Welcome to Conversations With. My name is Shaley Hoogendoorn and I live with Bipolar II Disorder. Sharing with others is healing both individually and collectively. Sharing our stories will educate others, bring more understanding, shed more light, and smash more stigma. Our voices need to be heard. Our stories aren't over yet. This is Bipolar. Hi everyone! Welcome back to another episode of This is Bipolar. I am Shaley Hoogendoorn, and my pronouns are she, her. I live with bipolar 2 disorder.
I'm a mom, I'm a wife and a teacher and mental health activist. And I am so excited today for my guest. Before we start, I wanted to remind you guys, I always forget that I have subscriptions. And so it's a new thing on Instagram and you subscribe there and it's $6.99 a month and you get extra content. And the most Most valuable thing is that you get Going Deeper episodes, which are exclusive. Nobody else gets to listen to them except the subscribers. There's a video option too.
And so it's also a place where we have like a social channel. So we have...
Talking all the time it's like our mini support group and this month we're trying to have a zoom meeting for all the subscribers yeah it's really exciting so i would love to have you there it's a beautiful community join us join us if you're not sure how just dm me on instagram and i'll show i can walk you through how to do it super easy so now that we have that out of the way i would love love, love, love if my guest and friend and fellow redhead could tell us a few things about yourself.
Of course. Well, no, first of all, thank you for having me here. I'm such a fan. A big thank you from the whole community for everything you do. And thank you specifically for having me. I am so excited to be here. My name is Dr. Andrea Vasilev. I hold a doctor of psychology. I work as a therapist in California. I'm a registered psychological associate. I am also a mental health advocate, an educator, a speaker, a writer, because I have lived with bipolar disorder for over 25 years now.
And I also created the world's first self-stigma program for bipolar disorder, Overcoming Self-Stigma in Bipolar Disorder. Not a very creative name, but a great program that's being run around the world in clinics and hospitals, and it's currently in clinical trials. So yeah, that's me. I call myself a bipolar specialist and survivor. Yes. Oh, that's amazing. What beautiful work.
I know that the group that you started and all of that research and stuff is so fascinating to me because I had never thought of the stigma that was rooted inside me. So we are going to get to that, folks. But I want to start with Andrea's story. And I'm excited because I know things about Andrea, but I don't know this. And that's my favorite when I interview about and I get to find out new things about people that I already love. And so, Andrea, I would love to just start now.
Take it back into your childhood. What was your childhood like? And did you notice that you might be different? Or did you feel different? And what did that look like? Well, I noticed that I was a very anxious child. And you do see that with people who later develop bipolar disorder, they sometimes have these childhood, you know, sort of glimmers of what's going to happen later. So I was a very anxious child.
Other than that, it was, was pretty uneventful, you know, some conflict in our house, but that was the big thing is I was, I was anxious. And also, and this might resonate with some people, I felt very special. Just that somehow I was just, just different, just a little bit special. And I think that, you know, that may have been a predecessor of things to come
as well. Right. Some upcycling. It's true it's true people will relate completely it's different it's like I felt like bad about being different and big feelings and also as the only one in like my family had three brothers right but also there was moments and I can probably trace that back to sprinkles of possible hypomanic things coming out but just that that I used to believe more when I was younger that some of my feelings were like kind of a superpower.
One of the things about bipolar disorder is that it just comes. It's not necessarily, I mean, there is some that can be linked to trauma and substance abuse. Well, trauma can be linked to like any condition, right? Trauma flicks on genes that you have a predisposition for. And the more genetic load you have, sorry, I don't want to get super techie, but the more genetic load you have for something, thing, the less of a trigger you need to set it off.
And the less genetic load you have, the more trigger you need to set it off. Right. So I had a very big genetic load that was just waiting to get, you know, turned on. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think that that's something I really want people to understand. I love that you just gave me better language to be able to explain that. Thank you. And I think that's what's so great. And what I'm so excited about is that you have a foot in both worlds, right? In lived experience.
And it's awesome because I try to bring on. Almost everybody has had lived experience. I think there was one that didn't, but had experience in their family and specifically was a therapist for people with bipolar disorder, but that you have both. And it's interesting because I have, even though I love doctors and they have saved my life and therapists as well, I also am like suspicious that they don't fully understand sometimes and or I've had some that didn't and you can't know everything.
I'm a teacher on call. well, grade seven math, when they call me in, I'm like, who knows this? Like, get your friends to help you. I'm right here. So I get that. And also I some therapy, I felt like I was teaching them about bipolar because the things that they were telling me to do are were impossible for me in a hypomanic episode. So yeah, I'm really excited. Feel free to use therapist language because I I want to learn as well. Yeah. Yeah. I've tried to make kind of my mess.
My message is, is how I think of it because you know, this experience I have is terrible as it has been. And we can circle back to it. It's a gift in some ways that I can, I can pay forward to help other people. Yeah. I love that. One of the things I always say is stay messy and beautiful. And I kind of vowed when I started the podcast and the Instagram that I would show up in the messy middle, because that's what I wanted to see.
We tend to have, and I, I understand that it's easier and it's hard to talk from like an open wound. So it's kind of like... It's kind of a balance, right? But yet I wanted to show up in the messy middle because I wanted people to see what it was really like. And it's hard. I want to talk about it like it's in the past, right? But we know that bipolar isn't curable. And despite all of the things we do, we are going to experience symptoms.
And once I was able to wrap my head around that, as hard of a truth as it is, I was able to work more alongside it. But anyways, I want to get back to your story. So you're feeling anxious, a little special. How are things going for you as you go into your preteen and teen years? So my teen years started off pretty poorly. I had my first episode when I was 14.
So really young. I went from being a really joyful child, the happiest kid on the block, I used to say, to wanting to die in basically a few weeks, right? So yeah, really fast, really fast. And I stopped eating. You know, kids and even preteens that age don't have language for emotions. They don't have language for pain. So I mean, yes, loss of appetite could be a symptom of depression, but I think I just didn't have words for everything I was feeling.
