One of the things that people who see a therapist dread is a breach of confidentiality. Fortunately, it almost never happens. Therapists have client-therapist confidentiality that forbids it. It’s like the seal of the confessional for priests. There’s an exception, however, and that’s the Tarasoff warning. Here’s how it came to be. Way back in 1969, a young woman named Tatiana Tarasoff, a student at the University of California, Berkeley, was murdered. The killer was Prosenjit Poddar, also a student at the university. They knew each other and had gone on several dates. Unfortunately, as happe ..read more

For some of us, those with bipolar disorder, depression, agoraphobia, and anxiety, it’s like the COVID restrictions were never lifted. We remain at home as if we were still sheltering in place. We’ve lost touch with many of the people in our lives. The thin threads of social media aren’t enough to provide solid connections, though we’ve had practice during the pandemic. There’s also the “reaching out” problem. We’re perpetually advised to reach out to others when we’re lonely or having difficulties. But of course, reaching out is too much to expect for many. Often, we’re not even able to make ..read more

Anxiety about health is a common phenomenon. It’s only natural to worry about the human body breaking down, especially as one ages. But how much anxiety is too much? How little is too little? When anything goes awry with my body, I get panicky. I catastrophize, imagining the worst. I have anxiety disorder in addition to bipolar, so that’s not surprising. Once, for example, I woke up in the middle of the night with something strange happening to my arm. There was a hard spot along the side of it the size and shape of a cuttlefish bone. Instantly, I got dressed and headed to the emergency room ..read more

My husband pointed out to me a movie available on one of our streaming services—Bipolarized: Rethinking Mental Illness, a 2014 documentary created by Ross McKenzie, a man who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder himself. In the film, he documented his journey to find treatments other than drugs for his condition. I watched it with interest and wanted to share my impressions with you. (IMDb gave it 5.7 out of 10 and said it “challenges conventional wisdom about mental illness and drug therapy through the raw personal journey of a man diagnosed as bipolar.”) First, full disclosure: I take psycho ..read more

It’s been said that time is nature’s way of keeping one damn thing after another from being every damn thing all at once. I know that taking things one at a time—eating the elephant one bite at a time—is a sound idea. However, every now and then the damn things gang up on you. The elephant is starting to go bad and you have to eat all you can right away – to use a disgusting metaphor that I will not take any further. (You’re welcome.) Last month was one of those months. They happen every so often. But if they happen very often, I tend to get overwhelmed. And when I get overwhelmed for too ..read more

We all hate side effects. They go from bad to worse to horrible. (A popular meme says that people wish they had side effects like multiple orgasms. Alas, no one’s invented a drug with that side effect yet.) In my journey through the process of settling on reasonably effective medications, I’ve experienced a number of side effects, including violent nightmares, paranoia, and feeling numb all over. I switched to other meds, but really, those weren’t so bad. Two of the worst side effects are Tardive Dyskinesia (TD) and Stevens-Johnson Syndrome. TD, according to Penn Medicine, is “stereotypical i ..read more

If you take three different meds at night and two more in the morning…you may be bipolar. If your therapist is on your speed dial…you may be bipolar. If you know the difference between rapid cycling and ultra-rapid cycling…you may be bipolar. If you have depression clothes and mania clothes…you may be bipolar. If you’ve stayed in bed for three days and not gone to bed for three days…you may be bipolar. If your significant other is also your emotional support animal…you may be bipolar. If all your Facebook friends have psych diagnoses…you may be bipolar. If your refrigerator door has 40 affirm ..read more

When I first started looking at the literature regarding SMI, I became confused by the abbreviation BPD. At first, I thought it was a typo or an alternative for Bipolar Disorder. Of course, I found out that it wasn’t—BPD stood for Borderline Personality Disorder. Even if you know what the abbreviation means, it’s easy enough to get confused between the two. In fact, bipolar is often misdiagnosed for borderline, or vice versa. There are some similarities between the two disorders as well. Both involve mood swings. Both can cause reckless behavior. Both can be associated with childhood trauma ..read more

I used to be a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of gal. Work provided the only structure to my days, back when I was able to work in an office. It wasn’t always the same structure, depending on the job, of course. I have worked various shifts over the course of my checkered career—first, second, and third. I adjusted to them fairly well (except when I was working third shift and going to grad school in the mornings). That all changed when I quit my last office job. I remember feeling so free. I basked in the ability to do freelance work whenever, run errands whenever, go to sleep and wake up ..read more

My husband asked me if I wanted to watch this movie, Operation: Arctic Cure. He knows I love stories about people who face hardship. Sometimes they triumph. Sometimes they fail. But they’re always out there trying. Dan also knows that I like stories of Arctic adventure—mountain climbers, exploration ships, races to the pole, and the like. So he figured the movie would be perfect for me. And it was. It was a documentary telling the story of a handful of people cross-country skiing across Baffin Island, Canada, to reach Mount Thor, pictured above. What made this expedition different was that th ..read more