Latest Bipolar Bites and Breaking Bipolar

Posted by Natasha Tracy | May 24, 2012

As per the usual, I’ve been a busy little beaver. I write about five mental health articles a week for blogs as well as other articles for clients. It’s the reason why I’m up on the latest research – I pretty much have to be; I spend most of my day looking at it.

And if you just hang out on the Bipolar Burble – I love you – you might miss a lot of interesting things. So here, without further ado is what has been going on at Bipolar Bites at Healthline.com and Breaking Bipolar at HealthyPlace.com.

Bipolar Bites

Bipolar Bites is a blog I started writing in February for Healthine.com. It contains what I call more “sciency” articles – those with facts and figures and study references. It’s for the mental health geek in many of us.

Recently at Bipolar Bites we’ve seen:

Medication side effect chat – antipsychotics and brain shrinkage and the danger of dry mouth.
A companion piece to the one I did on the biological evidence of depression – the biological evidence of bipolar disorder (part one and part two). Hint: there’s lots.
Something I’ve mentioned before – can people with bipolar disorder properly recognize facial emotion?
A pet peeve of mine is the notion that some people will commit suicide no matter what you do – I don’t believe that for a second.
An important issue and the data that supports it – do antidepressants work? And do they work as well as other medications?

Breaking Bipolar

Over at Breaking Bipolar I’ve got all kinds of advice for living with bipolar disorder:

Does Mental Illness Get Better or Worse?
How Do I Tell My Parents I Need Mental Health Help?
Relationships Can’t Fix Bipolar Disorder
Do We Internalize Mental Illness Stigma – Yes, and this affects recovery. Doctors can also sabotage treatment with medication.
What to think about when you travel – Travel Tips for the Bipolar
Why Worrying About Medication Side Effects Won’t Really Help You and What is Medication Tolerance (when medication stops working)
Mental illness, guilt and making amends.
Bipolar – Attack of the Body Snatcher – written at the behest of a reader
Power to the Crazy – Why Writing Off People with a Mental Illness Hurts You and Not Us
Depression Symptoms – Easy to Tear
Why It’s Ignorant to Write off Psychiatry – another shot across the bow of antipsychiatry

And while you’re perusing your articles of interest you might want to check out a series I did on mental illness and stigma or my piece for Sharecare: Succeeding with Mental Illness – Slow and Steady Wins the Race.

Oh, and did I mention I got name a mental health hero? (Thanks to Chato Stewart for the drawing seen above.)

Thanks all for your continued to support. I shall continue to do what I do as long as you keep your eyeballs facing forward.

Best of Bipolar Bites and Breaking Bipolar Blogs

Posted by Natasha Tracy | Feb 16, 2012

Hi all. A lot happens around these parts in six weeks. As most of you know this month I launched a new blog on Healthline.com called Bipolar Bites and, of course, I still have my blog on HealthyPlace.com called Breaking Bipolar.

Bipolar Bites and Breaking Bipolar Articles

In case you haven’t kept up with your reading, here’s the best of what you might have missed in the last couple of months from both blogs:

A discussion on the unique mental illness therapy deep brain stimulation and bipolar disorder in two parts: New Treatment for Bipolar – What is Deep Brain Stimulation? and Does Deep Brain Stimulation Work for Bipolar Disorder?
Bipolar Disorder and Fixing Your Circadian Rhythm – The start of several article on light, darkness and your circadian rhythm in bipolar disorder.
Can Treatment Noncompliance be Good? – An idea that is hard to bring up without seeming to endorse treatment noncompliance. Is treatment noncompliance sometimes the right thing?
Lack of Understanding of Mental Illness and sometimes even Hatred Towards the Bipolar Community – it’s difficult for someone without a mental illness to understand what someone with a mental illness goes through every day. Here is some of what I go through that I don’t think people understand.
Is Bipolar a Personality Disorder? – a question that gets asked frequently along with questions about bipolar disorder and identity.
Mental Illness as a Disability – can we handle the idea that mental illness really is a disability like any other?
Bipolar Depression and Feeling Nothing at All – a rarely discussed part of bipolar disorder – feeling nothing at all.
Bipolar Disorder, Depression and Psychosis – psychosis, delusions and hallucinations, isn’t just a part of schizophrenia, as many of us know too well, it’s a part of bipolar mania, and even depression, as well. Recognition of Irritation and Anxiety is also important.
Telling Your Family You Have a Mental Illness – You’re Not OK – we all face the battle of telling others about our illness, how do we do it and what do we do if family members remain in denial anyway?
Why Didn’t Evolution Cull Bipolar Disorder? – Bipolar Benefits – are their evolutionary benefits to having bipolar disorder?

Oh, and the mental health resources page has been updated. Check it out.

If there’s a topic you’d like to see covered feel free to leave a comment below and I’ll see if it tickles my fancy.

More Natasha Tracy, Possibly Near You

Posted by Natasha Tracy | Jan 1, 2012

Recently I announced there are great things happening for me personally and for me at the Bipolar Burble. Well, there was so much good news I couldn’t announce it all at once. I was waiting for contracts to be signed and confirmations to come through. These things have now happened, so I have two pieces of news: