Bipolar 1 Quotes

Because now people use the phrase OCD to describe minor personality quirks. "Oooh, I like my pens in a line, I'm so OCD." NO YOU'RE FUCKING NOT. "Oh my God, I was so nervous about that presentation, I literally had a panic attack." NO YOU FUCKING DIDN'T. "I'm so hormonal today. I just feel totally bipolar." SHUT UP, YOU IGNORANT BUMFACE.

I’m not bipolar, I’ve just had a bipolar life foisted upon me.

She looked to Roy as though she lived in Oz, in the land of color, like she carried it with her everywhere she went. When they began dating, he found that her energy was the perfect counterpoint to the world into which he sank at regular intervals, that black and white Kansas that he inhabited.

My feelings are all over the place. Can you be bipolar in love?

When I was lost in the fog, it was as though nothing else existed. And, afterwards, it seemed incomprehensible that I had ever really thought like that. Self-recrimination inevitably followed.

I'd wasted so much of my life. So many of my days, and all of my promise, all of my dreams, lost to hospitals, to depression, to wanting to die. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. This is not who I am. Except, of course, it was. It was all there was left to be.

I quickly decided that he was bipolar,

Sometimes I though about killing myself. The idea of it circled my head, shining and lovely like a tinsel halo. How beautiful it would be if everything could just stop. If I could stop. If I didn't have to feel like this. Yes, I thought about it and thought about it, but I was too exhausted to do anything about it. That should have been funny, right?

The tapestry of my life was a ruin of unravelling threads. The brightest parts were a nonsensical madman's weaving. And now every day was a grey stitch, laid down with an outpatient's patience, one following the next following the next, a story in lines, like a railway track to nowhere, telling absolutely nothing.

Days passed in a grey fog. I was becalmed. Without energy, without hope, with no sight of land, I could remember feeling better but I somehow couldn't believe in it. There was nothing but this.

There had been a subtle realignment of the spheres. The world was somehow a place I could endure again. If life was a grey corridor lined with doors, it was now within my power to open some of them.

Bipolar and paranoid. Throw in schizophrenic and you’ve hit the trifecta. They have padded rooms for people like you. Some of them even come with a view.

Obsessed is more like it. But yeah, I saw you happy. Happier than you've been in a really, really long time. With someone you like that much, the lows are as low as the highs are high. Does that make sense?" "It does. It also makes me sound bipolar." "Love will do that to a person.

Red is passion, warmth, love, lust. Red is also the color of rage, blood, power, irritation. Red is the rainbow’s compulsory bipolar color.

Vee'd been too busy ogling all the bright, shiny trinkets in the marketplace to notice Jamie shadowing us.Visions or not, he was far too bipolar to be a match for my best friend. She deserved a true prince-not some moody poseur with a crown. Yet, if I knew her, his conflicted Edward Cullen act would her hook faster than meth.

His mind betrayed him and now we were all victims of the horrible deception.

She wanted to kill her, hold her . . . strangle her . . . scold her . . . love her to death. Good night, parenting was a bipolar disorder.

Bipolar is like have 5 different souls that fights for 1 body !

Well, well, well. Tickle my Elmo ass silly. I was sitting across from a person who enjoyed talking to dead people, and if they wouldn’t talk, then by God, he’d just wake their corpses up instead. Next to him was a moody, chain-smoking vampire who just might be bipolar and smoked like a corncob pipe.

My madness was too much for them and it was my affliction.

All it did was work me up even more, until I had to relieve it one way or another, preferably through sex. And I knew it was only going to get worse if I didn’t do something about it, blue-balls the least of my worries, my bipolar disorder like a bitch in heat.

Was James bipolar?” The tears returned, and I watched her battle them. “We don’t use that word in our family.” I stared at her for a moment. “Why not?” “Mum and Dad don’t believe in it.” She kept walking. “James was always … troubled. But there was nothing wrong with him, nothing more than anyone else anyway, everyone feels a bit down sometimes.” “Olivia! It was more than feeling down.” She laughed, bitterly. “I know, Dee, fuck, do I know that. I’m just telling you how it goes. The party line—what we told people when they asked.