So I stopped, I wouldn't eat. And that's actually why my mother took me to the doctor. She went to the pediatrician and said, my daughter's not eating. Also, she's crying all the time. And the pediatrician, you know, bless his heart, said, I think you need to take her to the psychiatrist. Right. So that's how that started. And my psychiatrist was, she was brilliant. So I remember my first appointment, she's asking me, first of all,
within 10 minutes, she was like, you have ADHD. And I was like, what's that? Tell me more. that answered a lot of questions that I hadn't realized I'd had. Yeah. But the first thing she put me on was lithium. Interesting. So she knew like so many people with bipolar, I showed up for help for the first time because I was experiencing soul crushing depression. Yeah. That is so often how it presents. Oh yeah.
My doctor, she, I think, I think there were a couple of clinical factors like my age, right? Right? People at a younger age often will convert to bipolar disorder. How quick it was, some of the features of it. She kept asking me, do you have racing thoughts? Yes, but doesn't everybody? All of my thoughts are racing. What a silly question is that? Isn't that normal? Yeah. So she put me on lithium, which I ended up not staying on for other reasons.
But I missed many months of school that year. That was my freshman year of high school. And tell me what, remind me, I'm in Canada. What grade is freshman? Oh, so ninth grade. So I was 14. Yeah, I was 14, like I said. So it's first year of high school. Okay. And yeah, I missed many years, not many years, sorry, many months. Yeah. Felt like years. And eventually I found, you know, a med combination that got me through high school.
But in retrospect, in a largely hypomanic state. But again, I think people just kind of ascribed that to my personality. But there's a line there and I was crossing it. Yeah. That's so interesting because you don't hear that very often. And a lot of psychiatrists are afraid to diagnose young. And also, they must have had more of a specialty in it because it isn't usually the first thing, right? It's almost like they try and go through everything else first, right?
Especially when you come in a depressive state, right? We rarely come in a manic state until it's too high and too late, which happens to a lot of us. But we actually start reaching out when we're depressed. and then get that. And that's the latest diagnosis for a lot of people. Yeah. Yeah. I was 32 years old. Yeah. It's pretty wild. So, wow. That's, that's really amazing. And I hear you with the, that we, I hear a lot about disordered eating or different things that happen.
And it's almost like for me, it was like something I could control.
Right. Well, that's interesting. Yeah. I just, I just couldn't eat everything made me sick I had no appetite yeah just yeah and I go the opposite way whereas like I don't know if I'm trying to get serotonin or what but it's like the consuming it's like it yeah it was really really strange and it was interesting because now it probably would have gotten diagnosed as just binge eating disorder but because I didn't have it year-round it was only when I was depressed oh
right so it's they were like well you can't have an eating disorder because it's only four months of the year. I'm like, yeah, but it takes over my life. Right. Anyway. Wow. And so when you did you get behind? Like, did you have to repeat things? Or did you just do it at home? I missed a few months. My mom was amazing. I was supposed to be in the hospital. She was on suicide watch. The doctor was like, you should put her in the hospital.
And my mom was like, no, I don't want to do that. So she stayed with me like 24 seven. Yeah. Help me catch up on my schoolwork, which was really hard because my brain wasn't functioning and I couldn't concentrate. We're reading the Odyssey freshman year. I mean, oh my gosh, of all things to be reading when you're depressed.
Yikes. Wow so I made it through high school I did make it through high school and then we got to college and things got really messy but not messy in the way you talk about messy not beautiful messy gotcha just messy messy yeah yeah tell me about that did you go straight out of high school yes I did but I was experiencing these deep seemingly endless depressions I I think of them as like swirling vortexes of pain and despair. That's kind of how they felt to me, seemingly for no reason, right?
I was in college, things were okay. You looked at the outside, but just these horrible, horrible depressions. But they were punctuated now. They were punctuated by these breaks. And I think I would say I had three kinds of breaks. I'll tell you the first one I called cycling into normal. Now, that's a phrase that I took from my friend and colleague, Dr. Jim Phelps, who wrote the book, Why Am I Still Depressed?
If you are experiencing a lot of depression and you are wondering what's going on, or if you might have sort of a soft bipolar disorder, highly recommend this book. It changed my life because later I went to my doctor and I said, I think I have bipolar disorder. And she goes, I know, but no one had ever like said it to me. Yeah. Yeah. So whatever. So that was the first kind of punctuation was the cycling into normal right where you you cycle up but you just cycle into feeling regular.
Right. Just feels like a break. The second type was this more classic hypomania, shorter duration than most people might experience for me. But I was just brilliant. And I was writing and I'd stay up all night. And one one night I stayed up and I wish I could find the piece of paper. But I reintroduced all the problems we have with our economy down to one big solution.
And that solution turned out to be communism. communism uh maybe not really a solution but i did come up with it so you came up with something yeah right you probably thought and believed with all your being of so much that it was true right i think people don't understand that and i mean all we can do is laugh but i i don't have language to explain how deeply you believe it yeah why are things yeah just and and that you're brilliant and And that everything you say is just, you know.
Yeah. And that everyone doesn't know. And that's what the hardest thing is. A lot of people with loved people that love people with bipolar disorder ask me like, well, how do I get through? First of all, I'm like, I have no answers for you. But also it's really hard because we don't believe you. Like it feels like, well, you're just not like special or you just don't have the secret. You don't get it. And you're in the way.
Like get out of the way. don't ask me for like dinner or other things because I'm fixing the entire universe. So I'm fixing the economy. Like, please take it. Yeah. So it's really, it's, it's really, really hard. Actually, can we like go back and forth? Can I ask you if you can, if you can answer it? Do you have anything you would say as a person that lives with bipolar disorder and as a therapist, if that applies. So I think one way to get, quote unquote, through to people is to.
Help them gain insight as to how their current behavior and beliefs compares to their typical behavior and beliefs, right? So symptoms are always off of baseline. And if you can get someone to remember what baseline looks and feels like, then they might be able, because it does have to come from them, they might be able to reflect enough to say, wow, okay, yeah, I guess I don't usually talk this fast.
Or, okay, no, I don't usually, you know, do these things or buy these things to see that difference in themselves that's powerful yeah and for me that might look like a friend more than my partner because I find the closer that they are to me I have rejection sensitivity where it's like I it hurts my feelings or I or I I like get reactive or defensive but if it was like just a little bit like my closest friends, I'm less likely to be as reactive.
