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excerpt from Facing Bipolar
You are much more than your bipolar disorder. You do not need to let it define you. You can attain success, happiness, fulfillment, and achievement in life despite having bipolar disorder. But at the same time, the bipolar experience is one that often sits at your core—in your brain, in your emotions, and consequently very much in your sense of who you are. It’s not in an elbow or a foot. Generally speaking, the experience of the disorder feels more like "being," as opposed to "having," yet you will hear people in normal conversation speak of both being bipolar and of having bipolar disorder.
excerpt from The Bipolar Workbook for Teens
A chronic condition like bipolar disorder can be so overwhelming that it seems like it defines who you are. But you are not bipolar disorder, and bipolar disorder isn't you! You're a lot more than just someone with bipolar disorder.
by guest blogger Sheri Van Dijk, MSW, author of The Bipolar Workbook for Teens
I recently read an article about a study that compared high school and college students from 1938 to those in 2007, and concluded that mental health problems such as depression and anxiety are much more of a problem for modern-day students than they were in the past. It does seem that mental illness is affecting more and more people at a younger age – or perhaps we’re just more aware of these kinds of problems now. Regardless, there are things we can do to prepare kids better for the pressures they’ll be facing in life.
Excerpt from Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook for Bipolar Disorder
In my work with people with bipolar disorder, I have found it quite common that they know very little about their illness. Often this is because receiving such a diagnosis can be overwhelming, and people frequently don’t know what questions to ask to best help themselves....
On the other hand, perhaps you are a person who accepts the diagnosis, but you don’t have an accurate understanding of what it means. You might be unsure about what bipolar symptoms are, what might be symptoms of a separate, co-occurring disorder such as anxiety, and what is “normal” and completely unrelated to any disorder. This knowledge is extremely important in order for you to learn what you need to do to prevent relapses (the recurrence of symptoms) and to cope with manic, hypomanic, and depressive episodes. To help you understand what form of the illness you have, I have outlined the current categories of the illness below, as defined by the DSM.
Part 2 answers:
Bipolar disorder is a biological illness that causes unusual shifts in your mood, level of energy, and ability to function in different aspects of your life. This illness used to be called manic depression, because it was thought that people with the illness would fluctuate only between episodes of highly elevated, euphoric moods and episodes of major depression. More recently, doctors have realized that the illness is not quite that black and white—that there are many moods that actually occur on a spectrum. Rather than just experiencing episodes of depression or mania, people with bipolar disorder can in fact experience various moods and symptoms that fall in between these two extremes, and this is why the illness was renamed bipolar disorder, implying that symptoms occur on a spectrum between the two poles of mania and depression.
New Harbinger Publications
Susan Albers, Ph.D.
Ronald Alexander, Ph.D.
Lisa Firestone, Ph.D.
E lisha Goldstein, Ph.D.
Steven C. Hayes, Ph.D.
Lara Honos-Webb, Ph.D.
Susan Kuchinskas
Karen Leland
Pavel Somov, Ph.D.
Cassandra Vieten, Ph.D.
Barton Goldsmith, Ph.D. "Emotional Fitness"
Bill Knaus, Ed.D. "Science and Sensibility"
Cassandra Vieten, Ph.D. "Mindful Motherhood"
Jefferson Singer, Ph.D. "Life Scripts"
John P. Forsyth, Ph.D. "Peace of Mind"
Jonathan Kaplan, Ph.D. "Urban Mindfulness"
Karen Leland "The Perfect Blend"
Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D. "The Science of Willpower"
Lisa Firestone, Ph.D. "Compassion Matters"
Marilyn Krieger, Ph.D. "The White Knight Syndrome"
Mary Lamia, Ph.D. "The White Knight Syndrome"
Randi Kreger "Stop Walking on Eggshells"
Raychelle Cassada Lohmann, MS, LPC "Teen Angst"
Rick Hanson, Ph.D. "Your Wise Brain"
Robert Firestone, Ph.D. "The Human Experience"
Ronald Alexander, Ph.D. "The Wise Mind Open Mind"
Russ Federman, Ph.D., ABPP "Bipolar You"
Russ Harris, MD "The Happiness Trap"
Stephanie Sarkis, Ph.D. "Here, There, and Everywhere"
Steven C. Hayes, Ph.D. "Get Out of Your Mind"
Susan Albers, Psy.D. "Comfort Cravings"
Susan Pease Gadoua, LCSW "Contemplating Divorce"
Troy DuFrene "Fumbling for Change"
Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D. "Mindfulness & Psychotherapy"
Suzanne Phillips, Psy.D., ABPP "Healing Together for Couples"
Pavel Somov, Ph.D. "360º of Mindful Living"
a blog by Russ Harris, MD