In this transformative memoir, a man confronts the harsh realities of living with bipolar disorder. Battling suicidal depression, manic episodes, homelessness, and repeated stays in psychiatric hospitals and jails, he reveals his journey through severe mental illness. Despite the turmoil, his life stands as a testament to overcoming immense obstacles and gaining profound spiritual insights. From a young age, he sought wisdom and meaning, even in the darkest times. Music became his sanctuary, a language to express his soul’s depths. Teaching himself to read music and play the piano at five, and later studying classical guitar in his twenties, music was not just a hobby but a lifeline. When the storm of his mental illness began to calm with the help of a compassionate doctor, he found stability. This allowed him to pursue a degree in Sociology and become a mentor, sharing his passion for music with others. Despite relentless challenges, he cultivated happiness and gratitude. His creative spirit flourished as a singer/songwriter at nineteen, and his poetic voice found an audience in his thirties when he began to publish his work. Now, in his fifties, his heart is set on giving hope to others who suf fer from mental illness. He is a beacon of belief that with faith in God, one can navigate through the fiercest storms and emerge stronger. His story is a testament to resilience, the transformative power of faith, and the enduring strength of the human spirit. This memoir is not just a recounting of hardships but a powerful narrative of resilience, hope, and the unwavering human spirit. It invites readers to see beyond the challenges of mental illness and embrace the possibility of a fulfilling and meaningful life.

Young people with bipolar disorder and adults who grew up with the condition speak out to share how they experienced the symptoms of this illness during their youth, and how it affected their functioning in school, at home and with friends. Their insightful comments, woven together by the author, form a stunning picture of the young person's internal experience. The reader will come away with a new understanding of these young people and a renewed commitment to make a difference by reaching out to help. "Tracy Anglada has broken new ground with Intense Minds. While most books speak about the children and their feelings, hers is the first to capture the children articulating what they truly feel themselves: their impossible levels of frustration and irritability, their episodes of emptiness or manic energy, their severe difficulties in the academic environment, and their dread of night time due to their propensity to suffer horrific images and scenarios while sleeping. "One comes away with such admiration for these children and adolescents for soldiering on despite these terrible burdens, and for the author who took the time to listen and put their words to paper. Parents, clinicians and educators must read this first-of-its-kind book." Demitri F. Papolos, M.D. and Janice Papolos Authors of The Bipolar Child

Maintaining a relationship is hard enough without the added challenges of your partner’s bipolar disorder symptoms. Loving Someone with Bipolar Disorder offers information and step-by-step advice for helping your partner manage mood swings and impulsive actions, allowing you to finally focus on enjoying your relationship while also taking time for yourself. This book explains the symptoms of your partner’s disorder and offers strategies for preventing them and responding to these symptoms when they do occur. This updated edition includes a new section about the medications your partner may be taking so that you can understand the side effects and help monitor his or her bipolar treatment. As a supportive partner, you deserve support yourself. This book will help you create a more balanced, fulfilling relationship. Improve your relationship by learning how to: • Identify your partner’s symptom triggers so you can prevent episodes • Improve communication by stopping irrational “bipolar conversations” • Handle your partner’s emotional ups and downs • Foster closeness and connection with your partner

Revised and updated, Take Charge of Bipolar Disorder is a groundbreaking, comprehensive program to help those with bipolar disorder—and those who care about them—gain permanent control over their lives. Most people diagnosed with bipolar disorder are sent home with the name of a doctor and multiple prescriptions. However, few people with bipolar disorder are able to find long-term stability with medications alone. Bipolar disorder researcher and expert Julie A. Fast, who was diagnosed with the illness at age thirty-one, and specialist John Preston, PsyD, offer the pioneering Take Charge program used around the world to help readers promote stability, reduce mood swings, increase work ability, decrease health care costs, and improve relationships. The book guides those with bipolar disorder and their loved ones toward a comprehensive personal treatment plan by incorporating: Medications and bipolar-safe supplements Lifestyle changes that help manage bipolar symptoms naturally Behavior modifications that reduce and prevent symptoms Guidelines on assembling an effective support team By helping readers gather powerful strategies, Take Charge of Bipolar Disorder delivers a dynamic program to treat this difficult but ultimately manageable illness.

Richard Moore was ten when he was shot by a British soldier on the way home from school. 'Can I give him my eyes?' was the question his father asked when doctors confirmed that they could not save Richard's sight. This is his story, growing up in the Catholic Creggan Estate in Derry during the troubles.

I would like to welcome you to the journey of my life. I will share the trials and tribulations that I’ve had to endure throughout my lifetime to become who I am and what I understand about mental illness and its effects today. I’m in no way defeated. If anything, I’m a more determined person with a deep understanding of life, physical illness, mental illness, depression, and so on. Each passage in this book is a recollection of my view of the events described (which is the whole point). It is, however, all true from my point of view, and the effects it has had on me along the way and how I have overcome them are real. My aim, hope, and reasoning for sharing my life story is to give other people a way of helping themselves through their own problems and troubles. I hope I will be able to show and give you, the reader, the ability to look at your own life as a whole and to put all the pieces of the puzzle together and then be able to deal with whatever is causing your troubles. I believe that we are shaped into who we are from the day we are born and affected by life experiences along the way. If we have the insight to look back at our life, we can then start to see a pattern and determine where we have gone wrong or why we are the way we are. I truly believe after you have read this book, you will have hope and be-lief that you can help yourself and that there is light at the end of the tunnel regardless of how bad your situation may be or how you feel at the time.

Written with disarming honesty by a long-term sufferer of bipolar disorder, with more than half a century’s experience of intervention and treatment, this highly personal volume traces the effectiveness of a therapy modality for mental illness that has gained much ground in the past two decades: art. The author began to use art, and in particular doodling, from 1998 as a way of externalizing his feelings. Its expressiveness, accessibility and energy-efficiency was ideally suited to the catatonia he experienced during the bouts of depression that are a feature of bipolar disorder, while as the low moods lifted and his energy surged, he completed more ambitious and elaborate works. As well as being highly eclectic, Wheatley’s assembled oeuvre has afforded him both insights and therapeutic intervention into his condition, once deemed highly debilitating and taboo, but much more socially accepted now that well known sufferers such as Stephen Fry have recounted their experiences of the condition. After an opening account of how the images were generated, the volume reproduces a ‘gallery’ of selected work, and then offers an extended epilogue analyzing the art’s connections with the disorder as well as the author’s assessment of how each attempt at visual self-expression was, for him, a therapeutic intervention. Wheatley, a cell biologist who has enjoyed a full career in cancer research, has had no formal training in art, yet his haunting pictures, many of them resembling life forms, are brought to life by his perceptive, self-aware commentary. This book will be of interest to psychologists and psychiatrists among the wider medical profession as well as people suffering from any form of bipolar disorder whatever the severity.