Things weren’t always as good as they are now. In school we learned that in the old days, the dark days, people didn’t realize how deadly a disease love was. For a long time they even viewed it as a good thing, something to be celebrated and pursued. Of course that’s one of the reasons it’s so dangerous: It affects your mind so that you cannot think clearly, or make rational decisions about your own well-being. (That’s symptom number twelve, listed in the amor deliria nervosa section of the twelfth edition of The Safety, Health, and Happiness Handbook, or The Book of Shhh, as we call it.) Instead people back then named other diseases—stress, heart disease, anxiety, depression, hypertension, insomnia, bipolar disorder—never realizing that these were, in fact, only symptoms that in the majority of cases could be traced back to the effects of amor deliria nervosa.

James had taken his own life, but the need to do so was not something easily explained. He had the life he wanted: money, a home, a job, a wife, a good friend. I’d known people who died at their own hand because life became unbearable, or because something happened, something terrible. That wasn’t so for James—there was something inside him, something a part of him, something over which he had no control, but which had absolute control over him.

I had assumed that a boy who loved me so intensely was full of happiness, love, and light so that he was free of his own demons and pain. My assumption was entirely wrong.

I’m not interested in taking another ride on the bipolar roller coaster, Tate, so you can save your apology. I don’t want to hear it.

Are you bipolar?’ and I swear this wasn’t a joke, seeing as it would make a bit of sense, considering his mood seemed to change like the British weather.

These people all thought they knew him. They believed he was a whore, and sometimes he thought he was too. But he really wasn’t. Every partner he’d ever had broken it off with him when they couldn’t handle him at his worst points. A lot of partners won’t stick around when they hear the phrase “I have bipolar disorder” come out of someone’s mouth, so he didn’t tell them, just telling them he was moody. Of course, they all liked him when he was happy. It was when he wasn't that things went bad.

Joshua had always been able to get away with things—things for which he should never have been forgiven. He was a lot like James in that respect, for while my husband had bought his grace with his brilliance, Joshua did so with his looks. I considered that a moment, before turning away, suddenly finding I could not bear to look at him for fear of what I might forgive next.

Sometimes I get so sad that it jest sounds good.

What was that bit about fish sticks?” he asked, climbing back into the SUV. “Oh, pretty clever of her actually, though I thought it ridiculous at the time. Sometimes Mom gets paranoid, thinks people might be out to get her, out to get me.” I laughed nervously at how close that hit to home. “Anyway, one night she was really freaked out and came up with a code. If I was ever kidnapped or something, she would say something about me liking fish sticks. If I said I wanted fish sticks, that meant I was in danger and needed help, no matter what else I’d said to her that I was fine.” “So by you saying you hate fish sticks…”“She knows I’m fine and she doesn’t need to further involve the police. Who says bipolar disorder can’t be useful?

The cumulative results of the brain’s chemical effects are not well understood. In the 1989 edition of the standard Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry, for example, one finds this helpful formula: a depression score is equivalent to the level of 3-methoxy-4-hydroxyphenylglycol (a compound found in the urine of all people and not apparently affected by depression); minus the level of 3-methoxy-4-hydroxymandelic acid; plus the level of norepinephrine; minus the level of normetanephrine plus the level of metanepherine, the sum of those divided by the level of 3-methoxy-4-hydroxymandelic acid; plus an unspecified conversion variable; or, as CTP puts it: “D-type score = C1 (MHPG) - C2 (VMA) + C3 (NE) - C4 (NMN + MN)/VMA + C0.” The score should come out between one for unipolar and zero for bipolar patients, so if you come up with something else—you’re doing it wrong.