So that's really powerful. Because my friends are always asking me what they can do. And I don't get because I'm medicated and managing, I still get hypomanic symptoms, but nothing like before. So I have self reflective capacity, whereas I try to explain to people like, I don't have self reflective capacity when I'm hypomanic, or I everything's too fast that I can't slow down to practice things. Right. Exactly.
Exactly. And I think a good way for people even to approach that is with questions, right? Shaylee, do you think or do you feel different than you did a week ago? Or do you think you're acting differently? I'm not the expert. You're the expert on your experience. So. Oh, my gosh, that's so good. And we love I love to talk about myself when I'm like So that would be really helpful.
Oh, yes. Thank you. That's really, really helpful because sometimes I have a hard time answering questions from loved ones because I'm just like, well, I can share my experience and what that looks like. Like, but sometimes I can't, they want me to tell them concrete things to do. And I'm like, I can't put myself into the situation. So that is really beautiful. I am going to use that explanation. Excellent. Let's go back to Andrea in college. So did you move out of your family
home? Like, were you on your own? Yes. Yes. So Andrea in college is experiencing these terrible depressions punctuated by these cycles. The first one being, you know, just into normal, the second being into classic hypomania, but the third one, and you might agree that this is the worst, we're into these awful mixed states, these really agitated depressions. So that was much of my college life. Yeah, I think that that's one that's really hard to talk about.
And especially because we don't want anybody to think, am I just an angry, awful person? Am I just a, you know, negative? There's even the added layer of, you know, being a woman and like expecting to keep things comfortable and kind of just all that society. Regulated. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think that it's so hard. It is so hard. It is so hard. And when I was in college, oh my gosh, poetry just, it poured out of me. I was looking through some of my notebooks last night.
I wrote poems about, there was one called The Parking Lot of Walgreens. Walgreens is a US pharmacy. One about a bottle that was rolling around on a, but like just everything, just so much productivity in my head, so much creativity. A lot of it's terrible, but that's fine. That was sort of the state of things. But I did write, I wrote about what it was like to be depressed, what it was like to experience hypomania, what it was like to experience these agitated states.
So awesome. Did you, did you want to read one? If you want me to, I do really resonate with people. I would love that. Yeah. And one thing you kind of just brought up too, is that when I'm experiencing hypomania or even parts of depression or mixed, I, the deep meaning. Like I was even listening to your titles. I bet you that there was such deep meaning to that, right? Like we attach such deep meaning.
Okay. So let's, I've got a couple of lines about classic hypomania and then a couple of lines about a mixed state. See how these compare, right? So here's the one about classic hypomania. It says, at night when the sadness and despair there have loosened their death grip, other demons come out to play. While depression retreats to the watchtower, energy and intensity take the floor. Their moves are fast and furious, leaving clouds of pixie dust and plans along their path.
Onlookers see the mayhem and cannot help but be drawn to the spark. Who could resist this dancing duo in all its joy and jitters? Exuberance runs high and hard, but the burnout will scatter dreams like embers. Are you kidding me? You are a writer. I was expecting you to be like, roses are red, bipolar is blue. You know what I mean? You set it up like it was. That's beautiful. You need to share that. This is the first time I've shared it, actually. I saved it for you. I feel seen.
Have one for a mixed state, which I think, I hope, like you said, I hope will give people words or experiences that they haven't been able to articulate. Yeah. So this one about agitated depression or a mixed state. A fire of turmoil inside, boiling my stomach, swirling up my torso, and vomiting fury out of my wicked mouth. Emotions like acid race through my veins and tear through my piece on the page. That is a mixtape. Yeah, I can actually feel that in my body.
That's really powerful. So visceral. It's so visceral, right? Mixtapes are, yeah. Which I think is a misconception about bipolar disorder that it's all in our heads, right? I think people are always surprised when I explain how physical it really is. I would love to hear, I mean, your poetry describes it well, but I would love to hear, you know, your descriptions or Or your feelings of what it felt like in your body as much as you could remember in college.
Like what did that feel like to be depressed like that? What did it look like? Because you have unspecified bipolar or bipolar 1 or 2? No, very interesting. I can actually tell you. And if you need the citation, I'll give it to you. But about 70% of people with bipolar disorder do not fall into the categories of 1 or 2. Too. So I, if we get to my 20s, I have experienced mania, but not for long enough that it was classified as mania because there's duration minimums, right?
I've experienced hypomania, but since I've also experienced manic symptoms, I don't fall into either category. I kind of, kind of like one and a half, but there's actually like a theory about like one and a half that I don't qualify for. But anyway, so yes, I fall into these residual categories as do a lot of people. Yeah. I'm starting to think of it like, like a spectrum. Right. For sure. Right. There's different cyclothemia and all of the things and definitely like a spectrum.
I would actually love that information because I'm I try to send, you know, give relevant information. I mostly do story, but sometimes I give like like what I think are facts. And so finding out new things, I think that that would really help people because I interviewed someone with cyclothemia and they were like, well, yeah, but I'm not like I don't think I qualify as like real bipolar. Or real mood disorder and I'm invalidated in her experience.
So I would love to share that. That is so interesting. Bipolar is 1000%. 1000% happens on a spectrum and we're coming to understand that more and more. The book I mentioned previously by Dr. Jim Phelps, he's one of the leading thinkers and researchers in this area. His work is so interesting. He has a great website, but he's currently redoing it. Otherwise I'd share it with you about the bipolar spectrum. And we're not at the point yet where we can open up someone's brain and say, here we go.
This is what's causing your issue. This is bipolar, right? Yeah. Yeah. Can't do that quite yet. Got some biomarkers stuff in the works, but we can't do that yet. But it does matter because if you present with depression, right? And I'm sure this will resonate with so many people. If you present with depression and you're prescribed an antidepressant or another antidepressant treatment, you can upcycle and you can actually feel a lot worse. And this happens so frequently.
That's why there's an average like eight to 10 year delay, depending where you are from onset of symptoms to diagnosis. Describe what that looks like for you then, just because there are people that might see themselves in you that you had, what did your small manic episodes look like versus hypomanic? And how did you, like, how did you know the difference?
I had a great doctor tell me once that at the heart of, and this is a generalization, but just hear me out, at the heart of every euphoria is a dysphoria. And I think that that draws a pretty clear line in the sand between hypomania and mania, right? Is that hypomania people, their functioning isn't affected. It can be kind of fun, can be really productive. Once you get to mania, those things start to fall away, right?
