Music. Conversations with. My name is Shaila Huckendorn and I live with Bipolar 2 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. And this is Bipolar. Hey everyone, just before we start the show, I wanted to let you know that these episodes are called Going Deeper.
I started recording them a year and a half ago, not sure if I was going to start a Patreon, and then subscriptions came along on Instagram, and I decided that the subscribers are going to get these episodes four weeks before everybody else. But I have a whole backlog of them, so I wanted to start sharing them with you all. They are in inspiring and powerful and interesting and brave. And what I love about it is that there is an episode telling this person's entire story.
And then we do the going deeper on a specific topic.
And so when these come up, I really encourage you to go back and watch the original conversations with episode with each of these guests and then going deeper because it might you might get confused or you might just want to know more about them and so another thing is you might hear language like patreon or you might hear me say we just recorded or the last recording because i wasn't sure what i was going to do with them at the time and so i'm so excited to get them out there take
care of yourself take some deep breaths and let's go deeper together. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the segment. This is Bipolar that I'm calling Going Deeper. And if you haven't already, I really I need you to go back and listen to the podcast before this. I am talking to Hannah Bloom, who is a writer and an activist, and she is amazing. She lives with bipolar 2 disorder as well as me. And we have just had such a powerful conversation. I'm like on a little bit
of exciting, high inspiration about it all. And I just want to keep it going. So thank you for doing this extra part with us. And I was just immersing myself in your work. And I was just this theme of self-love. It's something that I know so many struggle with. I know that I have struggled with it. And I would just love to talk about a little bit more. And I'm curious how you define self-love. And then I would love to talk about how you started loving yourself or what
things we can do and your beliefs around it. I would just love to give you the mic on that. Oh, man. Okay. Let me see. I got to keep on track. But self-love, oh, it's a word that we hear all the time, right? But like, what does it really mean? How do you really get there? It's a tragic thing that it is one of the hardest things to love yourself. It is the easiest thing to hate yourself.
And I know, and anybody that's listening, if many of you may be able to relate, self-love was just not even in my vocabulary. Picking out every flaw, everything about myself, I hate it. Nothing is ever good enough. You know, nothing is ever good enough. If someone rejects me, it means I'm ugly. It means I'm bad. It means I'm this, I'm a loser. You know, these are things that we say to ourselves. It's so hard, especially today to really fall in love with yourself.
And of course for men as well, but I am going to say, you know, for women too, there's an added layer of it. So I've always struggled like with it, you know, self-hate having an eating disorder, or even harming myself because I had such a deep self-hate. It's just the idea of being confident, the idea of feeling worthy was just so far from me.
I think why now looking at it and the journey kind of leading up is a long one, but from the other podcasts, you can kind of see of going through the ups and downs, accepting my condition and in just in general, accepting who I am. But. You know, I look and I realized, and this was part of the first book I wrote that it's the truth about broken.
It's the unfixed version of self-love. And the reason why I'm bringing that up is because that, that was a time that I realized what the problem was, is we are always waiting to reach something, the perfect way.
When we get the career when we no longer have a mental illness or if you don't and like if you're watching this you don't have a mental illness when you're emotionally stable when you're in a relationship when you literally have life figured out well that is when you are allowed almost we feel to love yourself allowed to be confident you know someone that's a little bit messier and like, like, okay, for an example, let's say that there was an individual who. Is an alcoholic, right.
Or something most likely or rarely you're going to hear that person go, oh, I love myself. Right. Like I love myself, but I always think maybe that's the problem. You know, almost that idea that I have to become, of course. And by the way, like, Like, you know, I'm just using this as an example that, of course, addiction is unhealthy and, you know, will bring you down a very dangerous path in life. But it's the idea that people assume that they should hate themselves.
Maybe it's that problem, though, that they feel that they have to be better to no longer.
They have to be completely sober and then they're going to love themselves. but that is not that can set you up for disappointment in a lot of ways if you love yourself for the broke for not even i mean i don't have a problem with the word broken yeah me neither yeah for the the hurt the wounds the openness the cracks within you and you become confident in that you love those parts of yourself it will be easier for you to believe in a, in a,
you know, to see the horizon, you know, like it's very difficult to see the horizon. If you're constantly hating on yourself and you're waiting for this day, when you get to the mountaintops and you're the, you, your body is where you want it to be. This is what we've been taught, but self-love is your birthright. And, and trust me, and you probably know this too, as a woman with mental illness, it's 10 times a little bit more difficult because you also have the stigma on top of it.
