"My name is Ethan Michael Carter, and I don’t belong on this site." At least thats what I feel I should write, before I close down my Mac and get on with the ‘normal,’ things in my day. But the truth is, I do belong here, and I do have a story to tell. Maybe [...]
I have lived with depression and anxiety for nearly as long as I can remember. For years I would not fully acknowledge that simple fact. During my teenage years I turned to drugs and alcohol to help me cope with the pain and shame I felt. In my twenties and thirties I was on and [...]
The Pain without a Name by Sarah Griffith Lund We didn’t know. We never knew what to call it. We didn’t have a diagnosis then. If you had a mood disorder or a mental illness before the 21st century, then it was understood and treated within the limitations based on the research, knowledge and resources [...]
My family has a history of mental illness, pretty much all of it completely un-diagnosed. When I say my family is crazy, I'm not elaborating. Some are more crazy than others, but all of us deal with depression and anxiety to some degree. I'm writing this post anonymously because it's a hard one to discuss...the [...]
I am passionate and extremely involved in mental health engagement in my community. I launched www.bipolarbabe.com in May of 2009 and created a logo with a talented artist titled ‘Bipolar Babe: Stomping out Stigma.’ Thereafter, I designed and distributed bipolar babe postcards, which read “Creating a World of Understanding, Empathy, and Acceptance for Those that Have a Mental Health Condition.” [...]
In my eyes, it is the anticipation that is the toughest part about anxiety. We build up the worries and stressors in our minds to the point that they become almost impossible to deal with. Most of anxiety is irrational in that we know these concerns are not as bad as we make them out [...]
I was diagnosed bipolar in August of 2008. The diagnoses made so much sense out of the life I was living, out of the lows and highs I kept jumping between. It made sense out of the crazy stories from my early 20’s, out of the jobs I quit over and over, out of the [...]
Especially Love I sat in my favorite chair. The sun warmed me as I sipped my morning coffee. Tears began to stream down my cheeks. Suddenly my breath became more rapid. What was wrong with me I sobbed. I thought I was am past this… The years before my mother’s death were filled with incredible [...]
"Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly" Proverb I had overcome a lot of things in my life and was constantly working on myself, but at 25 years old I still had so much work to do, and a long way to go, in terms of healing and learning [...]
My name is Joe The Sicilian. I grew up in a Bipolar family. My family's Bipolar Disorder seemed normal to me for much of my life. The only person who doesn't have Bipolar Disorder in my family is my mom, who finds it extremely hard to understand the disease. All of my grandparents had it, my aunts and uncles had it, and [...]