Category: mental illness issues

Pressure and the Limited Time, Resources of One with Bipolar

My bipolar is making me feel like hell. But then, there are so few days that I don’t. And now it’s particularly bad because my body won’t seem to regulate its sleep properly. I’m having trouble getting to sleep and then I’m waking up too late. (Yes, an alarm would fix the too late part but then I’d be even more tired than I already am.)

Did I ever mention that I hate bipolar disorder?

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My Bipolar Makes Me Hate Everything and Everyone

I hate you.

Or, perhaps, it might be more accurate to say my bipolar hates you. Or my bipolar makes me hate you. Or something.

I feel this pervasive negative, black, dark, inky hatred spread atop my “Natashaness” that seems to affect how I feel about everything. Theoretically, philosophically, intellectually, I know that I don’t hate everything. In fact, I know that I don’t really hate anything. But I sure feel as if I hate everything.

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Bipolar – I’m Beyond Help

Someone recently reached out to me for some recommendations of mental illness resources as she was concerned for her sister. Unfortunately, the feedback I received from her afterwards was that her sister felt, she was “beyond help” for bipolar disorder.

I understand the feeling of being beyond help. I have felt that way so many times. I had so many goes at medication roulette and I had two doctors give up on me completely so I absolutely felt (and was pretty much told) that I, and my bipolar disorder, was beyond help.

Here’s the thing – those doctors were wrong and so was I.

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Support for Bipolar Disorder – Will You Be Okay Tonight?

Yesterday I got the news that I’m losing one of my best friends of 16 years. He’s someone I’ve known pretty much since birth. He’s giving and loving and very furry. He’s my cat.

And while I can understand that not everyone will fully comprehend the bond between a human and animal, you will just have to take my word for it that the news put me into shock and I am now grieving what will very soon become a physical loss.

And, of course, a trauma like this (yes, it is a trauma) will make my bipolar disorder blow up. Bipolar makes grief worse and grief makes bipolar disorder worse.

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Why People Don’t ‘Get’ Mental Illness and How You Can Help

When someone breaks a leg, people “get” it. They understand it. They empathize with it. They’re compassionate about it. The same thing is true when people get cancer or undergo surgery for a heart condition or even get the flu. And yet when someone has a mental illness, people just don’t “get” it. And in spite of spending more than a decade educating about my mental illness, bipolar disorder, sometimes I feel like they never will. This tends to make people with mental illness feel alone.

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Bipolar Treatment Fatigue

In the world of chronic illness there is a concept of “caregiver fatigue.” This is where caregivers of people with chronic illness get burned out because they just spend so much time and effort caring for another person. This is a real thing and a real problem.

I would suggest there is also such as thing as “bipolar treatment fatigue.” Bipolar treatment fatigue is when a patient with bipolar disorder becomes burned out because of all the time and effort it takes to fight the bipolar disorder. I think this is a real thing and a real problem.

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When Your Family Doesn’t Support You or Your Mental Illness

Recently a received a message from someone who was very distressed because her family wouldn’t accept her because of her mental illness. Her family hadn’t cut her out of their lives, necessarily, but they didn’t understand bipolar disorder and just waved her off telling her to “take her meds.” They made no effort to support her dealing with her mental illness.

And to this woman, family was everything. She didn’t think she could live without the support of her family.

And while I know that family is critically important to some people, I’m here to tell you: you can live with a mental illness, with bipolar disorder, without the support of your family.

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Bipolar – I’ve Forgotten What It Is to Be Normal

I was having a very annoyed/angry day. This was annoying me and then that was pissing me off. And I realized this was a thread through my day and thought to myself, “Yup, I have days like that. It’s a bipolar thing.” And then I wondered, “Do normal people have days where they’re mad at everything?”

And then I realized I had no idea. I have no idea if normal people have irrationally angry days. I’ve forgotten what it is to be normal.

[And before someone has a hissy fit because I’m saying that people with bipolar disorder aren’t normal, please read the linked article.]

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I write a three-time Web Health Award winning column for HealthyPlace called Breaking Bipolar.

Also, find my writings on The Huffington Post and my work for BPHope (BP Magazine).

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