But what I realized was I gave up on that day. I said, forget about it. You know, that day where it's like, I got to be the weight. I got to be this. I got to be that because guess what? It was never going to be good enough. I was still going to think I was, you know, morbidly like overweight. If I was underweight, no matter what weight, no matter where I was in life, it was consistent. And.
And that meant that it wasn't going to be anything like that had nothing to do with things on the outside, which is a cliche. It comes from within, but it was about for me, acknowledging the parts of myself that are, again, I don't have a problem saying broken. A lot of people will go, no, you're not broken. I'm like, well. You know, the thing is, is that there are cracks and wounds in me. And like, there's a Hemingway said, or yeah, Hemingway or Van Gogh,
no, Hemingway, you know, the light, the cracks are how the light gets in. Oh, yes.
Yes, that quote. I might be paraphrasing it, but it's, and that is extremely true, that if you can find and fall in love with yourself, you know, here's the thing is if you're going through a depression, if you're anxious, if you live with mental illness, I give you permission, you are allowed to love yourself you are allowed and you have to speak it out loud you know it's easy you just have to continuously say i love myself i i i'm not a bad person you have
to completely take the thoughts and the self-hate and look at it as though it's outside of you and force yourself to tell yourself the opposite story i press right now i'm low but i am not a bad incapable person. I am experiencing this, but I love myself even when I hate myself and no one's going to rob me of that. I am empowered by these parts. I am empowered by my emotions. For me right now, I have vices. I have unhealthy habits in many ways.
There are, you know, a lot of things that I'm still trying to heal, but I'm still allowed to love myself. I'm still allowed to be confident in the fact that I have insecurities, you know, it's kind of backwards. So that's how I view self-love. I mean, I define it as loving yourself as you are right in this moment that you're listening to this podcast, that you're reading those words, not, you know, loving yourself. You know, when you get to that point of whatever, you know, like the myth of
perfection, right? And I perfection. Yeah. Yeah. And if we go back to the, you know, the alcoholic or, you know, ways that were, you know, illnesses or whatever, you're more likely to seek, you know, help or want better for yourself, if you can love yourself and have compassion.
My I love my therapist right now she makes me do things that make me so uncomfortable and seem ridiculous when I explain them to people but they're so powerful where I had to talk to my anxiety right I had to talk to my anxiety and recognize that my anxiety showed up and like loved me through something because it thought it was keeping me safe right yeah and I had to tell my anxiety like we're not like that anymore I got this right so thinking about it like.
Maybe you've been through something traumatic maybe you have an addictive personality maybe all these things so have compassion for her or him or they exactly and you know and then I think that that flips a switch that you believe that you're worthy of good things right yes we're all we're all like I again I'm in my 30s and and here's the thing though is we are all children truly we're all children seeking to be seen we're all children seeking to be loved you know and um
I think that's extremely powerful and like what you're saying and personification. And another way that I think about it too is I close. And for anybody that would do this is sometimes I close my, like not even close my eyes. I mean, you can close your eyes, but I imagine myself as a child.
Cause for a long time, it was hard for me to look at pictures of myself as a cute little kid, because it made me sad for some reason because I knew what was ahead and like the self-hate because like when you're a kid, you're not quite there. Yeah. Well, I think about it and I say, would you say this to that cute. Adorable little kid version of you that's sitting right there? Or maybe you have nieces and nephews.
I have nieces and nephews and I can tell you right now, I would never, ever, I would go after a person that ever said to them something like what I say to myself. And I think that's an other technique where you got to remember, like, you know, look at your inner child, unlock it. What would you say that to them? Do you see that? Do you see? No, probably not. Maybe some people, for me, it helps, but I think like that.
Did you see, I loved that trend on Instagram where people were like, I do it for her. I actually never did it when it was trending, but I don't care about that. I want to do that again. And it inspired me to find pictures. So I have one when I was seven. And then I have one where I was the most where I think probably things were starting to, you know, develop more and more outward symptoms. And I actually have them on the mirror in my bedroom.
So I see them and I'm like, there's little Shaylee there. And I'm like, yeah, I can't. I have so much compassion for them that I'm trying to transfer that into myself. And here's the thing. Brains can be tricked. You could fake it till you make it with self-love. And I know that sounds terrible, but I remember like I would roll my eyes when I would say beautiful things to myself or I would, you know, like the affirmations. I wouldn't do it before because I was like, right. But it's so powerful.
