Putting Stigma to Shame
The hardest thing about Second Stage Healing is believing that you are better on a morning when you wake up feeling like a pile of garbage. (That was yesterday. Today I am feeling fine, thank you!) Psychiatric patients or those who have decided to opt out being one, know that every little thing can be attributed to ‘your mood disorder’ once you have been labelled with a disorder. It has taken me better than half of my 16 years of ...
Trauma and Bipolar Recovery
Trauma is a dangerous thing. In a fragile or undernourished brain, the stress of big life trauma can crack you and send you reeling into psychosis, paranoia, panic, and terrifying mood swings. Healing the trauma associated with mental illness is the focus of Second Stage healing. (In spite of the anonymity in the telling of this story, I need all of my readers to know that I tell this with express permission from my friend. Owning our experiences and telling ...
I would never have signed up for that either, Grandpa.
I am the third generation of a mood swing mess, peppered with paranoia and salted with a stigma so smothering that it killed my mother and grandfather. When Grandpa was diagnosable, in his early twenties, America was in the shameful throws of sterilizing ‘mental deficients’ and performing frontal lobe lobotomies for mood swing resolution. I would never have signed up for that either, Grandpa. Grandpa kept his illness a not-so-well-kept secret until he finally, in an act of shame and ...
Bipolar, Panic and Anxiety…What is the Difference?
Take a minute to look at the DSM-IV – the manual that your physician used to determine the criteria for your diagnosis. Psychiatric diagnoses are complicated things. That’s why many of our diagnoses have changed over the years. Mine changed from depression to BipolarI, to BipolarI with rapid cycles, to a final and extra comforting label of BipolarI with rapid cycles and schizophrenic tendencies. Did you know that I was so sick – even while diligently following my specialist’s order ...
Save My Marriage!
Not everyone will cheer you on when you decide to move from medications to a normal healthy life. Sometimes our closest friends are the greatest skeptics. Fact is, if you have been diagnosed with bipolar, it is because you have done something that scared the living daylights out of your family. Whatever you did before is tough to forget. What you did makes them question your judgement now, especially if it was your idea to transition from medications to the ...
Pajama Party?
I woke up this morning to a call from a friend. She must not have known that I get to sleep in at least twice a year. I think the last time my kids let me sleep past breakfast was in the summer after camping and all were too tired to demand anything before 9 am. Since I had a new pair of fuzzy pajamas and a lot of post-Christmas party cleanup to do, I decided to take the day ...
Selling Yourself a Stigma
I am bipolar My Depression My symptoms My past My pain We are all like door-to-door salesmen, but knocking on our own doors… selling ourselves on owning something we don’t really want. You know how they hand you a catalogue, a knife or a pot or whatever and say your knife, your pot, your vacuum? Whatever it is becomes yours the minute you touch it. Tough to argue with ownership. It’s hard to let go of an identity you have ...
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