Daydreamer" Victory may lay in the fog Silent seas Howling dogs You and and me Cut from a different cloth Concrete love Oh let me tell ya Im gunna take this one step further Lets explore don’t stick to what you know We’re gunna take this one step further I’ve found the truth The stars are you CHORUS: Daydreamer Running in the dark Skiing in the fields Oh lets get lost Buy a ticket to mars Oh show me the way And i’m sure i’ll stay We’re blossom leaves No camouflage Let colours bleed for us all to see Hey your coming with me Whether you like it or not 1 2 3 Im gunna take this one step further Lets explore don’t stick to what you know We’re gunna take this one step further I’ve found the truth The stars are you CHORUS: Daydreamer Running in the dark Skiing in the fields Oh lets get lost Buy a ticket to mars Oh show me the way And i’m sure i’ll stay What you running for Running for What you running for CHORUS: Daydreamer Running in the dark Skiing in the fields Oh lets get lost Buy a ticket to mars Oh show me the way And i’m sure i’ll stay

Treating Abuse Today (Tat), 3(4), pp. 26-33 Freyd: You were also looking for some operational criteria for false memory syndrome: what a clinician could look for or test for, and so on. I spoke with several of our scientific advisory board members and I have some information for you that isn't really in writing at this point but I think it's a direction you want us to go in. So if I can read some of these notes . . . TAT: Please do. Freyd: One would look for false memory syndrome: 1. If a patient reports having been sexually abused by a parent, relative or someone in very early childhood, but then claims that she or he had complete amnesia about it for a decade or more; 2. If the patient attributes his or her current reason for being in therapy to delayed-memories. And this is where one would want to look for evidence suggesting that the abuse did not occur as demonstrated by a list of things, including firm, confident denials by the alleged perpetrators; 3. If there is denial by the entire family; 4. In the absence of evidence of familial disturbances or psychiatric illnesses. For example, if there's no evidence that the perpetrator had alcohol dependency or bipolar disorder or tendencies to pedophilia; 5. If some of the accusations are preposterous or impossible or they contain impossible or implausible elements such as a person being made pregnant prior to menarche, being forced to engage in sex with animals, or participating in the ritual killing of animals, and; 6. In the absence of evidence of distress surrounding the putative abuse. That is, despite alleged abuse going from age two to 27 or from three to 16, the child displayed normal social and academic functioning and that there was no evidence of any kind of psychopathology. Are these the kind of things you were asking for? TAT: Yeah, it's a little bit more specific. I take issue with several, but at least it gives us more of a sense of what you all mean when you say "false memory syndrome." Freyd: Right. Well, you know I think that things are moving in that direction since that seems to be what people are requesting. Nobody's denying that people are abused and there's no one denying that someone who was abused a decade ago or two decades ago probably would not have talked about it to anybody. I think I mentioned to you that somebody who works in this office had that very experience of having been abused when she was a young teenager-not extremely abused, but made very uncomfortable by an uncle who was older-and she dealt with it for about three days at the time and then it got pushed to the back of her mind and she completely forgot about it until she was in therapy. TAT: There you go. That's how dissociation works! Freyd: That's how it worked. And after this came up and she had discussed and dealt with it in therapy, she could again put it to one side and go on with her life. Certainly confronting her uncle and doing all these other things was not a part of what she had to do. Interestingly, though, at the same time, she has a daughter who went into therapy and came up with memories of having been abused by her parents. This daughter ran away and is cutoff from the family-hasn't spoken to anyone for three years. And there has never been any meeting between the therapist and the whole family to try to find out what was involved. TAT: If we take the first example -- that of her own abuse -- and follow the criteria you gave, we would have a very strong disbelief in the truth of what she told.

During my last bright upswing, I had thrown all of my school allowance for the term on this coat. Collin teased me something horrible yet he wore bright orange without irony. His taste wasn't always to be trusted.

A life I'd gladly give for what is living if there is no Happiness, truth, feeling, nor love? For surely as I was born of human blood I am a creature of undeniable emotion that cannot be suppressed

1. Treat a share of stock as a proportional ownership of the business. 2.  Buy at a significant discount to intrinsic value to create a margin of safety. 3. Make a bipolar Mr. Market your servant rather than your master.

He’s like a psychopathic child with bipolar and OCD.

bipolar disorder.

bipolar is a mental illness that affects hormones and it affects emotions and energy levels.