You can, you can trick your brain. You really can in certain ways. And I don't mean in that you can heal yourself out of bipolar disorder. I mean, in reframing things like you just can. And I just think, yeah. And you can be delusional in that like way of you're not feeling, you know, like one thing my therapist had told me to start doing.
That's very awkward. I'm not a conceited or vain person, but she said, when someone compliments you or like says something like, Oh, you look really good today or something. The first thing is going like, I know, like not snotty way, but going like, thank you. Like, I know. Yeah. I like have been feeling myself lately and people will sometimes, you know, it sounds, but it is helped because I'm speaking. Are you almost want to step into the character, a character?
Yeah. My 18 year old daughter, we love her. She's neuro atypical in different ways. And she will all tell her like, you look beautiful. She's like, she's like, yeah, I do. And I'm just like, love it. I love it. For me, I, and I find with a lot of women, like I'll say, like, I say things like, yeah, but you should have seen me earlier. I'm trying to like, or. Me too, right. And I, oh, I'm not like, oh no, I am not, not right now.
You know, like, oh, I gained five pounds. You know, it's like we completely. Yeah. Yeah. And I realized that I did it one because I believe it, but two, I'm trying to make the other person feel like comfortable. And I even practiced it today because you said some really nice things to me. And I just said instead, I said, oh, thank you. That made me feel so good. Whereas a part of me wanted to be like, you know, like, oh, but you should see my hair in the morning. Or do you know what I mean?
Or just saying thank you. My husband just says, stop, just say thank you. And I'm just like, okay. And it's uncomfortable, but it starts to come naturally. And you're right, as women, especially, you know, if a dude does that, it's like, oh, he's confident. If we were like self-centered or, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. What are some other things that you do or that have helped you along the way to love yourself more? Yeah.
Okay. So definitely I will say there are a lot of great self-help books. Mm-hmm. And, you know, books that of course, there are ones that in I don't, I don't want to say frou-frou, but like ones that in my opinion are like, yeah, but does it work? And I will tell you that the, you know, one great book that has helped me with the anxiety and coping with it, it's called the Dialectical Behavioral Therapy book, the DBT.
It's one of the biggest and it is a workbook and it keeps it very real about like the anxiety that we feel when we fall into hating ourselves. And it gives you like a lot of techniques that, that workbook's the best I've ever done. It's great. It's helped me with regulation. And then I remember the first self-help book because I was like self-help books now. Yeah. Same, same.
Yeah. the first one that i wrote i mean read that i that really is the one that i think kind of got a spark on me was called you are a badass the first one by jennifer marshall love no no no not jennifer marshall i'll have to but it's called you are a badass and i read it years ago is it yellow yep yeah yeah yeah and she says some things in there that are very powerful one that always captivated me was what other people think of you as a reflection of them
not you and she says like right like a reflection of what they believe you know it's the equivalent to.
Okay if i i don't necessarily like country music all right i don't does that mean country music sucks does that mean country music is bad does that mean garth brooks is a horrible singer no. It simply means that that is not my style that is not something i'm right right it doesn't mean it's bad of course not i mean it's a great industry millions of people love it and and And just, it's amazing, but it depends on the person.
So anyways, that's a good way to look at it. So books and those kinds of resources, you know, poetry and quotes and just like self-love social media, body image ones. There's so many models. There's so many body image, you know, women that are talking about loving yourselves.
I mean, like I could name a ton and that talk about even with aging and there's all these new advocates for a different type of self-love so the books that and like you said honestly the self-talk in the daily delusional way of constantly the best way to be delusional is to be it in the direction of loving yourself in and when i begin to feel those thoughts of self-hate, you know, you got to pull yourself back down to earth.
And sometimes like, I just imagine it as like a tornado of all of those thoughts, just going, going, going, but it's outside of me. It's not me, you know, it's moving away, like remember, and it's moving away. And it's just about the language you talk to yourself every single day, every single day, incorporating either self-help. You know, texts or books or social media, consuming something that makes you feel more powerful. Also not consuming. So I have taken a break.
I always tell people, if you are following accounts that make you feel insecure, you should not follow them. Yes. Diversify your feed, right? That is because I don't take breaks because it's my lifeline unless we go camping or whatever.
