whatever sets you off, pushes your buttons, or pushes you over the edge
Click to read SSG’s bio
But that doesn’t say much, does it, now? There’s hell of a ride and then there’s hell of a ride. The one I’m talking about is the kind that feels like a Russian Roulette. By which I mean Continue reading
click to read SSG’s bio
Yesterday (for me, but a week and a bit later as you read), I was part of a very interesting FB conversation. It started with a question from Creston Davis, professor and co-founder of the Graduate School my son is affiliated with. Which by the way, is a seriously kickass school that is breaking paradigms left and right. I had the chance to meet both founders earlier this year and I am thoroughly impressed with what they’re doing. Also, serendipity at its best. They are based in Grand Rapids, MI which is only 1.5 hrs from Lansingland and Dandelion Soup. Um, Squirrel….. Ah yes, the question:
Are the so-called “Trigger Warnings” yet another way to censor professors? Could they be considered the equivalent of cultural censorship controlled by a privileged demographic only looking to received a non-challenging education? What say you?
That I have a mood disorder goes unquestioned; the true nature and biological aspects of cause are up in the air. Besides the usual childhood traumas and genetic influences, it looks like hormones are in part to blame. Don’t start any hating about stigmatizing women’s normal, natural cycle, because I’m not talking about a normal experience.
I’m talking about a set of oversensitive physiological responses to and/or chronic imbalances of basic hormones like adrenaline, cortisol, estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. The kind of sensitivity to adrenaline, for example, that means I can’t have medications containing epinephrine (aka adrenaline, often found in injectable local anesthetics, to reduce bleeding) because it immediately sends me into shock. Continue reading
Click to read Laura’s bio
You’re cordially invited to Dina Leah’s coming-out party. You might have met her before, but she is painfully shy, and has had to be earnestly convinced to reveal her true identity.
You see, Dina Leah’s life has been tough, and she’s got a lot of fears. One of them is being discovered by her mother, who was terribly cruel to her as a child, and continues to be cruel whenever she gets a chance. So Dina is terrified that her mother would somehow find her (she does know how to use Google), so Dina has built layers of pseudonyms around herself, in an effort to insulate, to build a wall around her identity. Continue reading
As you likely know if you read my posts here regularly, I am no longer taking any real mood-stabilizers for my bipolar disorder. It isn’t an anti-medication stance, it’s actually just a place I ultimately came to through very little choice of my own (you can read a bit more about it here).
Now, being Bipolar I with psychotic features, unmedicated is a pretty daunting place to be, and I’m learning all the angles I need to cover. Some I already knew and had accounted for: exercise, sleep, stress, and situations I knew were very high on the potential trigger list. Others I knew, but didn’t really think about planning for, because they just didn’t come to mind when thinking of the day-to-day and what I needed to be vigilant about. Continue reading
In my mind, I am normal. This is because I live with me twenty-four seven (OK, not always twenty-four seven because some of those hours I am asleep).
I have BPD. In the past, I never realised that I feel emotions more easily, more deeply, and for longer than others do. I thought the intensity of my emotions was normal. Turns out, it’s not. I read somewhere that in non-BPD people an emotion typically fires for 12 seconds. In BPD’ers it can last up to 20 percent longer. BPD’ers emotions also repeatedly re-fire, or re-live, or recur, however you want to say it, so emotional reactions occur for even longer. I do. I go over and over and over the emotions, pinging from one to another like a steel ball in a pinball machine. Continue reading
It finally happened. Officially, I mean. I’ve reached the end of the line. After six-and-a-half years of extremely intensive psychiatric treatment, the first fiveish with an incredibly bright, creative, thinking-outside-of-the-box younger doc; the last year-plus with a man long experienced in the mood disorder game (not to mention numerous consults along the way), it has been made manifest.
A Canvas Of The Minds 