1. Treat a share of stock as a proportional ownership of the business. 2.  Buy at a significant discount to intrinsic value to create a margin of safety. 3. Make a bipolar Mr. Market your servant rather than your master. 4. Be rational, objective, and dispassionate. Munger has said these four bedrock Graham principles “will never be obsolete.” An investor who does not follow these principles is not a Graham value investor. The Graham value investing system really is that simple.

But in the mood d1sorders, uni- and bipolar, we see a return to more primitive, primary process ruminating without the loss of adult cognitive rules. Major depression is a return to a primitive hibernation state without the wholesale collapse in logical processes that we see in schizophrenia. It shifts the usual thought pattern from secondary to primary process thinking, the embattled autopilot of the past six million years or so. If happiness is a modern invention, depressives return to the affective state of the hibernating cave dweller. Mania, on the other hand, is a desperate flight from dreaded depression and encapsulates the level of primitivity imposed by it.

I do take out my phone and punch in the word “haloperidol.” Several hits fill the screen. Haloperidol is an antipsychotic medication, used to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, delirium, agitation, and acute psychosis. And that’s just one of at least a dozen pill bottles. God knows what else is in there. Part of me is burning with shame that I looked in the first place. And part of me is scared at what else I might find.

How do you know? You said lithium didn’t work for some people. It’s not working for me!’ ‘Till the end of the month,’ Dr Stefan said evenly. ‘If there’s no change by then, we’ll try cutting the dose.’ ‘That’s another ten days! What do you care – you’re not the one taking it! That means I have to endure another ten days of hell, walking around like an idiot, bumping into things, forgetting the end of my sentences, feeling only half-alive! How am I supposed to believe this is going to work if it makes me feel like this? Why should I believe a word that you say?’ Dr Stefan smiled slightly. ‘Because, Flynn, this is the most animated I’ve ever seen you. I would venture to say that you’re beginning, just beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.’ Flynn narrowed his eyes in contempt. ‘Well if that’s the case, then, to quote Robert Lowell, it must be the light of the oncoming train.’ Dr Stefan threw his head back and roared with laughter.

Step 1: Map out plan; Step 2: Solutions; Step 3: Learn to breathe again; Step 4: Find confidence, independence, and joy; Step 5: Focus on social aspects.

But those in-between periods of lucidity as I wait for the bipolar roller coaster to regain speed are the most destructive.

Category 1: mental stability and physical health Subcategories: daily meds, supplements, diet, exercise

Several hits fill the screen. Haloperidol is an antipsychotic medication, used to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, delirium, agitation, and acute psychosis.

You want my advice?” Sierra asks. I look at her warily. “I don’t know. You hated the idea of Alex and me together from the beginning.” “That’s not true, Brit. I didn’t tell you this, but he’s actually a nice guy when he loosens up. I had fun the day we all went to Lake Geneva. Doug did, too, and even said Alex was cool to hang with. I don’t know what happened between the two of you, but either forget about him, or give him everything you’ve got in your arsenal.” “Is that what you do with Doug?” She smiles. “Sometimes Doug needs a wake-up call. When our relationship starts getting comfortable, I do something to switch it up. Don’t interpret my advice as an excuse to go after Alex. But if he’s what you really want, well, then, who am I to tell you not to go for it? I hate seeing you sad, Brit.” “Was I happy with Alex?” “Obsessed is more like it. But yeah, I saw you happy. Happier than you’ve been in a really, really long time. With someone you like that much, the lows are as low as the highs are high. Does that make sense?” “It does. It also makes me sound bipolar.” “Love will do that to a person.

A large portion of my day is devoted to obsessively surfing the Internet. I'm addicted to knowledge, to be filled in on things I should’ve been taught growing up but never was. Give me a couple of days on most subjects, I will become an obsessed expert — guaranteed. My other talents, for lack of a better word, that can be easily attributed to Asperger’s include but aren’t limited to: photographic memory, polyglotism, an aversion to the color white (only contextually though) and some shades of purple, as well as a penchant for counting bathroom and kitchen tiles. Then there’s bipolar disorder.

