed me for life and no medication is going to change that.
Read More
I’ve talked about mood tracking before but, really, mood tracking starts with mood self-monitoring. In other words, there is nothing to track if you don’t know what’s going on in the first place. If you can’t say that you’re anxious, for example, then how are you going to track how anxious you are? But mood self-monitoring sucks because it’s a 24-hour-a day, seven-days-a-week kind-of-a-thing. With bipolar disorder, you never get a break from mood self-monitoring.
Read More
Recent Comments