But I intentionally show up also it's like kind of my job and um and but I I had to be like oh I had all these things that I was aspiring to and I was like feeling me inspired like I now think I need an infinity pool yeah right exactly I need to have these things but I started putting you know like following self-love accounts I follow like things that bring me joy like I follow like these pandas pandas are hilarious because it makes me laugh and then all these like quotes
or different different things found it helps because my feed is very much filled with mental health advocates and or people just sharing that have mental illness so it can get heavy right yes of course things in there and I do I follow a lot of body positivity things because I too had disordered eating and I find that yeah it it did change things people say that but I was like and then I did and it does because they're our brains need all the reminders right and that's why
it's really good to go follow you because because that's one for me like especially like I know either your face or the the white square comes up in the little drawing I'm like oh what am I gonna read. Yeah so my friends go do that right now and. Yeah, I think that that's a really, really good one. One thing, my friend Vasavi that I've interviewed before, she has a book called Say It Out Loud.
And I learned a lot from her because you can do that internally, but she talks about the power of hearing your own voice saying it, even though you're like alone and talking out loud. She talked about like mixing what you're talking about, but saying it like out loud. And it was hard for me. And I'm wondering, I'm going to do something really weird here. Tell me if it's too weird. I'm wondering, so people tell me all these things and then I say, I'm going to go do it.
But what I thought was we could do a practice right now where maybe to, to, you know, show people that you can do it. Maybe we could say three things that we love about ourselves and then just take 30 seconds. And hopefully the people listening could do it right now. Cause I know I always say, I'm going to put that practice into my life. And I don't do it. That's a brilliant idea. Would you be willing?
Yeah. You know what? And I'll do it in a more, I'll do it in the sense of what has been on my mind, because I think that, you know, if I just say like, I am beautiful, I'll give you like a real sense of like things that I'm being insecure about. Yes. Do you need a minute to think? No, I don't need a minute.
I'm not able to do three. three yeah no and you know what it's so funny that I do that because I if people say three favorite or three this I panic and I'm like what are the most three so how about I'm going to rephrase that say some say some facts okay so like for an example I've been talking to I'm sure a lot of people can relate okay so I've been talking to this guy and you know I don't know where things are going and, and. You know, he hasn't texted me as much anymore.
And I kind of have like, so my head has been telling me he's not into you. He's playing you. And also that like, you're not, you know, basically you're, he thinks you're not like smart enough. I know this is okay. He thinks you're not smart. He doesn't like you like he's not attracted to you So the way that like I would do that either I would write this out.
I truly do or as I say to myself There's no evidence to prove that this is true Even if he is feeling that way He can feel that way But I am beautiful and brilliant and strong and amazing and I and. I'm making an assumption about what this person believes. I don't know. I can't control that, but I can control that. I am a badass and I love myself and things will unfold as they will. And even if that sounded like kind of like all over the place,
you're just- No, it didn't. You're helping things. Yeah. Because that's like a real life example. And that's what we want, right? Instead of sometimes I did a series called what anxious things I used to think were hippy dippy that actually work. And these are some of them, right? It's great. It's great when you do it. Okay, wait a minute. And like you just talk it out with yourself.
Well, and I try and tell people too, like I am going to tell you to do a lot of things and I am going to try and practice what I preach and do a lot of things. Yeah. So I think I think mine would be because I struggle with thinking that I like like friends or or or new people. Just I struggle with thinking that I like people more than they like me.
Wow okay yeah so one of the things I tell my like that I tell myself to combat that is that you know that I am worthy of friendship and I am fun and I am I think I'm hilarious and I try and tell myself those things and like you I remind myself like just because like I feel hypomanic and I want to send them like 25 texts. And my friends know this is, they, they, they, they tell me like, Oh, we love it.
And we'd love to know you're in that place and whatever, just because they don't send me 25 back doesn't mean that they don't like love me and see that. So mine is like, you are, you know, you're worthy of friendship and you, you are a good friend. Cause a lot of people, you know, bipolar people aren't good friends or good partners. I combat everything that's wrong.
There's not much that people leave to the imagination. Yeah, so I do that one, and then I. I'm like so confident in what I do and present and I public speak like in front of 600 people or whatever. And then sometimes I'll get home and be like, what did I say? I'm an idiot. Look everything off the internet. You know, no, like it's not worthy or whatever. So, and same with, I'm really struggling right now with monetizing. The podcast has gotten big and the Instagram is big and it's just me.
And what I do is it's worthy of. 1,000%. of, of asking for, you know, it's worthy of money. Let's just say it. It is worth it. Of course it is. Of course. Why is it, you know, here's the thing. Why is it as like activists, as people in this area, nobody else says that in other areas. They're like, Hey, I need to do my podcast, but there's something about acting.