-It is possible to vastly compress most learning. In a surprising number of cases, it is possible to do something in 1-10 months that is assumed to take 1-10 years. -The more you compress things, the more physical limiters become a bottleneck. All learning is physically limited. The brain is dependent on finite quantities of neurotransmitters, memories require REM and non-REM (NREM) sleep for consolidation, etc. The learning graph is not unlike the stress-recovery-hyperadaptation curves of weight training. -The more extreme your ambition, just as in sports, the more you need performance enhancement via unusual schedules, diet, drugs, etc. -Most important: due to the bipolar nature of the learning process, you can forecast setbacks. If you don't, you increase the likelihood of losing morale and quitting before the inflection point.

TABLE 2.1 The Spectrum of Manic Symptoms

l There are two broad types of mood disorders: depressive disorders and bipolar disorders. l Depressive disorders include major depression and persistent depressive disorder, along with the newer diagnoses of premenstrual dysphoric disorder and disruptive mood dysregulation disorder. Bipolar disorders include bipolar I disorder, bipolar II disorder, and cyclothymia. l Bipolar I disorder is defined by mania. Bipolar II disorder is defined by hypomania and episodes of depression. Major depressive disorder, bipolar I disorder, and bipolar II disorder are episodic. Recurrence is very common in these disorders. l Persistent depressive disorder and cyclothymia are characterized by low levels of symptoms that last for at least 2 years. l Major depression is one of the most common psychiatric disorders, affecting 16.2 percent of people during their lifetime. Rates of depression are twice as high in women as in men. Bipolar I disorder is much rarer, affecting 1 percent or less of the population.

Clinical descriptions and Epidemiology l There are two broad types of mood disorders: depressive disorders and bipolar disorders. l Depressive disorders include major depression and persistent depressive disorder, along with the newer diagnoses of premenstrual dysphoric disorder and disruptive mood dysregulation disorder. Bipolar disorders include bipolar I disorder, bipolar II disorder, and cyclothymia. l Bipolar I disorder is defined by mania. Bipolar II disorder is defined by hypomania and episodes of depression. Major depressive disorder, bipolar I disorder, and bipolar II disorder are episodic. Recurrence is very common in these disorders. l Persistent depressive disorder and cyclothymia are characterized by low levels of symptoms that last for at least 2 years. l Major depression is one of the most common psychiatric disorders, affecting 16.2 percent of people during their lifetime. Rates of depression are twice as high in women as in men. Bipolar I disorder is much rarer, affecting 1 percent or less of the population.

