Sometimes I have trouble with nightmares and night terrors. Recently I had one that made me think about how spirituality can help or harm an individual with severe mental illness, such as borderline personality disorder (BPD).

There is a mental illness support group for almost every psychiatric disorder or abuse. As a person on the receiving end of verbal abuse for years, attending a support group propelled me forward exponentially and I encourage people to locate a support group and attend it. But sometimes, people are intimidated and do not attend. They desperately want the emotional support, but perhaps stepping outside of their comfort zone is too much when added on top of everything else they're experiencing.

I don’t remember most Christmases; they tend to blur together in a sea of turkey, denial and wrapping paper. But the Christmas of 1998 was different. That Christmas was the one just before I began medication. That was the one I spent lying on the couch with bandaged arms. Looking back 1998 should have been a good year for me. I had completed an 8-month work term for my university degree, I had some money for the first time in a long time and I went backpacking across Europe. But unfortunately, 1998 was the year that bipolar decided to attack full-force. I spent the end of 1998 slicing and dicing and sobbing and begging for mercy. From what, exactly, I have never been able to say, but from whatever was causing the pain whatever made it impossible to move from my mother’s couch as the activities of Christmas went on around me. But in spite of this I had no intention of seeing a doctor and I most especially had no intention of seeing a psychiatrist. Those people were nothing but pill-pushers, nothing but drug dealers with letters after their name. And everyone knew that depression wasn’t a real disease and that anyone with real strength of character could overcome mental anguish on their own – not with the crutch of pharmaceuticals.

I have been struggling to eat normally — whatever normal is — for several weeks. It's not that I have stopped eating altogether, because let's face it, even anorexics have to eat something. It's not even that I'm in starvation mode — yet. It has just become easier to skip breakfast, because hey, it is 10 a.m. before I think about it and it is only two hours away from lunch. Then lunchtime comes and I "forget" to eat until about 2 or 3 p.m. That's too close for dinner, so I might as well make lunch do for dinner, too. Still, I am eating and I am committed to recovery. I know that I was not healthy before and that I need to continue to eat healthy and maintain my weight. I know that skipping meals, especially breakfast, is not a good idea. I thought I was doing okay. Then I drank several glasses of wine last night.

I know it's difficult to say no to others, but your addiction recovery comes first. Wanting to help others is only natural when you see them going through what you are currently going through, or have gone through in the past. By nature, I believe a lot of people find it easier to take care of others versus themselves. I want to remind all recovery warriors, that you must take care of YOU first, and others second. Your addiction recovery comes first--always.

I just returned from a trip to Phoenix, Arizona, where for three days I've been on a whirlwind tour of interviews, meetings, and one community lecture, courtesy of Arizona Foundation for Behavioral Health (AFBH) and ASU's Center for Applied Behavioral Health Policy - all to tell our family story to those who will, we hope, be affected by it in some way.

The title of this post suggests that I am focusing exclusively on bipolar disorder and this might be true in content, but the symptoms and the experience described below are common within the spectrum of all chronic mental illness. It is a shared experience among those who are diagnosed--and not just with with bipolar disorder--highs and lows, in part, define mental illness.

Have you ever felt anxiety in a restaurant? Or avoided going out because you were afraid of having anxiety in a restaurant? You need to do it anyway (Exposure Therapy for Anxiety Disorders, Panic Attacks). This is the only way to get over it! Restaurants, then, become familiar and eventually can feel quite safe.

The impact on siblings of children with ADHD is not often talked about, yet it is an important discussion to have in order to create healthy and functioning families. Studies show that siblings of children with ADHD experience the same disruption, chaos, unpredictability and exhaustion as their parents. At times, they may even feel victimized, unprotected and powerless, particularly when faced with expectations to “take care” of their siblings. A healthy family considers everyone’s needs. Here are some tips for parents to help minimize the effect of their ADHD child on other siblings in the family:

This was a question recently asked of me, “can people with a mental illness, like bipolar disorder, live alone?” The answer to me was obvious – yes! Absolutely. Of course a person, even with a serious mental illness, can live alone. But then I thought about it for a moment and maybe it’s not that simple. Maybe there are some tools that facilitate living on your own.