Functioning is impaired, Judgment can be impaired. If you're me, you're doing risky things like jumping on motorcycles with guys in Brazil with no helmet on and just riding around on the beach at night. All the things. It's a pretty impaired judgment there. So that's a big line in the sand is whether or not functioning is impaired. I think that it completely affects my daily life and my relationships when I'm hypomanic. And yet, I can still do the things, right? But it's really hard.
But I also talk to people where they can't function and they've been told they have bipolar 2 and not full mania. So it's really like, like we said, it's such a, it's such a spectrum, but I think that that validates a lot of, a lot of people's, people's experiences.
I think too, one thing that I struggle with, and I'd love to hear how you would explain it or your thoughts on it, but I think there's this big misconception that, you know, there's a huge hierarchy between bipolar one and bipolar two. And so like, it's not that bad. Or, you know, it's and I know we use even in medical books, like a lesser form. But I think that I don't think they're completely comparable in some ways, right.
And I think that it takes away from the bipolar two experience because it's. It's still affects, it's still severe. It still affects your daily life and not everybody can, can get up and get out of bed. And I'm just wondering about your thoughts on that. Cause I'd love language to be able to say, not take away from either experience and to say that they are, you know, terrible, but in different ways. What do you, what are your thoughts on that?
Well, it's not a competition. I see this. I, I, you know, I work as a therapist, I work under a supervisor. I'm not licensed yet, but my clients with trauma, for example, some of them will come in and say, well, it really wasn't that bad. And I say, no, trauma is not a competition. And I don't think that bipolar is a competition either.
And I'd like to think that we can all band together and support each other in the struggles that we share and in the struggles that are different among us in order to be a more connected and unified community instead of saying, well, you this and you this. And honestly, Obviously, diagnoses are they're just heuristics.
They're just shorthand for doctors so that if someone comes in with a set of symptoms and we say, oh, gee, let's call it this thing so that the next person who comes in with the same set of symptoms, we know how to treat them because we already treated the first person. We don't have to reinvent the wheel for person number two. To me, it was very freeing to have a name, to have a to have a diagnosis. Should I even be, you know, sharing my experience or anything?
Because like you said, exactly that. It's not that bad or this didn't happen to me. So does that like disqualify me? Or I think it stops people from getting help, especially folks with bipolar two disorder, because we see, you know, the stereotypes in the media. We see, you know, I would have never thought that I had bipolar disorder because I thought that I wouldn't be able to do the things that I do.
In fact, my general practitioner told me when I came in and said, hey, I kind of identify with these symptoms. He said, you wouldn't have a degree or be able to raise your children if you had bipolar disorder. So I didn't get into it. Oh, boy. Right? He's still my doctor, really good at other things. Delivering babies, he's a pro. Mental illness, he basically, yeah, he's like, well, what do you think you need? I'm like, I think maybe the medicine thing.
Yeah, but here, it's impossible to get one. And as soon as you're doing. You know, remotely well, they discharge you because the need is too much.
So you have to to go to your gps that don't know not all of them it sounds like like some know but they aren't experts right right so i think psychiatrists are not always experts right and they're people and they're human and i would never be like it's all his fault but yet i would hope that there could be you know more training and more understanding i think that's the huge thing with bipolar 2 disorder right or yeah so i'm always looking to you know bust that myth that it's yes that it's
easier yeah exactly and just because it's different doesn't mean it's easier right to have bipolar one you actually don't ever have to experience depression most people do a lot of people do but you don't really wow so it's just you have to show the mania and the duration and all of that wow Wow. Whereas bipolar two, you need a hypomanic episode and a depressive episode.
So they're qualitatively different. And if you think of them on a spectrum, right, even as I understand the neurobiology, some of that might be on a spectrum that's above my pay grade to really discuss, but they're not the same. And every individual expression of it is different. And like I said, 70% of people are on this spectrum and don't need criteria for one and two. So, yeah. And I think that it's our human nature, right? We want to put things in boxes.
We want to be able to, you know, describe. Yeah. And it's so there's so much nuance. And there's so much as much as I tell my story, I always say, like, we're not a monolith. I don't want to speak that my experience is the same. Do we have a lot of similarities in and can connect in different ways?
Yes. but I am not like the walking bipolar two representation because sometimes I feel like a lot of pressure to represent right I think I think you do it very very well thank you that actually means the world to me I don't know I I love your Instagram I love you know how how you can put facts out there and you have this beautiful wave also but balancing it you know kind of not so heavy, but yet telling the truth.
I think that that's, that's really powerful. So if you don't already follow Andrea, go because it's best.life.bipolar. Yeah. Go and follow. It's so helpful and share it with your people, right? Chances are, you know, someone they're just not telling you, right? If it's one to 4% of the population, if you know, a hundred people. That's one to four people. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So you're in college and things were getting worse. You were having this depression. I did graduate.
My biggest struggles where I basically had to check out of life for some time came later. So, you know, people, people often say to me, my gosh, you know, how is it possible that you have bipolar? Not in an offensive way, just in a curious way. You know, you have a doctorate, you have a marriage, you have a job, you this and that. I said, yeah, but I'm also almost 40. And for about 10 years, I did next to nothing.
Like I always tried to keep myself busy doing things, even if it was just going to the store during the day or running a food blog or this or that. Like I always tried to stay connected to the world, but it couldn't work. Right. I couldn't be counted on from one day to the next to have enough mood stability to say, yeah, I'll show up for my job at 10 in the morning.
No yeah yeah okay tell me more about that tell me what that I'm so curious about that timeline so you finished college did you get married after yes I got married after so I went I lived abroad for a while I taught English I came back I actually I came back from Brazil because I was very very sick I was in this terrible very rapid cycling mixed state you know going out and partying all night doing things that I look back on and think maybe weren't great ideas.
Gotcha. And then in the morning, just being literally too depressed to move. So I tried to, you're going to love this one. I tried to get some help in Brazil, right? And I saw a psychiatrist, went to the US embassy website, picked a psychiatrist that they recommended, went to him and he was very kind and very helpful, very well-meaning.
