Recovery is Non-Linear Recovery is non-linear. Anyone who says that getting better is a straight line - I want their secret. I want to be stable, but what does that mean? It means sometimes being unstable, wobbly, broken in particular ways. We shatter and come together. We hurt and we heal. We scream, cry or [...]
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 [...]
Mental Illness and its Pain Pain is universal, varied, and subjective. An evolutionary deterrent and motivator, in some ways essential, in some ways utterly pointless. It can provide common ground, or be the most isolating of experiences. Everyone falls somewhere within its range. My pain came from depression. Not everyone experiences depression in this way; [...]
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 [...]
The first antidepressant side-effect to hit me was the yawning; it became a constant. I started to wonder if I'd ever be able to stop. “Don’t worry about it,” Duncan reassured me. “After the sleep deprivation you’ve been through, yawning all the time is perfectly reasonable. It’s your body’s way of giving in to the [...]
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 [...]
But it Didn't Seem Like Postpartum Depression “It’s not uncommon to suffer from postpartum depression,” my infant’s pediatrician said to me during a routine checkup. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.” Her tone was soft but [...]