We, we, we're the ones that should be able to do it more, but there's like this fear that people think you will do it for something else. Bottom line is to create more awareness, you have to pay your bills today in the world. Oh, you cannot. Are you kidding me? Yeah. So it's the big one. And I do, I don't do resolutions because I just, I'm going to fail. Yeah. So I pick one word of the year, kind of a guiding word. Last year, the word was worthy. And yeah.
So I'm really working on that. So that I, I, we, we just want to give permission for you all to think, write down, say out loud things, you know, a belief that you believe and combat it with a beautiful thought about yourself and a compliment because the truth is we're all worthy as the messy, beautiful, terrible people that we are, right? It's a both and. And when you can love your shadow side, because we all have them. You can love that shadow side. It makes you want to, like you said,
with the cracks, it makes you want to let the light. Yes. Yes. I love that. I love that. And, Yeah. I want to create more resources now that the book is done too. I see there's such a need when it comes to self-love and, and specifically like with mental illness and stuff. So I love to like dive in that because the thing is, is like you said, it's easy to say, okay, like love yourself, love yourself, but people want like, all right, you know, how do I, how do I do this? Tell me step one.
Right. Right. And it's hard to do it. Right. But I think that that's something I'd like to do because it's so important yeah yeah I started doing this thing for it was just for me and then I put it out there on Instagram and I call it Wednesday wins and I just say I want to be your hype person I want let's all put down something we're proud of right because we tend to do that and I thought oh people are just like it's not going to be an interesting post but I'm like I'm going
to do it because if I say I'm going to show up on Wednesdays for other people I'm going to show up more than for myself. And so people are answering and people are doing that. And it just gives me so much joy to see them because sometimes, you know, I say we can even find the littlest one. If yours is you got out of bed or you moved from the bed or you changed your shirt, that is a huge win that day. Right. And from those things all the way up to the big things and Be easy on yourself.
Be easy on yourself, you know, give yourself compassion. Don't feel like you have to hate yourself because you can't get out of bed. You know, these are things that have been ingrained in our head. So it's just breaking them down. Yes. Let's keep doing that. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm excited to see what you're going to work on next. And I'm just going to marinate in your book and your words are going to stick in my heart.
So all y'all are going to be seeing me talk about it and hopefully we can do things together again. Maybe we'll collab on the interwebs. Absolutely. Absolutely. I would love to have you once I get my blog kicked back up and stuff. I'm like trying to focus one thing at a time that this thing they call focus in the normal world, I guess, but I love what you're doing. And, you know, thank you so much. Thank you so much.
And anybody out there that has mental illness, even if you don't, you know, give yourself grace, love yourself as a person you are right now. Just, just, just tell yourself like, all right, I love you. I love you. Even if it's screaming in your head, You will get there. You will. But it's not easy and nothing is. Nothing ever big like is easy. You know, it doesn't. And going back to what we've talked about before, you don't arrive in self-love. It's a practice.
Yeah, it's a practice. I wanted to mention in talking about being a hype person, a hype girl, I want to be your hype girl. And I want to tell people what I didn't know until I started being friends with authors is that reviews are so important, especially on Amazon. And they lift things and they're going to get Hannah's book into hands that need to be. So please read them, buy them. But also I always forget too.
So I'm trying to give reviews. Mine will be in Canada, but there's an Amazon in Canada as well. But just these reviews support Hannah, support all of your friends with mental illness and all of their work. And so I just wanted, I remembered that. So please go give a five-star review. Tell, say something that touched you or something that you love. Hannah has another book. Go and get that one. And I just want everyone to celebrate you for all that you are.
Thank you so much. I am honored. I am touched. I am so grateful. I'm so grateful. You are very special. And I am so happy I got to be a part of this today. And I receive that. That's what you practice. I receive it. Yes. You should have said, I know. Okay. Yeah, I know. It can come off bad sometimes. I know. I know. It's funny. Awesome. Well, yeah. Friends forever. I am so excited for people to see this.
Please leave comments if you have questions for Hannah. If you have questions for me, we want to hear from you. Our biggest thing I can tell is connection. And so. Absolutely. Yeah. And have a messy and beautiful day, everyone. Yes. Yes. Bye. Bye. Thanks again for tuning in. You can find video versions of This Is Bipolar on our YouTube channel. We also have all our previous 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. It's this. Music.