Heads and Tails My early years were stable, loving and invested but then things happened and what followed was about 25 years of trauma. The bad things just kept coming like a Ninja Warrior course. A couple of years after things had begun to settle down I had my first major depressive episode. It literally… Continue reading Heads & Tails
Tag: Bipolar Disorder
Bipolar Disorder, previously known as manic depression is a mental disorder characterised by periods of depression and elevated mood.
Elizabeth Sometimes
When I was little, my favourite chapter book was called ‘Charlotte Sometimes’ by Penelope Farmer. It’s a time travel story about a girl who goes to boarding school and every day wakes up alternately in her own time or forty years earlier. So she has to contend with being the new girl in two settings.… Continue reading Elizabeth Sometimes
Learning to Run Again
Learning to Run Again A couple of years ago, during the summer holidays, I was easily running a half marathon distance. I always enjoyed going out for a run and always had a plan for my distances. But for the last year I’ve been finding it impossible to build on anything. Is it because of… Continue reading Learning to Run Again
Viva Las Vegas, Adios Sobriety?
Viva Las Vegas, Adios Sobriety? I’d run out of excuses to have a drink, I’d stopped examining those and knew they weren’t all that they claimed to be. They were just lies. So when an excuse popped up into my head I saw it off, gave it no time, I let it pass through and… Continue reading Viva Las Vegas, Adios Sobriety?
My Binding
Today I attended a Flight of Ideas workshop with artist Beth Hopkins, facilitated by Bethlem Gallery. It is a collaboration between researchers at King’s College, London and Beth to work with people with experience of Bipolar Disorder to look at writing a self-binding advance directive to make decisions about mental health crisis treatment and care.… Continue reading My Binding
The Urge to Splurge
The Urge to Splurge (May 2021) Since going sober, almost eighteen months ago, I’ve noticed that the urges to have a drink come and go in varying degrees. Sometimes it feels like I’m having to actively deal with an urge every day and from early afternoon until bedtime. There are other times when I suddenly… Continue reading The Urge to Splurge
Hypomania
How hypomania feels
Bipolar Affective Disorder 2 and Me
I decided to write about what I’d like my family and my friends to know about Bipolar. Face to face with people I’m a bit of a blabber mouth and I’ll happily talk about myself but we don’t always have that chance so here we go…….
Diagnosed With Bipolar Disorder 2 the Day After My 47th Birthday
Diagnosed With Bipolar Disorder 2 (Nov 2020) It was a shock but not a surprise just as much as it was a relief but also frightening. For 35 years I have been aware of something not quite right lurking within me. It’s taken all that time to discover that the uneasy feeling was being caused by… Continue reading Diagnosed With Bipolar Disorder 2 the Day After My 47th Birthday