-§ But just because we grew up in that kind of a culture does not mean we need to keep creating it in our present relationship. I recommend we ask different questions, like, “How could I make your life more wonderful?” and “Would you like to know how you could make my life more wonderful?” and “What are your needs right now?” and “Would you like to know what I need right now?” Now if none of this appeals to you because you prefer a relation-dinghy to a relationship, here are some suggestion to help you prevent your relation-dinghy from growing into a relationship: 1. Keep your attention focused at all times on who is right or wrong in a discussion, fair or unfair in a negotiation, selfish or unselfish in giving (it helps to keep a list of who has done what for whom), kind or cruel in their tone of voice, rude or polite in their mannerisms, sloppy or neat in their dress, and so on. Be careful not to realize that your attempt to be right is really an attempt to protect yourself from thinking you are wrong and then feeling shame. 2. If you need some support for this I recommend certain selfhelp groups who can give you the latest scoops on the most powerful, politically correct labels with which to overpower and confuse your partner. Members of these groups will collude with you in validating that your partner really is a man or woman who is commitment-phobic, emotionally unavailable, counterdependant, needy, spiritually unevolved, dysfunctional, immature, judgmental, sinful, bi-polar, OCD, clinically depressed, or adult-onset ADD. It is important to keep your consciousness filled with such terminology to prevent any fondness from developing. This also helps in keeping you caught in the “paralysis of analysis” and clueless about what you or your partner are needing from each other. 3. Adopt this test for love: If your partner really loves you, he or she will always know what you want even before you know—and then give it to you without your having to go through the humiliation of actually asking for it. And your partner will do this regardless of the sacrifice it requires. If your partner does not give you what you want, choose to believe it means he or she does not love you. 4. Ask for what you do not want instead of what you do want. I heard of a man who asked his wife to stop spending so much money shopping. She took up gambling on the internet. 5. In case your relationdinghy starts to grow, here are a few torpedoes guaranteed to sink it again: “It hurts me when you say that.” “I feel sad because you…fill in the blank (won’t say ‘I love you,’ or ‘I’m sorry,’ or won’t have sex, or won’t marry me, etc.)” If you really want to choke the life out of any relationship meditate on “I need you.” Then you will know how I felt for about thirtyfive years of my life. I felt like a drowning swimmer and I would grab hold of anyone who came near me and try to use them as a life raft. Now I want relationships to be flowers for my table instead of air for my lungs. When I Come Gently To You by Ruth Bebermeyer When I come gently to you I want you to see It’s not to get myself from you, it’s just to give you me. I know that you can’t give me me, no matter what you do. All I ever want from you is you. I know your fear of fences, your pain from prisons past. I’m not the first to sense it and I’m plainly not the last. The hawk within your heart’s not bound to earth by fence of mine, Unless you aren’t aware that you can fly. When I come gently to you I’d like you to know I come not to trespass your space, I want to touch and grow. When your space and my space meet, each is not less but more. We make our space that wasn’t space before. Chapter HEALING THE BLAME THAT BLINDS

Haloperidol is an antipsychotic medication, used to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, delirium, agitation, and acute psychosis. And that’s just one of at least a dozen pill bottles.

Haloperidol is an antipsychotic medication, used to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, delirium, agitation, and acute psychosis.

You may have heard people say that they feel “manic” on days when they have high energy or are in a particularly cheerful mood, perhaps even experiencing some of the manic symptoms listed in table 1.1, but this is not necessarily mania. For example, over the holidays, people may report feeling very happy and excited, have increased energy, sleep less than usual, and talk more than usual. If these “symptoms” last more than seven days, are these people actually experiencing mania? Certainly not! So, what is the difference between periods of good mood, or high energy, and mania? The difference is that when you are experiencing mania, your symptoms make it difficult for you to fulfill your responsibilities with regard to work, to friends and family, or to yourself (self-care). In other words, the symptoms associated with a manic episode interfere with your ability to function (e.g., to work, to pay bills, to take care of children, to see your friends, to accomplish daily tasks), which causes problems for you (e.g., you show up late for work, you’re not able to pay bills, your relationships with friends and family suffer, you can’t accomplish daily tasks).

One byproduct of feeling safe in God is the disappearance of fear. The Bible teaches that God is perfect love, and perfect love casts out all fear (1 John 4:18). Understanding and believing that I am loved unconditionally by our Creator moved me from a place of fear to a place of safety. Fear is the complete

Hypomania is characterized by a persistently irritable, elevated, or expansive mood, accompanied by at least three of the other hypomanic symptoms (or four with irritable mood) listed in table 1.1, over most of the day for at least four days. You may notice that the symptoms listed for hypomania and mania in table 1.1 are the same. Hypomania differs from mania in that such an episode is typically shorter and is less severe, given that it does not impair functioning. Once the symptoms impair functioning, the episode is almost always considered a manic episode, unless it is only brief (e.g., less than seven days).

A few tips to help you further distinguish hypomania is to remember that hypomania is abnormally high or irritable mood, meaning different from what a person usually experiences when happy or upset/irritable. Hypomanic episodes also last for at least four consecutive days. Thus, this abnormally high or irritable mood persists for several days and is accompanied by at least three (or four, if the mood is irritable) of the manic/hypomanic symptoms in table 1.1 for the same four days. Finally, in order to be diagnosed with BPII, you must have also experienced a major depressive episode at some time in your life.