But he said, you know, I'm not really an expert in bipolar, but I think that you need to basically, you know, I kid you not when I say this, he said, have more sex and find religion. Now, he's saying this to somebody in Brazil in her mid-20s in a manic episode. That's not somebody who you want to be telling to have hypersex. No. And, like, hypersexuality is a big thing. And, like, delusional. A lot of people believe that, like, religion can be a trigger.
Like, a lot of people believe that they are a religious figure. So that's, like, the worst advice. Not great advice. So I came home and I remember standing in lower Manhattan. And I don't know if you remember those video games where I love to tell the story. Those video games with Mario, Super Nintendo, where if you ran really fast, he would fly. He would like take off. Right. I was looking down the street and I was thinking, OK, I know, like, realistically, I can't fly.
But if I run fast enough, is there a chance that I might take off? So then I said, you know what? I think it's hospital time. So I check myself in. I told my boss on a Friday, I said, I'm not coming back on Monday. I'm really sorry. I called the admissions people the day prior and they said, okay, show up Monday. So my then boyfriend, now husband took me, showed up, dropped me off. I just, I knew I needed, I wasn't getting the intensity of care that I needed in outpatient.
I needed like someone to start over, look at my meds, put me on the right track, you know and also be safe because i was really over the mountain so is it a in america is it a, like we only have if you get like you have to be so bad you have to be basically a harm to yourself or others to be admitted and it's in our public hospitals like is this a private thing like it is unheard of to be able to call somewhere i guess there's addiction ones and stuff that it could be private, but like,
this is very new information to me. Like you can call somewhere and, and go there. Yeah. Wow. Tell me more. Well, you can, you know, you can certainly go in through the emergency room when you're a threat to, of harm to yourself or others, certainly. And there's legal holds that, you know, a doctor can place on you to say, okay, you're a threat to yourself or others for three days. We're going to keep you here. I might renew knew that hold, et cetera, et cetera.
But you can also say, I need some help. Call up, you know, I got lucky. They had a spot right away. Sometimes you might have to wait. But yeah, it was self-admit. And because of that, I could have checked myself out. So the laws are different. They could have put a hold on me in the hospital. But also if I wanted to leave, I could have said, but peace out, I'm going. Yeah. And so then is that a private paid thing or is that available to everyone?
So that's a hard question. It's a private paid thing with my insurance paid for it. So it's not a totally private paid thing. Okay. Okay. This is just a standard hospital. This is Columbia, New York Press.
It's a really great mental health okay just in case anyone was listening and wondering wondering what to do definitely look into that because I didn't even know that that that was an option I feel like that would have been a beautiful option for me because like I wasn't sick enough to go to the psych ward but I knew that if I didn't get help like I didn't want to go I knew it was just going to be going back to the grind and that I wasn't
so I was lucky there There was an in-between place that barely has beds, but it's for like short-term emergency stay. And I could go in and out. And so even though like a lot of them were like, you're not sick enough to go there. I'm like, if there's a bed and you'll allow me, I want to go because I knew that there was a psychiatrist there. And I knew I was basically telling them like, hey, I don't actually even want to leave the hospital unless you tell me what's going on.
Like what is like I actually wanted to figure it out by then because it had been so many years and so that's really fascinating to me tell me about your time in there I was there for two weeks. I mean I was there along with people who had been put on hold people who were not self-admit so it's it's all one psych ward yeah but you know I was self-admit so different levels it's just it's a higher level of care than outpatient seeing your doctor once a week you see the doctor every Wow.
This is a really good psych hospital. Yeah. I'm very lucky to be in that area of the country to have this hospital. And yeah, I actually, I made a wonderful friend while I was there, my roommate. My roommate, because, you know, there's two beds in a room. Yeah. She was really loving. My now husband came to visit me every day. It was really scary to be there, though, to be away from everyone and everything that I knew.
And, you know, of course, they take your shoelaces and you can't shave your legs and, you know, all the things. But, you know, my family could bring in food and that was nice. And yeah, so I know there are many people are going to listen to this and be like, I went to a psych hospital and it was awful.
And I completely hear that. I visited friends in psych wards where it's been really awful this i just got very lucky this is an excellent hospital yeah yeah i've heard i've heard both depending on and i've heard someone that's gone like twice and each have different experiences and i sometimes it's the you know it's the toughest decision of what's harder right still living with it or going to a place that's going to be might be not an awesome experience but you'll come out and be still be alive
right exactly Exactly. Yeah. And we do have, we do have a problem in this country of, you know, access to mental health care in rural areas. So this is a new year, I can rattle off, you know, the best, the best psych hospitals in the country, and they're all in big cities. So that's, that's really frustrating. That's hard. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. And so a lot of people, some of my biggest questions get asked about my relationship.
And so many people want my husband to come on, but he is one, an introvert, and two, does not like to be on camera. And three, I've kind of kept the focus on people that live with bipolar disorder, because sometimes it's hard to hear from the people that love us, right? Right. Like it is still hard for me to hear how it affects him and how that time affects him. And so that's why I don't do that. I'm curious about, like you said, your he wasn't he was your boyfriend then
or husband? He was my boyfriend then. So he did you he knew you had bipolar from your earlier diagnosis with you during the struggle and and and stay together. Yeah. I think we should introduce our husbands because here we are two bubbly redheads married to two introverts, right? Shy guys. They could be their own support group. Love it. It's funny. Actually, I did a, I did a presentation for mental health strong, which is this really great nonprofit for people whose partners are struggling
with the partner struggling with a mental health condition. And it's for, you know, keeping the relationship. Anyway, so I had him come on at the end of the webinar to kind of answer questions. So I did get him to do that. It's pretty cool. But yeah, I know what you mean. It's really hard on them. So I think I've seen my husband cry.
Twice yeah and both times were when i wanted to kill myself so wow wow i think it's yeah i think it's so hard because it's like i want the message out there is very much like there don't get in a relationship with bipolar people who she's so bipolar all those so i try and combat that and then also understand that there needs to be space for you know the hard the hard things i think it would be too difficult for me and also i don't think it would be that helpful for listeners
that have bipolar disorder so there's other spaces for that but right no i totally i get that i totally get that a lot of people ask me when should you tell them and i have no clue because i married my husband when i was 23 and found out 10 years later or so did you tell your husband right away how did that work a lot of people are so curious about those things it came up because it got to be winter time it was very dark and I have a really strong seasonal pattern
yeah which is why we live in California very strong seasonal pattern so we went on a trip and in the airport on the way home I was lying down and just you know just in my depressive state, right? Couldn't smile, couldn't talk, was crying. And he was like, what's going on? But the funnest is, I do think that if you have bipolar disorder, you should pay attention to some traits about potential partners. So what I have found from my own experience is that I work very well in this.
