And indeed I am here with another long and winding linkdump. My pick for this week, is the one about Anais Nin.
(scheduled post)
Opinion
“So imagine that you’ve been seeing a man for a few months, and things are going great. You like him, you like his friends, you like his moves in the bedroom. You wonder if he could be husband material. Then he sits you down and tells you that he has bipolar disorder. You find yourself unsure about whether or not your courtship should continue.
But don’t leave him.”
What you need to know about dating someone with bipolar disorder, written by Madame Noire, who is bipolar herself, I liked this post a lot. Good and grounded.
“Erin Callinan describes her mental illness with one word that suggests the smell of manure.”
‘Don’t give Up’ mantra for those who love someone with mental illness.
“From that moment on, my memory is blank. I’m told that as I made for the shoulder, passersby stopped their cars and ran me down. Three years after my breakdown, I got the recordings of the 911 calls placed by those good Samaritans, hoping to piece together what happened. You can hear frantic people shouting for help for “a naked woman running along the highway.” In one, I can hear myself screaming at someone to throw me in the water. “Kill me!” I screamed, over and over. “Kill me now!” Listening to the tapes for the first time was scary. I wept, thinking about what could have happened to me.”
They Found Me Running Naked Along the Highway – Four months after giving birth to her second child, Heather Coleman suffered a harrowing postpartum psychotic break.
“Aside from the bipolar disorder, I have anxiety and mild paranoia. I also have weak ankles. lol”
Thriving with Bipolar Disorder– Meet Lauren in Pennsylvania!
Helping a friend with a mental illness.
“Until a few years ago I never dreamed that a supportive community existed on the net. I used social media in a light-hearted way, keeping in touch with friends on Facebook and I chatted about books and TV on Twitter. But in 2011 after having a devastating bipolar episode, I began blogging as a way to process my feelings. I created a new Twitter account to promote the blog but over time it became an important connection to the mental health community for me.”
The bittersweet world of mental health online
“Believe it or not, my father’s suicide is not the point of penning this article. I share glimpses from my personal journey ONLY as a jumping off point into the REAL issue: The stigma behind ALL components of mental illnesses.”
Burying the stigma of mental illness
Will bipolar and schizophrenia sufferers trust generic Abilify?
Keven Moore: Bipolar disorder in the workplace presents challenges, but they can be overcome.
Celebs
20 black celebrities who suffer from bipolar disorder.
Kim Kardashian becomes a mental health advocate (be still my beating arse heart)
“I didn’t have a clue who Randy Gregory was at that moment, but I knew I sympathized with him. Blaring off the online front page for all the world to tut-tut over was his name and that dreaded word “bipolar.” Once again, the media’s temptation to focus on the shock value behind mental illness triumphed over better, more compassionate judgment.”
Cowboys story shows mental illness stigma still thrives.
Arts & Culture
Anais Nin– a case study of personality disorder and creativity.
“Wiig plays Alice Klieg, a bi-polar lottery winner who decides to eschew charity or any practical uses of her $86 million winnings and instead embrace fame full-force by launching a talk show hosted by and about only herself. The show, Welcome to Me, is all about her – from her “dream” opening in which she glides on stage in a swan boat to recreations of dramatic events from her past, such as when somebody at summer camp tampered with her makeup bag. Chaos ensues when her larger-than-life personality and obsession with being famous begins to alienate her friends and family.”
Kristen Wiig explores bipolar absurdity in ‘Welcome to Me’ Must have been quite some tampering to earn the adjective ‘dramatic’.
In this world there is no black or white, just a grey area – that is the slogan of Tom Gray’s new book ‘King of the World’. (A Yorkshire boy, FYI Sheila and Billy particularly)
ART, PSYCHIATRY – Pierre Leichner: “They Say She is Bipolar and He’s Got OCD”
Info, News & Research
“We have 5 percent of the world’s population but 25 percent of the world’s prison population,” Franken said. “That’s in large part because we have criminalized mental illness.”
Counties Examine Police Training in Encounters with Mentally Ill – Local initiatives aim to reduce the number of people with mental illness in jails. Nice one, America!
“The behavioral data revealed that when the participants were feeling normal (not depressed), those with bipolar disorder were much worse at regulating both happy and sad emotions than those with depression. But when they were feeling depressed, the bipolar patients were actually better at regulating happy emotions. Both groups performed about the same when trying to regulate sad emotions while depressed.”
People with bipolar & unipolar depression feel sadness differently – the other interesting aspect is the differences in brain activity in each case.
Quick decision making is not the greatest asset of both bipolar and depressed people – no kidding (well, for me anyway). In fact, where possible I ask for time to think about a decision, and “sleep on it” if possible. An immediate decision by me is frequently the wrong one.
Lower life expectancy in people with bipolar – nothing new there, but it gives a breakdown of the changes in disparity over time.
Potential to improve bipolar meds. (Tel Aviv)
Cognitive Performance and Cerebrospinal Fluid Biomarkers of Neurodegeneration: A Study of Patients with Bipolar Disorder and Healthy Controls.
7 videos about bipolar disorder.
On Jan. 1, 22-year-old Matthew Ajibade, a local artist who had bipolar disorder, was found dead in a restraining chair at the jail, where he had been handcuffed and shot with a Taser. The cause of death has never been released. Neither has the autopsy report, but the circumstances that occurred before he died are extremely troubling.
South Africa
Is Bipolar on the rise? Medical schemes suspect it’s being diagnosed to access prescribed minimum benefits. I remember a counselling psychologist a few years ago, telling me that a bipolar diagnosis guaranteed that medical insurance would cover all psych treatment. Ironically she was the one who delayed my diagnosis for a good while, because “we don’t want to pathologise it”.
“The term lived experience is used to describe the first-hand accounts and impressions of living as a member of a minority or oppressed group.”
Our Lived Experience is a stigma busting blog, run by your friend and mine, Yvette/supermom. If I can get my ass into gear, I’m hoping to contribute.
Durban – An awaiting trial prisoner at Westville Prison with a “healing” touch, claimed in court that when he prayed for the release of other inmates, their freedom became a reality.
Bipolar sufferer a threat to society.
PS
