Learn your illness.
Featured Image by Sean Stratton
This article begins the idea of a Practice Based Cure for Bipolar Disorder. We look at what bipolar does to our mental, emotional, and physical stability. Four precise and powerful techniques are introduced for reclaiming stability in our lives. Video lessons for this are available at the bottom of the article. Continue Reading
In this article we learn how to manage manic episodes by BAILing out of mania.
It is far quicker to destroy than to create. Relationships, a home, a career, self-esteem and peace of mind take time and work to build. They can be damaged or destroyed in an instant. This is the danger of Manic Episodes to us living with bipolar. We become Continue Reading
Featured image by Himesh Kumar Behera
Take our free 2-minute bipolar specific quiz to practice the skills of self-reflection and pattern-recognition.
Knowing which of the six phases of bipolar we are in empowers us to stay mentally well. Successfully locating ourselves in the bipolar cycle requires that we develop sensitivity to our emotions and energy levels. In practice this means reflecting on our day and trying to identify how our energy and emotions are shaping our perspective, choices, and actions. Continue Reading
Part two of two. An article about my experiences after bipolar diagnosis and my thoughts on being mentally ill in modern society. Please read part one first.
Part one of two. An article about my experience getting a bipolar diagnosis and my thoughts on the big picture around becoming diagnosed as mentally ill in modern society.
This article is about figuring out how to become mentally-well over the long term with bipolar disorder. My twenties were a battlefield. A decade spent fighting my mental illness. I recall the few beautiful victories, the many crushing setbacks, and the ground eventually gained towards figuring out how to live well with bipolar. I am grateful that I am not still fighting the same battles that I was back then. Continue Reading
Images by Ben Ngapo
Thoughts and emotions will combine to recreate our perception of the world for brighter or darker. A stubbornly grey day may transform into a world of fun and laughter and endless possibilities. A beautiful holiday can be a leaden prison of self-hating apathy. I think it is actually pretty amazing how much our brains colour how we see the world and ourselves. Amazing or terrible, agonising or blissful, these big moods that shape our bipolar life are definitely disruptive. It is as if Continue Reading
This article teaches how-to recognise and get out of depression using a strategy called ramping. Depression is frustrating: it draws my energy away and eats up whatever momentum I had. Depression is a landscape of heavy gravity, inertia, and greyness. Depression in the media is sometimes portrayed as deep sadness but for me it is more of a nihilistic numbness: my world feels small, dark, and utterly inconsequential. Continue Reading
Image by Gabriel Silvério on Unsplash
People can be so courageous. Living with bipolar is hard, whatever the intensity. When you add in careers, relationships, families, goals, dreams to live up to; the illness permeates everything. This means that sometimes everything in life can become a little bit harder, or a lot harder, or maybe it becomes absolutely insurmountable. Nonetheless we try. Continue Reading
We cannot make progress unless we act on the importance of our well-being to prioritise bipolar health. I was once offered an amazing opportunity to work for a whole year on an isolated tropical island in the pacific ocean, thousands of miles distant from any civilisation. This island is an active volcano, we experienced thousands of earthquakes, and were bruised by intense sub-tropical storms. With a population of only seven, we had to be able to cope independently.