Marsha Mars 5.0 out of 5 stars Wish I had this long ago! Reviewed in the United States on March 1, 2023 Verified Purchase Sally has taken the questions that a person has rattling around their brain, (or friends, family members, or co-workers) and puts it in plain English what a person may experience, either personally or relational. It was extremely useful to read for a family member to gain understanding and knowledge about what a person living with Bipolar experiences. Thoughtful and direct communication about her own life and struggles as well as victories. This book is a useful read for many! Thank you, Sally, for putting in print what people may be afraid to ask another. For being transparent about your own struggles in dealing with an illness, but also offering hope that a full and enriched life can be led by a person dealing with Bipolar. Well done!

Omega-3 fatty acids are essential. Insufficient levels of two of the most important omega-3s—eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA)—have been linked to depression and bipolar disorder, suicidal behavior, inflammation, heart disease, ADD/ADHD, cognitive impairment and dementia, and obesity.[1] Ninety-five percent of Americans do not get enough dietary omega-3 fatty acids.[2] The human body doesn’t produce omega-3s on its own, so you have to get it from outside sources, such as fatty fish. If you aren’t getting enough of this essential nutrient from your diet, it’s bad news for your brain. That’s because omega-3s contribute to about 8 percent of your brain’s weight. At Amen Clinics, we tested omega-3 levels of 50 consecutive patients who were not taking fish oil supplements. A shocking 49 out of 50—that’s 98 percent!—had suboptimal levels. In a subsequent study, we analyzed the scans of 130 patients with their omega-3 levels. Patients with the lowest levels had lower blood flow in the areas of the brain associated with depression and dementia.

The seventh limb of the classical yogic path is meditation (dhyāna). This is a deepened state of concentration in which the same object is held unwaveringly for a long period. It is a more complete form of surrendering the mind. It is no longer a mental effort, but a state of reposing in a noncontracted condition of the body-mind. This condition is beautifully described in a passage in the ancient Chāndogya-Upanishad (7.6.1) where we can read: “Meditation certainly is more than thought (citta). The Earth meditates as it were; the atmosphere meditates as it were . . .” That is to say, meditation is abiding in the natural state, without mental complications. The practitioners of Yoga surrender the mind’s tendency to appropriate different objects, whether external or internal. Instead they trust in the Self as the Experiencer of all, the unfailing Continuity behind the incessant change of the finite world. The last limb of Patanjali’s eightfold path is samādhi, which is generally rendered as “ecstasy.” The world-renowned historian of religion Mircea Eliade proffered an alternative rendering—enstasy. This coinage takes into account that samādhi is not so much a state of exuberance, as suggested by the word “ecstasy,” but a condition of great stillness and focusedness in which we “stand in” (en stasis) our true nature. Eliade’s coinage, however, has not achieved wide currency, and therefore, after using it in several of my publications, I reverted to the more common term “ecstasy.” The previously described techniques of concentration and meditation cause a slowing down of the movement within the mental world. In the state of samādhi, our inner architecture can be said to collapse altogether. For the practitioner surrenders the characteristic feature of human consciousness, which is its bipolar nature, its tension between subject and object. In samādhi, the experiencing subject becomes the contemplated object. At the highest level of this paradoxical condition, the experiencing subject awakens as the transcendental Self, realizing that he or she has never been anything else but the Self.

I looked over my right shoulder as he scooted in next to me on the long bench and settled in with his soda and a Greek yogurt. I frowned at his lunch choice. “Are you bipolar or something?” “What is that supposed to mean?” I made my point using my hands as scales. “On my left hand here is your high-calorie, rot-your-teeth, sugary soda, and on my right hand is a cup of healthy, delicious Greek yogurt. Notice how my left hand gets lower and lower and my right hand goes higher?

Upsizing empathy is essential, as is doing all we can to love this person as they are, as Christ would. The definition of empathy is the feeling that you understand and share another person’s experiences and emotions: the ability to share someone else’s feelings. 1 But keeping good boundaries so that you are not as affected by their behavior is just as biblical as love. We want to be responsive, not reactive, and that is where empathy can help.

