What to say? I’m 37. I’m a mother. I live with Bipolar Disorder. I’m also a mental health nurse: oh the irony! I write; writing helps. Lots of other things help, too: good friends, lovely family, loud music, quiet music, books, books, more books, movies – you name it. Anyway, hello, and welcome…
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It can take a while to really get started with a blog. Finding a voice, finding topics, finding a reason, finding a style are all hard things to do. I think your experience as a mental health nurse would be invaluable to a lot of people in here who are trying to navigate the systems their country’s have. Because of the amount of honesty required to turn a blog into an actual recovery tool I found it easier to write knowing no one I cared about in “the real world” would read it… for them I started a second blog called “Cultural Snafu”.
There’s “thing” we’ve been doing recently involving “Five Questions”. You can see the rules at
http://saltedlithium.wordpress.com/2007/08/20/thordora-questions/
As part of the “thing” I have to find someone I’d like to ask five questions of… if nothing else it can make an interesting and easy post. If you’d be interested just send me an email and I’ll send you a few questions.
These are The Rules you have to post along with the questions and your answers:
Thordora’s Interview Meme Rules:
1. Leave me [tempest carousel] a comment saying “Interview Me.”
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with a post containing your the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.
The Five Questions From Salted Lithium To tempest carousel:
1. What events and/or behaviours led you to your latest attempt to find psychiatric help?
2. What has the reaction been from your family (parents, child, signifigant other) since you were finally diagnosed?
3. What did you know about manic depression before the diagnosis, what have you learned since and from what sources?
4. Why have you chosen to blog, and what do you believe blogging or being a part of an online community will play in your recovery?
5. Several bloggers from the UK read my blog and seem to be constantly at odds with the NHS, with your experience as a mental health nurse in their system what do you believe (if anything) needs to be changed to make the process easier for the mentally ill, and what (if anything) do you know about the Canadian system?
Bonus Points:
“There are no benefits to Manic Depression, and the disease gives us no special abilities. We are not better gardeners, writers, lovers, photographers or thinkers because a disease forces our brains to overdose our system with chemicals. Manic Depression is something that fights against us, not for us.”
Agree / Disagree?
Pick me! Pick me…
The immortal words of Dory – Finding Nemo
Bonus Points:
“There are no benefits to Manic Depression, and the disease gives us no special abilities. We are not better gardeners, writers, lovers, photographers or thinkers because a disease forces our brains to overdose our system with chemicals. Manic Depression is something that fights against us, not for us.”
Agree / Disagree?
Disagree.
Somehow we have a greater empathy – for people, for plants, for creative arts. This empathy makes us more attentive to detail, the kind of detail a viewer, a listener, a reader would be interested in.
If one looks rather at a spring versus hibernation situation instead of and up-versus-down scenario, one is able to see that there are good things in both. In spring I am able to frolic about, joke, have friends, make friends, relax. In hibernation, I am able to take time, sit with friends {don’t have to talk, just be – with them}.
I understand pain. I attribute this to the combination of having grown up with a bipolar mother, and the odd places I managed to get myself into whilst growing up. I’ve seen pain, and I realise there are not always (in fact seldom) answers. I see that people just want to find someone who will be with them, understanding that there are no answers, and brave enough to say that to their face.
I would be less use to humanity if I had not faced so much, much of my own making, and hadn’t struggled to right the many wrong situations I created. In my agonies I’ve found hope for others. I over-analyse, I agree, but somehow the product is just what people want, no, need, to hear.