The Challenges of Being a Bipolar Author I’ve spent many, many years dealing with bipolar disorder. However, I’ve only spent a year as a bipolar author. All authors face challenges. Struggling to be published, meeting deadlines, promoting. I am now of the opinion that those of us dealing with bipolar disorder have a different battle [...]
Being Good At Living With Mental Illness Doesn’t Mean I Don’t Have It “How do you just talk to people so easily?” she asked me. “I’d be so anxious.” “That’s my secret,” I replied, pulling out my best Mark Ruffalo in The Avengers voice. “I’m always anxious.” I’m often told, especially by people in mental [...]
I struggle with Borderline Personality Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, and PTSD. Over the last few years I found myself in a very dark and lonely place that I honestly didn't think I would get out of. This dark place led me to psych units across the eastern part of the United States, and as time went [...]
I majored in psychology, for a year or two at least, in college so I took plenty of psychology classes back in the early 90s. I remember taking one class in particular. It was called “Abnormal Psychology”. I remember learning about bipolar disorder and thinking, wait, other people don’t feel this way? Other, “normal”, people [...]
Bipolar. Manic depressive. Those were the only words I heard come out of my doctor’s mouth. Unstable. Mental case. Crazy. Insane. Those were the words that ran through my mind. I was sitting across from her at the desk. Those words were thrown in my face as if they meant nothing at all. That’s because she [...]
Oprah said that when something isn’t working right in our lives first the universe gives us a whisper, then a nudge, then a push, then a shove. Then we’ll get hit with a brick and if we still don’t listen an earthquake will come along and totally disrupt our lives. Well, I waited for the [...]
NIGHT TERRORS I understood suicide the very first time I heard of it around age 11, I had been committing it every night in my sleep for a decade. My earliest memories at 18 months old were of night terrors that included a suicidal death. Wads of snakes in various sizes, colors and patterns slithered [...]
Sometimes, I just don't know how To console you Reassure you that you have validity Not get impatient or angry when you disobey me Or allow you the amount of independence you claim you have. Sometimes, When your sweet little self Shows her grown up attitude I feel.... Defeated. Small. Inconsolable. Panicked. Like Whatever comes [...]
CRASH I’m just going to let loose. Forget about punctuation marks and such. I’m spewing a hornet’s nest from my mouth. I’ve been riding a manic high for three days now, one I haven’t felt in over a year. Oh the things I got done and the creative projects and I wanted to skip in [...]
When I was two years old, I began having “episodes” - bouts of extreme energy and activity with no discernible cause. I would cry to my parents, “Make it stop! Make it stop!” My parents felt helpless, unable to fully understand what I was asking them to do, given the limited descriptive abilities of a [...]
