Do We Need More Mental Health Awareness?
May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Here’s my controversial opinion: we don’t need more mental health awareness. We need more tools to get well and stay well. We need practitioners willing to think outside the box, beyond the checklists and low-efficacy treatments. At 18, I met the criteria for a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. When I was diagnosed, I experienced symptoms of hypomania and mania that impaired functioning for weeks at a time, …
How to Stop the Insanity Cycle With Your Health This Year
Yep, I’ve been there. I’ve ridden the insanity train with my health, trying to feel better (with all the quick fixes)–but always getting the same result. Does the following scenario sound familiar to you? You go to your health provider, because you know something is off. You don’t feel like yourself. You get the lab tests. The report? Everything is “fine.” You may hear something like, “You’re a mom with young kids. It’s …
Functional Nutrition: Kitchen Therapy
I would love to partner with you! As a survivor of bipolar disorder, I found that it takes many tools to manage the symptoms of chronic illness. One tool I believe strongly in is kitchen therapy. What you eat can directly impact your mental health and well-being. Likewise, your relationship with food and mindset toward it can impact your mental health and well-being. Individualization is key, and like I always say, “a body …
Why I’m Not Bipolar… And Neither is Anyone Else
22 years ago, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder (or manic depressive illness, as they called it back then) based on a set of symptoms, according to the DSM and failure to respond well to SSRI medication. My identity is not in my diagnosis, and neither is yours. Imagine if we also said, “I am depression,” “I am anxiety,” “I am Hashimoto’s,” or “I am diabetes.” The phrasing doesn’t work for any other …
Five Triggers for Anxiety (That Your Doctor Might Not Tell You About)
What’s Behind Your Anxiety? If you struggle with anxiety or depression, you know it affects your entire life. It affects how you move (or don’t move), your concentration, your ability to sleep, your interactions with others, even your bathroom habits. Because anxiety is on the rise, and won’t be going anywhere anytime soon, I want to share some little-known triggers for anxiety that you may not be hearing about from anyone else!Like everything …
Living With a Stigma
This little girl didn’t know that in 10 years she would wish for death. She loved her family, her new siblings, and Jesus, too. Much like the Tom Petty song, she was about to take a free fall – down the path of a broken brain. She was a preacher’s daughter with a genetic disposition to mental illness. Add on to that various health issues like chronic ear infections, asthma, allergy shots, antibiotics …
Putting My Mental Illness into Remission
I was medicated for bipolar disorder for 18 years. Ten years ago, I went off anti-psychotic medication. Eight years ago, I weaned off my remaining medication, an SSRI antidepressant. Today, I am mentally healthier than I’ve ever been, particularly in the last five years, since I have been (mostly) gluten free and eat a lower carbohydrate diet. In fact, my husband would agree that since I changed my eating habits, there has been …
75 Hard? That’s a Hard Pass, and Here’s Why
To all my hard-working, go-getting, goal-digging female friends: Oh, how I wish I could sit you down and tell you how amazing you are and how hard your body works for you to keep you alive. How I wish you could truly see yourself the way I do. I would tell you to take a big deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth. I would remind you that your …