Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Bipolar”
Is it helpful or hurtful? Is it easy or hard? Do I give more or get more? Can it change my life? Can it change the world? Empathy is a much-maligned skill set that mostly just makes life a little bit easier. It doesn’t mean becoming a doormat, or completely subsuming your own feelings for those of others. Only someone …
Today we’re sending some love to the terrific blog, Speaking Bipolar, by Scott Ninneman. It’s a super-positive and uplifting blog from somebody who’s been living with bipolar for thirty years. And what a well-examined journey this is. Scott is celebrating 7 years of blogging, and those seven years of posts are packed with practical tips, personal stories, and encouragement. Whether …
Control your moods or live with them? A guy we’ve been working with for some time commented today that he didn’t want to focus on control of his moods. His focus is on living with them. This is an attitude that we often recommend to patients who have trouble accepting a diagnosis or a treatment option. Acceptance of the reality …
Bipolar disorder is a chronic disease that can present lifelong challenges. However, remission rates and even complete recovery can and have been seen. Finding the factors associated with recovery from bipolar disorder can give us all hope, and also provide health care workers with specific strategies to enhance the possibilities of recovery. A recent Canadian study using data from the …
A newly released documentary Faye, about the actress Faye Dunaway has been screened at the recent Cannes Film Festival. According to a review published on the website Deadline, the film “gets to it right away” with questions early on about why she was such a “difficult” person to work with on a movie set. Dunaway herself believes that her bipolar …
Divorce is almost always a wrenching and emotionally challenging life experience. When one of the spouses has a disability, such as a diagnosis of major depression or bipolar, the questions to be addressed can be complex and difficult to settle. We are not attorneys and this post should not be understood as legal advice, but we do want to suggest …
We use the image of “surfing” your moods to describe the experience of bipolar’s ups and downs, but we don’t mean this to imply that the mood waves of bipolar are chaotic and completely unpredictable. On the contrary, people who keep a careful log of their moods over time find clear patterns to their ups and downs. However, these patterns …
Here, we share material from the World Bipolar Day website. We encourage everyone to visit the website and get involved in education, research and advocacy for the 60 million people worldwide who are affected by bipolar disorder. WORLD BIPOLAR DAY 2024 The vision of World Bipolar Day (WBD) is to bring world awareness to bipolar disorders and to eliminate social …
The Adult Psychiatry Clinic at UCSF has released the schedules of their Group Psycho-Education for Bipolar Disorder for January 2024. This activity under the Bipolar Disorder Program of the Department of Psychiatry is aimed at providing a community resource for individuals with bipolar disorder, mental health professionals and psychiatrists. Headed by Dr. Descartes Li, the program director, it is designed …
If you have an episode of depression, how can you tell if it is bipolar or unipolar depression? The simple answer is, you have bipolar depression if you have ever experienced an energized (not necessarily pleasant) state that qualified as a hypomanic or manic episode. And if you only have had depressed episodes, you are considered to have unipolar depression. …
Marijuana and Bipolar-Yes or No? The use of marijuana in treating many and various illnesses is a hot topic among many of our San Francisco-area patients. Since legalization for medical uses, and even for recreation, seems to be spreading throughout the country, more and more people are looking into helpful uses for this ancient but little-understood plant. However, medical advice …
Bipolar Disorder II is less well understood than BP I, even though the rate of prevalence in the wider population seems to be about equal. Previously considered a “lesser form” of bipolar, doctors note that rates of illness severity and suicide risk are very comparable in the two forms of bipolar. Less research has been done on BP II, with …
New smartphone app shows promise in control of bipolar Apps, apps everywhere! There are hundreds of apps you can download to your phone or computer that are supposed to help you live a healthier lifestyle. But, sadly, we know that many of them are just money-makers, with no clinical research or experience backing them up. We’ve been following the field …
Is it true that people with mental illness, particularly mood disorders, are more creative? Or do creative people more often develop mental illness? Does the medication given for mood swings dampen creativity? Are there different types of creativity that manifest themselves during heightened, depressed and normal moods? What is creativity, anyway? These are hotly debated questions but clear guidance is …
The actress and singer Selena Gomez has just released a documentary: “My mind and me”, available on Apple+ TV. In the documentary, Gomez describes her struggle with the autoimmune disease, lupus, in parallel with severe bipolar disorder. For several years, she suffered from extreme mood swings and dangerous manic episodes followed by depressive episodes when she couldn’t get out of …
Abundant evidence shows that exercise is helpful in depression and anxiety, in fact, some specialists suggest that exercise should be the first intervention attempted in cases of mild to moderate depression. However, research into the relationship of exercise and bipolar has been spotty, at best. The available studies have used very small study groups, and have not considered different types …
People seeking treatment for major depression and bipolar tend to do well if they have two related characteristics. The first is persistence: the ability to keep doing what needs to be done, no matter the mood. The second is willingness to do whatever it takes, even if that means giving up control over which treatments are acceptable and which are …
“I was losing hope that I would ever feel like myself again… but I finally got my full self back.” In an open-hearted and moving op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times on Thursday, Dr. Devika Bhushan, who has been serving as Acting Surgeon General of the State of California, told her personal story of bipolar disorder, which was diagnosed …
Too Busy? Not Busy Enough? A recent consultation with a patient got us thinking about activities and depression. The patient was saying that she was not looking forward to the long 4th of July weekend because she had to plan some activities to keep busy, because this is not a holiday that has a lot of actions to take, other …
Learning to stop a manic episode in its tracks is an important skill for living creatively with moods. Mania is a dangerous state, and failing to control it leads to worse and deeper depressive moods afterwards. In order to gain more stability in the midst of mood swings, it is important not to give in to the call of the …
