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Your Input Needed — What Do You Want to Know about Bipolar?

Posted by Natasha Tracy | Oct 28, 2015

Hi folks, if you’re long-time readers of mine, you might remember me mentioning Global Medical Education. This site, literally, offers you up-to-date, medical information, from experts in short video format for free. (This used to be a subscription service but they have changed their model — to the benefit of all of us.) And while I do have a working relationship with this site, I can honestly tell you their content is great, generally easy to understand, and covers a wide range of medical issues.

Patient Information from Global Medical Education

This brings me to why we’re here. Today I’m asking to get your thoughts on what topics Global Medical Education should include in their library. Share your thoughts and you’ll be entered to win a $25 Amazon gift certificate.

Why Therapy Can’t Treat Uncontrolled, Serious Mental Illnesses

Posted by Natasha Tracy | Sep 24, 2015

I have been through lots of therapy and lots of therapists in my life and my contention is that therapy can’t be used to actually treat uncontrolled, serious mental illnesses. Now, don’t get me wrong, therapy can be supportive to a person with an uncontrolled, serious mental illness and therapy can be useful to a person with an uncontrolled, serious mental illness (such as in the case where the therapist tracks your bipolar symptoms and report changes to your doctor) but therapy cannot be used to actually treat a serious and uncontrolled mental illness.

Anger Is Not a Symptom of Bipolar Disorder, Or Is It?

Posted by Natasha Tracy | Jun 9, 2015

If you search the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, you will see that anger is not a symptom of bipolar disorder. If you search the International Classification of Diseases manual (maintained by the World Health Organization) you will see that anger is not a symptom of bipolar disorder. It doesn’t appear to be recognized, or even proposed, that a symptom of bipolar disorder is anger.

The trouble with this seems to be that many people do experience anger, irritation and aggression as symptoms of their bipolar disorder. I am one of those people.

What Caused My Bipolar Disorder: Nature or Nurture?

Posted by Natasha Tracy | May 25, 2015

The Bipolar Burble is extremely pleased to welcome back today’s guest author: Ross Szabo. Ross is an amazing mental illness educator and advocate. You can read more about him at the bottom.

I’ve often pondered whether bipolar is caused by nature or nurture and even researchers constantly examine the age-old question. The data largely shows that it’s often a mixture of both. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder when I was 16. My psychiatrist added anger control problems and psychotic features to my diagnosis at age 17. I love to ponder what part of my bipolar is nature, what’s nurture and what’s me?

Pros and Cons of Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)

Posted by Natasha Tracy | May 19, 2015

The pros and cons of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) are actually quite numerous but in this post I will try to, unbiasedly, lay out the basic pros and cons for anyone considering ECT as a treatment. I am likely uniquely qualified to do this as I am very educated about ECT (Yes, I still have that book in the works. Did I mention I’m really busy?) and I’ve also had ECT. This does not mean it’s right for everyone, however. Do consider the pros and cons of electroconvulsive therapy carefully before you make your own mind up with the help of a doctor.

Bipolar Pride: Do We Need It?

Posted by Natasha Tracy | Apr 14, 2015

There is this concept of “bipolar pride” or “borderline pride” or “mad pride” or “whatever-mental-illness pride.” I see it on people’s avatars, Facebook pages and whatnot. For some reason, people want to declare their bipolar and say they’re proud of it? I, for one, and not “proud” of bipolar and do not exhibit bipolar pride in any way.

Top 5 Myths about Bipolar Disorder – Debunking Bipolar Myths

Posted by Natasha Tracy | Mar 29, 2015

Myths about bipolar disorder abound and, honestly, most people don’t know anything about bipolar except the myths, or common misconceptions. On World Bipolar Day, it makes sense to me to spend a little time pointing out bipolar myths and addressing them.

I’m a Coward for Not Killing Myself?

Posted by Natasha Tracy | Feb 9, 2015

I’ve written about suicide a lot and on those threads I hear it all the time: “I’m too much of a coward to kill myself,” or, “I wish I were braver so I could commit suicide.”

I understand these thoughts and I think they’re very common and normal. When you’re in unbearable pain, it feels like suicide is necessary. And if you’re not achieving a necessary thing, you feel like a failure. And because of the nature of suicide – because it is scary – people feel like the reason they are “failing” is because they are a coward.

This is not true, however. Cowardice has nothing to do with killing yourself or living. You are not a coward for not killing yourself.

Most Popular Bipolar/Mental Illness Blog Articles of 2014

Posted by Natasha Tracy | Jan 18, 2015

Last month I did a round-up of dealing-with-holiday-related articles for you and now I’d like to list the most popular bipolar/mental illness articles of 2014 here at the Bipolar Burble.

This list is always an interesting one for me because it tells me what you, my readers, care about. In general, you care about a lot of what I can about but sometimes you surprise me with exactly how much you care about a given subject (and by what doesn’t show up on the list).

The Top 10 Popular Bipolar Posts of 2014

10. Bipolar Treatment Fatigue — We start the bipolar post top 10 list with a term I invented. “Treatment fatigue” is a concept that is widely felt but underrecognized. It’s when you can’t bear undergoing any more treatments because you’ve just lost faith in bipolar treatments altogether or are tied of the side effects or are exhausted with your doctor or, or, or. I would argue that while these feelings are real, we need to fight bipolar treatment fatigue in order to get better.

9. Accountability for Your Actions with Bipolar — I’m a big believer in accountability and I’m a big believer in not saying, “the bipolar made me do it.” Sometimes, bipolar does strongly influence our behavior and sometimes we truly aren’t accountable for it, but most of the time this just isn’t true.