Even a therapist, even my therapist said this to me once. She said, I think I think you guys work really well together because you are so different. He is emotionally very solid. Nothing, you know, nothing overwhelms him. Nothing gets him off kilter. He's just, he's just a rock, right? He has very, in a different context, one might even say he has, you know, very little emotional sort of intensity going on.
Yeah but it works because my mood fluctuations don't really impact him yeah yeah oh that's interesting and say mine's like i'm artsy and loud and i love public speaking you couldn't pay him enough money to hold the mic and he's a scientist right well there's things like that it's definitely it's definitely interesting yeah it's just really interesting i think it would be very difficult to understand.
Be and I know people do it and I think that that's awesome but I think it would be very difficult to be married to someone that's exactly like me right right to help each other for sure and also I get I get a little bit frustrated with this like when everyone's like oh you know he's such a saint that he has to deal with you or I had my doctor say that and I was like just so you know he has things too like yes so it's like I honor that that's an experience and
also we're awesome too yeah and we provide things for our partners as well my husband is always saying that I help him see a different version of the world a version with color and with life and with joy and with sparkles and just all of those things we provide that for them as well another way of viewing and experiencing the world. Yeah, that's true. Because I'm very social justice oriented, and I like care deeply about so many issues. And I wonder if I would feel that deeply and feel that.
You know, that hypomanic confidence and just overwhelmed that I have to say something about it, or I have to do something about it, or I have to march or I have to, and, you know, he, the intensity of my empathy, he finds that that has really changed things for him. So, so, so if you're out there and you're thinking you'll never find a partner or that you don't have, maybe you're in a bad place that you think you don't have much to offer.
I'm telling you that you do. Of course, we are talking about managed bipolar disorder, right? It's, it's very difficult to be in a relationship with, you know, folks that are struggling, but yet there are people out there that like, we think that we have to be, I know a lot of people think that they have to be alone or they're going to be a burden and, and we can be amazing.
And I think I always struggle with that fine line of how to talk about it, because I don't know about you might have a different opinion than me, but a lot of people say, you know, if, if someone wanted to take away my bipolar disorder, I would say no, because it's superpower. And I am telling you, yes, there's good things out of it. I would a hundred percent give it back. Yeah. I would a hundred. I would, if you said I didn't have to leave with live with this.
No, a hundred percent. I would send it back on, you know, with the quickest return label I could print, you know, in, in some of the group work that I do, we talk about like, what are some hidden gifts of the condition. And that's true. You can highlight those, but they are hidden gifts. They do not make it necessarily worth it. And if someone feels that way, power to you. Yeah. Well, and that's how some people cope and more well when I can be like, that actually just sucks.
Everything happens for a reason thing. It messed me up. Right. So I don't I don't ascribe to that and to that toxic positivity. But to your point, though, to your point, when you said it's hard to be in a relationship with someone who's struggling, I think it's hard to be in a relationship with someone who doesn't have awareness. Ooh, that's a better way to put it. Yes. Yeah.
Because I struggle and, you know, I'm in a relationship and that might be harder, but I think where it really gets difficult is if the person doesn't have any awareness, right? If they're doing the things and they're trying to get well and they're trying to stay well and they're, you know, just doing all the stuff, that's easier than if they say, no, I'm, I'm, there's nothing the matter here. There's nothing going on. I don't need any help. That's very hard.
Yeah, I like that. I like that reframe, because it's true. Because then it insinuates that, you know, that because we're in a relationship, we're not struggling. I think that one of the things that I want to break the stigma around is that because we are advocates, or because you are, you know, a therapist, that we don't still struggle. And I right? Or people talk about being healed or things.
And I think that that makes people stuck because I know for me, when people would just go that had mental health disorders, that would just be like, I was here and now I'm here. I was, do you know what I mean? I was, I'm all better. And I was just like, so then it just perpetuated, like, what's wrong with me that I can't, can't be better. And I think that's a really strong point that you brought up. Like we still struggle, But the difference is self-awareness.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that I think that anybody, you know, we live in this achievement oriented paradigm where if you're doing, quote unquote, well with bipolar disorder, let's celebrate you. But I wrote an article for Slate like this. It's one of the first things I wrote. If you are living with this condition, you are already succeeding. Like you get a prize. You deserve to be celebrated. Celebrate yourself because it's not, I don't, I don't love stories.
I think they're kind of damaging where it's, you know, oh, this person has bipolar, but then they got over it and now they're doing all this cool stuff. So that is not how it works. Yeah. We're doing the cool stuff despite like, and alongside. Right. And maybe sometimes a little bit because of, but mostly just despite. Right. And that's the same thing that I was actually talking to Julie Fast about this. And she was saying a lot, like a lot of people don't want to get help.
So like, it'll take away my creativity. But actually, we all have, we have that creativity inside of us. But what happens is she said it lowers your inhibitions. So that's why it's something that you might have just had inside that you feel confident enough to try.
And or then it gets too confident and you're coming up with too many ideas so i would argue that i can actually i have less ideas that i jump on but i actually complete them and do beautiful things with i feel that it impedes my creativity and i think that that's you know that's a misconception when there's folks you know like for example connie west right like he from what i hear doesn't go on medication because it'll take away the creativity but then you know we've seen
how that's going and and so i think that that's one thing that stops people from from getting help but we can do really cool things and struggle still on medication right and it you know what medication did take away some of my creativity and that was a bitter pill to swallow yeah pun Pun intended. Literally. But that's okay, because now I have a life that I can manage, and maybe it's a little less creative, but it's a life that I built and I love, and it's sustainable.
Yes. Oh, my goodness. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. That's so true. And I say that about the podcast. That's why I don't give a day it's going to come out. I say there's two a month. because I knew that if I pigeonhole myself into every, and this works for other people, if I said every Monday, or if I said I wouldn't be able to keep that up. And I think that, you know, it's one of the longest projects that I've kept up with because of self-awareness that you were talking about.
