Category: mental illness

Becoming an Empowered Loved One – An E-Patient’s Best Friend

Recently I discussed a little about what it means to be an e-patient. An e-patient is someone who is empowered, engaged, equipped and enabled (and many other things depending on who you ask). In short, an e-patient is someone who is fully engaged in making mental health treatment decisions.

Now, I am the first person to say that being an e-patient isn’t always possible for a person with mental illness. Often, dealing with the day-to-day slog that is living with a mental illness is quite enough pressure, thank-you, without having to put an “e” in front of your title.

E-Partners, E-Parents, E-Friends

However, even if becoming an uber-patient isn’t on your shortlist of things to do, your loved ones can also become empowered. They can become e-partners or e-parents or e-friends, if you like. And adding an “e” in front of their title can help them to feel less helpless in the face of a daunting illness that they cannot control.

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How to Research Bipolar Disorder or another Mental Illness

When you or someone you love is diagnosed with a mental illness like bipolar disorder, likely, you don’t know much about the mental illness outside of what the media and popular culture has told you. Unfortunately, these are not the best sources of information about bipolar disorder, depression, schizophrenia or other mental illnesses.

Mental Health Research

What is critical is that you take it upon yourself to research the mental illness so you can get the facts and not believe the fictions propagated about mental illness. If you’re here at the Bipolar Burble, and reading this, you’ve made an excellent start but I encourage you to continue with these other trusted research options.

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I’m Too Tired to Keep Fighting Bipolar Disorder

I’ve written about why you should keep fighting the pain of depression and bipolar disorder before. This is one of my most referred to articles, actually, as I think it makes a solid anti-suicide argument and is something to remember when you’re overwhelmed with the pain of depression and mental illness.

But a commenter said something I think many people would say about fighting bipolar disorder:

. . . but I’m too tired to fight bipolar disorder. . .

Yeah. I understand. I’ve felt too tired for years.

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Interview: Writing my Way to Bipolar Disorder Recovery

The Bipolar Burble welcomes guest Karen Tyrell. Karen is an Australian mental health advocate and author of the new mental health memoir Me & Her: A Memoir of Madness.

Writing for Bipolar Recovery

Today Karen shares a little about her life and the place writing has had in her bipolar disorder recovery.

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Stress Leads to Bipolar Hypomania

I’m not sure how your average person deals with stress. Bingeing? Talking? Ranting? Raging? Running? I just don’t know. As far as I can see, people do all those things when they’re stressed.

But for a person with bipolar disorder, stress can lead to hypomania. And one has to deal with the stress and deal with the hypomania combined – which is kind of stressful in and of itself.

I’m Stressed

Tomorrow I’m being filmed for a documentary by Andy Fiore of Fiore Films. It is for a documentary about people who have learned to successfully live with bipolar disorder. As many of us do, I successfully live with bipolar disorder type 2 even if it’s a rocky path much of the time. And one might argue, I have turned my bipolar disorder into a positive by becoming a mental health writer and helping create a positive path for others living with bipolar disorder.

OK. Fine. But I kind of can’t breathe.

But I admit, I’m nervous. Stressed. I’m stressed about appearing on camera. Even though I do a video spot for HealthyPlace once a month, I still don’t feel particularly comfortable looking into the black abyss of a camera lens.

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Additional Writings

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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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