by Lindsay Holmes Trigger Warning: This article contains graphic descriptions of suicide and self-harm. In his song “Hurts So Good,” John Mellencamp had it almost right. Sure, love may sometimes hurt good, but not in the way I’m talking about. I’m referring to the sweet burning release from pressing and [...]
Dangerous Diagnoses - Aaron J Smith I’m dangerous. I’m a rage-filled monster who could snap at any moment, hurting those close to me. I’m primed to lash out at friend, family, or stranger. My anger is just below the surface, bubbling, and boiling, threading at any moment to take over and turn me into a [...]
Schedules Promote Stability Trains run on a schedule and so do I. When trains don’t run on time, things can go very wrong and affect actions and people. The same is also true with me. Even before my diagnosis of bipolar I, I discovered that my days and nights were better when I kept a [...]
I don’t want to be disabled but I am. I have multiple disabilities. I don’t even know if I like the word disability. Dis-ability – it’s so negative. In the 1990s when I was growing up, you insulted another person by “dissing” them. When I hear the word disability, I feel that I’m being dissed [...]
Saying Goodbye to My Blog, "Hello Bipolar Linla" The last thing I posted on my blog was on December 2nd, 2017. That post was titled, “It’s Been A While…” and in that post I wrote the following: “I am scared of the future because I have no clue what is going to come next. I [...]
I can remember sitting in my therapist’s office and feeling a distinct sense of loss. I had just been given a temporary and non-medical diagnosis of Cyclothymia. For months leading up to this moment I had been dealing with increasingly harder downswings followed by upswings of mania. Most of these episodes would happen over the [...]
When I first experienced bipolar symptoms in college it was as though sadness had gotten jacked up to an excruciating level. From the time of my early teens I had dealt with depression and the occasional suicidal thought. There was some irritability as well, but nothing that caught me off guard. My depression was familiar [...]
My first thought was, “This is some hippy-dippy shit, right?” Mindfulness sounded like something for crunchy granola type people, something for people trying to get in touch with the harmony of the universe or align their chakras with crystals and bath salts. It sounded corny. It sounded like a reincarnation of the fake it till [...]
I wanted you to save me. That's why I stayed with you. But I was wrong. You can save me or fix me. I have mood swings. Sometimes I run around the house cleaning everything, singing at the top of my lungs, and I'm euphoric, haven't slept for days. I want to please you, be [...]
I moved overseas when I was manic. I have Bipolar Disorder. At the end of January 2016 I finished a course of 15 ECT treatments for a severe episode of depression. A couple of weeks after I finished the ECT I started to become very angry and irritable. The mania was setting in. You see, [...]
