Blogs
In one year I write over 100 blog articles for Breaking Bipolar. I’m honoured to say that many people have responded to this writing and it has spawned many great conversations. Popular topics this year ranged from self-harm to passing down of bipolar to your kids to the understanding of mental illness.
Check out these popular articles you might have missed.
Achieve your goals and make resolutions stick by taking care of yourself and building confidence with these tips.
Here’s a heart-felt Happy New Year to all of you in Whackadoomia and points beyond; and keep an eye out for what points beyond what’s out there because my point is usually even beyond that.
Let’s hope this brand new year, replete with pleasant promise and fearsome foreboding, is kind to us and ours, ceremoniously serving circumstances far superior to what we deserve.
Yes, it’s that tiresome time once again, when pundits, wags, and bow-tie wearing after-dinner speakers bloviate ad infinitum as they summarize by-gone events and predict what will soon come to be or not to be.
Anxiety has many tricks and tactics it relies on to confuses us into submission. It always gives me a run for my money. When I have conquered one tactic, it tries something new, always keeping me confused so I am not sure which way is up. Anxiety can be very convincing! In the heat of the moment, it leaves me wondering which thoughts in my head are my skills and knowledges and which are lies Anxiety tells me to get me under its spell. Has this ever happened to you?
Over the course of the next few weeks, I plan on producing a series of poetry readings about Schizophrenia. The poems are based upon past psychotic episodes and are dedicated to the millions, like me, who suffer from Schizophrenia.
When I was struggling with PTSD one of the things that I always hated about birthdays and new years were how they brought me face to face more than usual with the passage of time. More than that: They forced me to acknowledge the fact that I was losing days and months and weeks and years of my life to symptoms I could no more control than I could understand.
What I'm trying to say is, new years celebrations always made me feel more sad and anxious than usual.
Happy 2013! Hopefully, the new year will bring many positive things. For me, this new year will bring more awareness. 2012 taught me so much; not only about Bob's ADHD diagnosis, but also about myself.
Sometimes statistics speak for themselves. In 2005, PBS aired a documentary about psychiatric treatment in the correctional system. Here is a breakdown by state:
It’s January 1st and it’s a new year. Many people have decided that today will be the day for a fresh start when it comes to addressing issues of addictive behaviors. As for me, it’s simply another day. I don’t mean to downplay the idea of New Year resolutions but I just think that any day we choose can be a new beginning.
As happens from time to time, I recently received feedback from someone who was not a fan. Anonymous's remarks included:
…The way you go about it, you’d suggest that anyone with bipolar or any kind of mental illness shouldn’t lead a full life.
Let me be clear. You can lead a full life. Anyone can. What I recommend is calibrating your definition of “full” to allow for a mental illness.
I believe she will only be able to rid herself of her demons, and hopefully her BPD as well, when she's ready to confront the abuse of her father. If she can put the blame where it belongs, she may stop projecting that victim/perpetrator cycle on the present men in her life. These demons are a metaphor for the purgatory she has created for herself. That reality has consequences in the real world, but it need not be real in the tangible sense. Exorcising her demons will require the expenditure of real physical energy and probably the destruction of aspects of her personality. If this ever happens, and it's possible but not probable, then these demons will evaporate. They are only as real as one's personality is real. In short, reality is not the question, it's what you make of the things you feel to be real.