There were relatively few options left for me. I am a classic case of bipolar 1 with symptoms that are primarily expressed as mania as opposed to depression. Most of the other medications used to treat bipolar disorder are geared toward bipolar 2, which leans more toward depression than mania. Lamictal, Seroquel, Abilify won’t stop the manic.

Types that fall under the Bipolar Disorder umbrella include Type 1, Type 2, Cyclothemia, and Not Otherwise Specified (NOS).

Type 1 Bipolars experience mania, which typically includes psychotic symptoms. Type 2 Bipolars experience hypomania, which is a milder form of escalation with no psychotic symptoms. Cyclothemics experience brief cycles of hypomania and their depressive cycles are not as severe as a Type 1 or Type 2. NOS Bipolars fall on the spectrum but do not necessarily have consistent symptoms.

•   L-glutamine, 1,000 mg, one to three tablets three times a day to help heal digestive complaints. (Avoid if you have a bipolar disorder.) •   A probiotic, 10 billion CFU to 25 billion CFU several times a day, before meals, for a total of 20 billion CFU to 75 billion CFU per day. The more digestive complaints you have, the more probiotic you should take. Even if you don’t need the other supplements, I strongly urge you to take daily doses of a probiotic. By age two, we have established for life our intestinal flora—the bacteria we need to help digest our food and absorb nutrients. If our early years were stressed or undernourished, we probably need to supplement later in life. Since two-thirds of our serotonin—our natural “feel-good” antidepressant—is produced in the gut, any issue with digestion can lead to depression and also further stress our adrenals.

fuzzy whiskers—they were comparable to genes in humans, having links to Parkinson’s disease, depression, bipolar disorder, and others. The degree of gene disruption was so profound, head researcher Fernando Gomez-Pinilla commented in the UCLA release: “Food is like a pharmaceutical compound” in terms of its effect on the brain. But that power also swings in the other direction—the negative impact that fructose had on both cognition and gene expression was attenuated by feeding the rats DHA omega-3 fat.

She’s a fine one to talk—her accent is hilarious. She is Scottish and sort of prejudiced against everyone in Europe. She hasn’t lived in Seattle long. Not long enough to decide if she likes the city or hates it. Apparently, she still hates the Irish, though. And the English. And Germans. And Polish people. She hates everyone, including us “bloody Yanks” who are always “bloody rude” to her and ripping her off. She kills me with all the things she hates and then loves in a bipolar sort of fashion.

As long as I’m rested, as long as I’m not overstimulated, as long as I can space out my day, I can count on my brain reasonably cooperating with me.

On average, we spend far more of our time in depression than we do in mania or hypomania—by a ratio of three to one for those with bipolar I, according to a major 2003 study. Estimates go much higher for those with bipolar II.

Other people make plans. We make life-or-death risk assessments. Often, our illness mandates that we play it safe, not tempt fate. But if we don’t take risks, we lose out on all those life-affirming experiences that define us as human.

Call it the bipolar’s dilemma: Take a chance and we risk losing control of our brains. Play it safe and we isolate ourselves from humanity.

As a general rule, if you’re holding down a job it’s best to lie low and keep your mouth shut.

In addition, we can make a very strong evolutionary biology case that depression is our body’s way of telling us to slow down from our over-exertions—to rest, heal, reset all our biological systems.

Haloperidol is an antipsychotic medication, used to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, delirium, agitation, and acute psychosis. And that’s just one of at least a dozen pill bottles. God knows what else is in there. Part of me is burning with shame that I looked in the first place. And part of me is scared at what else I might find.

Every mentally ill person should have two goals with their medication: ​1. It makes the mental illness manageable. ​2. It makes their life livable.

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, 1 in 17 people in America lives with a serious mental illness such as schizophrenia, major depression, or bipolar disorder.  Approximately 20% of youths ages 13 to 18 experience a severe mental disorder in a given year.  The community services available for these people are disappearing at an alarming rate.