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,

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

Life is an inexplicable paradox. You can find some of the answers within, but not all of them. Many of the answers lie outside of our own understanding.

May the mentally ill forever find peace and acceptance that they are truly blessed.

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.

It is said that true love lasts forever – the pain tells me they were right. I didn’t know what love was before my children were born, and I didn’t find myself until we parted ways.

Some shoot for the stars. I shoot for the transdimensional multiverse. That’s me. I take things too far, too fast. I set my personal bar high. I didn’t come to try in this world. I came to conquer this world – and the next

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.

My plan to conquer your world and the rest of the transdimensional multiverse is tomfoolery, but it is certainly not delusion.

Tears of gratitude are a powerful, humbling, and moving thing.

Am I but a time-traveler experiencing a bout of cross-dimensional temporary dementia?

I want to be my children’s hero.

I am love and as such I receive love.

Through my imagination, I’ve conquered worlds, I’ve made superstars swoon, and I’ve saved the transdimensional multiverse.

I’ve faced calamity with courage, strength and wisdom. When I think of these things, I cannot help but cry.

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?

I find the thought of my children telling their friends their father is an accomplished author appealing. I used to think that I needed to be famous and write a bestseller to be considered accomplished and I very well may think that again at some later point, but for now in this moment, I sit with a smile on my face, holding tears of joy back, knowing that I am already an accomplished individual and that if I never create a best-selling book, I can still die a happy man.

This work of art has followed me from jail into the padded room, to the suicide triage unit, to the streets, through bankruptcy, into rehabilitation, back to health and financial independence, and into society as a loving and healthy, successful father. If it wasn’t for the purpose I found in writing this work of art, I’d be dead. I know this work of art will change your life, because it changed mine.

Would you believe me if I told you an entire world was at your fingertips? What if I told you that all pain and suffering in your life could come to an end once and for all? Would you be intrigued? Would you smile? Would you weep in reverence? Would you find beauty in the smallest pleasures in life again? Would you rise from the ashes to conquer your demons and find your truest, most Divine Self? I did, and so can you.

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.

When I look back on my life I realize I was very sick for a long time. Sitting here in good health, I find myself crying. I do that sometimes. I am very sensitive. My dear son Jayden, who many know as Fox0r Jr., inherited that trait from me. I see it in him already. Jaxson is confident. Owen is sweet and loving. He is also spry and cunning. Finley is bold. Finley is also a stirring and adventurous child. We have laughed together. We have cried together. We have smiled together. My sons, next to Jesus, are my greatest inspiration.

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.

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.

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.

I gave up everything I spent 33 years working towards on my quest to separate from the reality of death.

Fuzzy. That's me. Silly, I know.

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

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.

I write [to leave a mark I trust will last throughout eternity].

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.

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

A hole's a goal.

Our chemistry was undeniable. I continued the act. Whether or not I actually had the confidence, she was buying the act.

I guess it’s biology. Women like a guy that doesn’t give a fuck, and guys like a cute girl that knows she wants a guy that doesn’t give a fuck. As time went on we started to realize we liked each other. I played the fool and Shannon played the oblivious fool. Two fools, one heart, one soul. One love.

It's okay that you hurt her. You didn't do it on purpose. You loved her and she loved you. Mistakes happen.

If I'm ever going to love, I need to let myself be vulnerable

I'm done hurting. I'm done being sad.

I made a mistake, but I'm learning.

Hitler is dead and he killed himself. I guess, sometimes, it is okay to celebrate killers. I guess, sometimes, it is okay to celebrate suicide. Weird how that works.

I’m a project manager by day and a rapper by night, but it’s all fading into the morning, because I’m tearing off my shades and walking into the light.

I’m defining myself how I’d like to be remembered, even though I postulate that I’ve always been a pretender.

I don’t believe in hate, because it’s a part of love And the same is true for every emotion I can think of.

I'm not here to protect you anymore. It's your life to live and I'm letting go.

If there’s one thing certain about dreamers, it’s this: we never succumb to hopelessness. When your inner thought life is rich and fulfilling, there’s always an ounce of hope to be found in the cavernous reaches of life’s squalor. That’s not to say things don’t get rough – they do. I almost killed myself more than once over this fucking woman. Love you, babe. Never again.

I dropped out of the shopping cart to the ground. I laughed, and looked down. My shoe was untied, so I knelt over to tie it. At the same time, Shannon kicked a rock out of her flip flop. The flip flop flew off of her foot and bounced off the seat of my pants. I fell forward, hitting my face on the concrete. “What the fuck? Did you just slap my ass, girl?” I said. “No, but I kicked it,” she smiled. And thus goes the story of a love from first sight.

Pretty sure someone’s out there driving a U-Haul in my honor ... Fucking crazy sons of bitches.

You guys want some? I’ll smoke your body fluids with my bong!

I didn't have control of myself, so, I had to control you. And fuck, that hurts, knowing that I put you through what I did.

Spending Christmas alone in Shannon’s apartment and losing my children and my job left me with plenty of time to ruminate on my shortcomings as a man. Sure, the doctors had said my behavior wasn’t my burden, but rather a symptom of my illness. Guilt doesn’t always adhere to causality. I wiped the tears from my eyes, sat down at the computer and bled onto the blank page in front of me.

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

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.

TABLE 2.1 The Spectrum of Manic Symptoms

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.

•   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.

-§ 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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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).

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.

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

Let it be known that I have found purpose through my multiverse-conquering thoughts. Through this purpose, I have found joy, happiness and fulfillment. Through this purpose, I have found the strength to defect from the absurdist sect of non-believers, nihilists and proverbial wanderers and march bravely into the future with God, love and laughter in mind.

I am different. I am thankful for that. I know people understand me. I believe they feel like I feel. I know they smile like I smile. I know they cry like I cry. Not tears of sorrow, no, but rather tears of gratitude and contentment – the gifts provided to us by what I believe is a loving, benevolent force in the multiverse.

I believe in the teachings of the man many people believe is the savior of Earth souls, Jesus Christ.

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?

Against the wishes of some of my contemporaries, I believe in, and have hope for, the Earth and its inhabitants.

My stint as a Sheeptilian solipsistic prophet began in an innocuous manner, but quickly spiraled into something that was out of control and very dangerous. I never foresaw that I’d become a fundamentalist extremist. The journey was unique and opened my mind to the possibilities that the Word of Shiligoth was a literal springboard and historical account of all life.

It began during my relationship with my first and second human wife, Shannon. I love her in a very imperfect manner, but I love her wholly. We fought a lot. We don’t talk anymore unless it’s through the Shaletlan communication channels housed at Snohomish County Superior Court. I trust that will change.