I realized that I go full throttle and then I get overwhelmed and back out where I've learned to work with my bipolar and set a pace, right? Yeah. Oh, that's so interesting. All right. So I want to let the listeners know what we're going to do. So right now, in a minute, I'm going to ask Andrea some tips and things that have worked for her. But then we are going to actually record another whole podcast in Andrea's expertise and what she's studying in self-stigma.
And we're going to talk about masking. skin. So I want you all to know that now so you can listen to it right after. Yes. So I would love to hear from your perspective as someone that lives with bipolar, someone that is, you know, a therapist as well. I bet you that all meshes. I would love to hear, you know, some coping strategies. And then I'm curious if there are some for you that are hard that you give as advice, but are harder to do.
So one of the things, and if any of my clients heard this podcast, they would be like, oh my gosh, here she goes again. So there is a lot of research surrounding social rhythms in bipolar disorder. Okay. Circadian rhythms, which are your body clock rhythms. Very briefly, they... They help your body regulate not only sleep-wake, but also body temperature, hunger, mood. Your circadian rhythms are basically 24 hours. The human body clock runs at about 25 hours, and every day we have to reset to 24.
And if you have bipolar disorder, that's probably harder for you because the part of our brain that controls circadian rhythms is not quite right. There's a whole line of research into this. Yes. So social rhythms are the things that help us every day reset that body clock to be 24 hours. So this sounds very complicated. The very good news is that one of the founders of social rhythm therapy, Dr. Holly Swartz, just published a workbook. Can I plug this? Is that okay?
Yeah, you can plug anything that will help. She just published a workbook called the Social Rhythm Therapy Workbook for Bipolar Disorder. And instead of having to find a provider, because very few people are trained in this, You can walk through the ways in which you can use your social rhythms to stabilize your moods. Now, what this looks like, if you really boil it down, is doing the same things at basically the same time every day, or at least most days.
So I swear by this. I absolutely swear by this, as I am up at the same time every day. I eat at the same time every day. When I exercise, it's at the same time. It's not every day, but when I exercise, it's at the same time. I interact with people at basically the same times every day. And it does, it entrains your physical body circadian clock to just be more regular. And that has been shown to stabilize moods. I mean, think about it. When you don't sleep, what happens?
Exactly. Right. So it's, it's, it starts with the foundation of getting the same amount of sleep, same time to bed, same time up in the morning every day, but there's so much more than that. It's a wonderful book. Check it out. The social rhythm therapy workbook for bipolar disorder. We'll put it down in the, in the show notes as well. I'm pointing you down. It's so accessible. Okay. Here's the thing. And this is for me specifically.
So I don't do that. and that is the hardest thing for me it's so so so so hard for me because one I feel trapped when I have to do the same thing every day every every time I've also set up my job so that none of very many of my days look the same I mean I do have some I'll get into that in a minute but But I also struggle with going to bed. I go around the same time. But on the days I can sleep in, I 100% do because of my medication, right? So I struggle.
And I believe you that that is to be true. But I feel like it's unattainable for me. But where would I start, right? Because I feel like, oh my gosh, we have some shift workers. We have other people. Right. Where would I start? I mean, I have kind of a cycle that I do on the days I work. I obviously am a teacher. I have to go by the bell or whatever. But then some days I don't work. And then I like to, that's why I podcast too. Right. And it's harder.
I think it's actually harder for us, but we need it more. I know. Part of what I love about Dr. Sports' book is that she helps you. No one's coming to give you a schedule, right? Right. You want to find the routines that you have and the natural rhythms that you have and leverage those and just put them into place and then aim to do it within like 40 minutes, like maybe four to five times, four to five days out of the week, right?
Just, and you'll see, I mean, you'll see it's the proof is in the pudding for that one. Oh, I believe you. I believe you. And it's like, I beat myself up about it because I'm like, why can't you do this when you know it's going to, it will help. And that's the most interesting thing about bipolar, depression, a lot of things with mental illness, some of the things that are the absolute best for us are the hardest to do. But like, it's wired to be hard.
It's the suprachiasmatic nucleus, it's the funny sounding part of the brain that controls your circadian rhythms. And in bipolar disorder, there's a lot of evidence that it's just not working quite right. That makes total sense. And so, yeah, I am definitely going to read that. And I'm trying to figure out and maybe other people out there are with me on this. I'm still working on trying to figure out how I can like, I like the idea of rhythms more than schedule.
And that's what it is. You leverage your own rhythms. You figure out what chronotype you have. You're a morning person, evening person in between somehow. And you find what naturally your rhythm is and you just sort of set them. Yeah. And I found that like my natural one isn't conducive to raising children or have a job. So because I, I would love to sleep to like 11 or noon, and my peak time is like 10 to two that I can't do that. I couldn't do that raising kids is not healthy.
But I find it really difficult with and I know other people have said this too, because I've talked about like, waking, going to to bed the same day you woke up, right? Because I'm a night person. I feel like I'm stealing the night. I love it. Like, it's hard to get to bed before midnight. Very common. And yeah, and I just, I struggle with the whole getting up with the meds, right? Like, right. To get up, like, do you find it hard?
Like, to get up? Like, do you find that hard to do? Or does it become easier? When I When I was taking lithium, I slept from 1 to 11 every day. But that's what worked for me. That's what worked for those meds at that time. But it was the same every day, right? And now I have actually – and it does take work. I'm not saying it's like a one and done. This is not a solution that you can buy in a prepackaged envelope. Yeah, I wish, right?
Right? You have to do the work. Get Holly's book, do the work. Yeah. Now I'm up at the same time every day, almost without an alarm. And it, it changes throughout the year as the sun changed because I've managed to sync up to the sun. So when the sun comes up, whatever amount of time later it is, maybe I don't know when the sun is up, but I'm, I'm up at that time. Interesting. Yeah. See, I, I definitely feel it in the spring and summer where I, it's not hard to get out.
It's not as hard to get out of bed and I kind of can feel it. I know if I wasn't on meds right now, I wouldn't I'd be sleeping four hours max. So I'm grateful for them that way. But then in the in the winter, it's painful for me to get up. It's it's hard. So yeah, I'm excited to read that. And I like the way you put I find that you're you're very encouraging, because I find that sometimes I see these things are like, you have to change everything or I see these things and they feel too
hard. So I don't even try. And I that's what what I love about how you present things and I love about your account your Instagram as well is that you make it seem attainable because I think that a lot of us yeah we get overwhelmed.
