People don’t argue when you say paraplegia is a disability, but when you say your bipolar disorder is, people often do argue. This is in spite of the fact that, legally, bipolar disorder is a real disability in Canada, the United States and elsewhere. So what is a “real” disability and why don’t people think bipolar is a real disability?
Read More
I experience massive fatigue with bipolar disorder. True, there are likely other components to my fatigue, but I know bipolar disorder is a driving factor. The fatigue is so bad that I think it’s one of the worst parts of bipolar disorder or any chronic illness. Fatigue affects my life on a daily basis like no other symptom of bipolar disorder and worse yet, there are pretty much no cognitive tools I can use to cope with it. Read on to learn about bipolar disorder and fatigue, why it’s so hard to best and the treatments for fatigue in bipolar.
Read More
I firmly believe that suicide prevention starts with a conversation. A conversation that can stop suicide can be initiated by the person feeling suicidal or someone around them; regardless, a conversation is the starting point. But it can be very intimidating to talk about suicide. There are all kinds of “rules” when you talk about suicide and political correctness affects the language you are “allowed” to use. I say forget all that. Suicide prevention starts with a conversation that makes sense to you, not the PC police.
Read More
Recently a commenter called me out for saying, “It will get better.” The commenter’s point is that pain doesn’t get better for everyone and saying “It gets better,” is a lie; and, I can see how it could be somewhat dismissive of an individual’s experience. I understand this commenter’s complaint. I understand that just saying, “It gets better,” can sound just as trite as, “Turn that frown upside down.” So let’s talk about when things don’t get better. Let’s talk about the nuance of what to say when pain is not getting better.
Read More
Do you think “real” men cry? What do you think “real” men are like? I’m a man and I say tough guys are sensitive and real guys cry too.
Read More
I work very hard to be productive every day in spite of depression. My depression would like me to stay in bed — forever — but I fight back. I get out of bed, I have coffee, I write and so on. And at the end of the day, I look back and see how productive I was. I find this metric very important. It turns out it’s the depression that makes me judge my productivity very harshly.
Read More
Can people with serious mental illnesses recover? That’s the question. It depends on your definition of “recovery” of course, but we’ll get to that in a minute. “Recovery” is now the goal when it comes to mental illnesses and, if your doctor is anything like the one I had when I was diagnosed, he will have told you that you will recover. But I’m not sure that recovery isn’t a myth for those with serious mental illness. Read one for more about not recovering from serious mental illness.
Read More
I think it’s important to mourn a life with a disability like bipolar disorder. Not everyone with bipolar disorder is disabled, of course, there is a range of functionalities associated with bipolar disorder, but for those for whom it is a disability, mourning it is part of the bipolar diagnosis acceptance process. Unfortunately, this is rarely focused on or even discussed by healthcare professionals. This doesn’t make it unimportant, however. I believe mourning a bipolar disability is actually something that can improve one’s mental health.
Read More
I wrote a piece here called “How a Person with Bipolar Disorder Thinks.” It has been one of the most popular articles here with almost one million people (really) having read it. But, of course, a short article on thinking in bipolar disorder is just the tip of the iceberg. I didn’t even touch on the errors in thinking, called cognitive distortions, that are common in bipolar disorder. That’s why I developed a webinar on just such a topic. This new webinar is called: Get Real 4: How People with BIpolar Think — Cognitive Distortions.
Read More
Subscribe to my monthly newsletter to get the latest from Bipolar Burble, Breaking Bipolar, my vlogs at bpHope, my masterclasses, and other useful tidbits -- plus get a FREE eBook on coping skills.
Recent Comments