And so then it's hard to do any of them and I just try to shout it from the rooftops that every small step helps and you know what with our brains we not might not be able to see it like I know I have to ask outside people like my friends and my family to be detectives I'm like this isn't working i'm exactly the same or the this these meds aren't working and i'm like what do you think and they're like so it's 100 working right right yeah do
not in any wellness thing do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good oh tip for you if you need to if you need to get more insight do you track your moods i sporadically yeah what how do you track them so i had so i had an app And actually right now I'm on board with UBC. It's a university here and they're making a new one. So I'm on that one. I don't do as well tracking them when I'm sad. I get better at tracking when I'm up. So short answer, sporadically.
Well, if someone needs a mood tracker, I recommend the eMoods app. It's specifically for bipolar. Is it? Yeah, I hear lots of people talking about it. Yeah, it's great. Ups, downs, anxiety, meds in between. and just set an alarm at the end of the day, right? Make it your cue, okay? Track my moods, start my bedtime routine. Whenever that time is for you. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's good. That's good. And I'm really good about it. Yeah. It's interesting.
It's just so interesting that sometimes I, I, I try not to get like, I try to reframe it and not get down on myself, but this, you know, kind of intrusive repeating thought is just that I can't like, I can't do that. I can't do that. And just, that's too hard. And it's, that's what the most frustrating thing is with the illness is that the things that will help you are the hardest, right? Like the getting outside, the drinking of water, all of those things, but they are so helpful.
And so for someone listening that might be like totally overwhelmed, start small. Like Andrea just said, start small because it's like drips, right? Eventually, eventually. It takes time to form habits too. It does. It does. Isn't that something like 20 something days to try and start anew? I don't know. That's probably something I should know. And I don't. Yeah, I heard I heard it somewhere.
Because yeah, I was listening to something and they said if you can continue it more is more likely to be a habit if you can do it for like 20 something days. Don't quote me anybody. Don't quote me. Facts are hard. Facts are hard to remember. What other things do you so you have, you do this rhythms. What are other things that you do in your life to stay well? I move whether I get cardio exercise because that I used to do cardio exercise literally every day.
I am no longer that young or that energetic to be doing that. But I do. It's like medicine. It's not, Oh yeah, I love to work out. Let's go to the gym. No, it's definitely not like that. It's okay. I need to do this. This is like taking pills because otherwise I'm going to feel And if I'm upcycling or anxious, I do yoga. And that is very calming. And again, these are just habits. It's not always easy, but I try to keep my concern for my future self in the forefront of my mind.
That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah, that is that is true. And to like a lot of these things, like we sometimes think meds is going to fix it all, but it's all together. And also, I couldn't do some of these things until I was on meds, right? Like I was so dysregulated, the thought of regularly doing something was was overwhelming. So I think it's I love how you brought up that. Yeah, it's a it's a combo of things.
And moving your body can look like anything like we tend to think of it i used to be like well i have to go to the gym it has to be an hour has to be this and it can be anything and it can change like you said when you're up you might need yoga and go down when i'm hypomanic my doctor actually recommended that i exercise but not in stimulating environments way too stimulating right so, So that's when I do other things. And it all counts, right? It all counts.
I know there was a time when I was so depressed that I literally had to walk up and down the stairs a couple of times. And it all counts. You can build on that. So I love that. All right. So you've got your rhythms and you're working out. You work out. You get your energy out. You move your feelings out of your body. Is there anything else? I do move my feelings out of my body. That's true. I dance. Yeah, that's a big one.
But yeah, I think the last one would be staying engaged with people, even if that's people in our beautiful, amazing Instagram community. Even if you can't, you feel that you can't tell your real life friends, you know, you have this community, but staying connected to people, that's been shown to be so important as well. Yeah, I love that because we talk a lot about self-care, but I think community care is just as important, right? Right.
Like those I get messages where people are like, oh, you probably hear this or you probably won't see this message or whatever. But I'm telling you, every me too. Is healing for me. Every everyone, it's and it's, it's like a new feeling every time, right? Just knowing that there's someone else out there. It saddens me that there's someone else out there, right? There's so many.
But that it's also like, so comforting. And I know a lot of people with the stigmas are, you know, are afraid to tell people, it's harder to tell people in real life. But the coolest thing about social media is that you don't have to show your face, you can make up like others, I try and play this game about best handle that follows me a week. And I think there's one about loving tacos, or like you can, you know, you can start by just talking anonymously, right? Right.
But just telling one person out loud, online, through a message is like one of the most healing things for me anyway. I agree. Yeah. Yeah. And so Andrea and I answer our messages. Sometimes it takes me a little bit. Right. But yeah, reach out. There's a beautiful community on there. And I know everybody's willing to hold your story. So I love that. I love those things They are so helpful. I'm really excited to go into the next part of our conversation. I really want to thank you.
For who you are, for what you do. I just, I, yeah, I just felt instantly comfortable with you and you're just friendly and bubbly and just know that you are a huge part of, of this journey. And I'm really excited that we're doing things together. And so I just want to thank you. Thank you so much for everything you do for the community. Just like I said, at the start, on behalf of everybody.
Thank you for being you, for who you are, for leading by example what it's like to live with bipolar disorder and to live a beautiful life. Thank you. So go and follow Andrea and then come back and listen to our next part because I know that Andrea has things to share that I'm really excited to learn about. And so this is bipolar. Thanks again for tuning in. You You can find video versions of This is Bipolar on our YouTube channel.
We also have all our previous and soon-to-be-future episodes of the podcast on Apple, Podbean, Spotify, and Google Play. We spend most of our time on Instagram at this.is.bipolar. There is a vibrant community there where we have conversations and post different ideas and different strategies. and we'd just love for you to join us there. It is so helpful if you enjoy our work or think it would be helpful to someone if you could like and share and save and follow us in all or any of those spaces.
If you're a listener for the podcast, if you could leave a review, we would be forever grateful. Again, thank you for being here with us. Let's get the word out. Let's share lived experiences so that we can change the ideas that people have about bipolar and help those of us that live with it feel less alone. This is bipolar. Music.