Tiny Habits That Save Us: Living with Bipolar 2

To conversations with. My name is Shaili Hugendorn, 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. This is Bipolar. Hey everyone, just before we start the show, I wanted to let you know that some of these episodes are the episodes called Going Deeper. I started recording them a year and a half ago.

I have a whole backlog of them, so I wanted to start sharing them with you all. They are 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 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. I'm so excited to get them out there.

I will be probably putting up around one a month. So this is what I'm going to share with you. Care of yourself.

Take some deep breaths. And let's go deeper together. Hi everyone, welcome back to This is Bipolar. This is one of the episodes I'm calling Going Deeper. And so I am interviewing Jade Rose, just inspiring, brilliant. She is raw and honest and real. And you're going to want to get to know her before we start today. So if you haven't been here before, my name is Shaylee. I'm a mom, a mental illness activist, advocate, and I live with bipolar 2 disorder.

And Jade, would you tell us a little bit about you? Yeah, so I'm Jade Rose. I'm also a mom, also a mental health advocate, and I also live with bipolar 2. So a lot of synergies there. I live in Australia. I'm in a rural area of Australia called our Snowy Mountains. Hills, really, if you're from a big mountainous part of Europe or America, ours do not really cut it, but we try.

So I am also a writer. I've written a novel about commercial fiction about the lived experience of coming to terms with bipolar. And I host a podcast as well called The Neurodiaries, which is people sharing their stories of mental illness, neurodivergence, and mental health conditions. I love it. I'm excited to go listen to more episodes.

I would love to just go deeper with you right now and talk about some of your coping strategies or things that have helped you. And I would love to just start with depression. I would love to hear some things, little, big, that help you out. Yeah, absolutely. When I was younger, I used to cope with depression, not very well, I would say, but I used to have this sense of, I need to fix it. I need to think my way out. I need to do something.

And I was always like grasping at straws, trying to find like the one thing that was going to snap me out of this mood. And that made everything worse. It exacerbated symptoms. It made me more overwhelmed. It made me more confused. It made me upset when nothing was working. So what I do these days is a very different approach. The main thing that I do, there's three things. One, I distract myself. I can't trust my brain right now. It's not being nice to me.

I just try and get my head out of it. I don't usually watch a lot of TV in my day-to-day, but when I'm in a depressive episode, I'm putting on Netflix. I'm finding the trashiest show I can find to binge watch or else I'm watching movies back-to-back. Back in my last depressive episode, I watched all three Bridget Joneses in one day.

Love it. But I'm just trying, if it's not TV, if I feel up to a little bit of socializing, I might tag along with a safe friend and just feel happy to let me be in that space if I'm up for it, just to take my mind off being with myself. Reading, I usually read a lot and I read every day. I struggle to read if I'm in that sort of headspace. So generally like tv I will just watch tv so that's my first thing is distraction.

Even if I'm capable of it a little bit of masking at work actually find helps me like jumping on some phone calls and having to fake it it just gets me in the present it gets me out of my head but there's there's not always a place where I'm up to that level sometimes I'm in bed crying and can just barely watch Netflix.

So you have to choose the distraction that you're, capable of in that moment the other thing I do is try and stick to my routine as much as possible so I can go into this more but part of my the way that I maintain or manage my bipolar, is healthy lifestyle choices and a healthy routine in a way and keeping with that routine and these things as much as possible that I know keep me on an even keel so when I'm in a low I I might

definitely not feel like going for my usual morning walk or doing any exercise or having a shower or making myself lunch. But I try and force myself to stick with those things as much as possible. I might drag myself for a walk around the block, even if it's a quarter of the length it usually is. At least I've done it. I might try and make myself eat. I try making myself stay healthy and just stick to regular meals and all that sort of thing.

I've found that in a depressive cycle, there comes a point in time where I feel like I could start to come out of this. And I feel like if I have kept as close as possible to my baseline, then when that point comes along, it's a lot easier for me to then jump over it and get back to a regular sense. A regular programming. If I really...

Gave up trying and attempting to do any of those things I feel like it would be a lot harder and take me a lot longer to come out of it it's really hard because you think what's the point of going for a walk I have no energy I don't want to I'm so fatigued if you can even walk to the letterbox and back yeah every little thing is going to help you when that moment comes that you start to when the tables start to turn again so those are probably my main things i would say for depression

yeah i'm i'm over the last five six years noticing that helps too before i would be so cynical like this doesn't fix anything but it does some kind of synapse in the brain that i that i accomplished i remember even before it was like okay if you move you change and you move to the couch from your bed Do you know what I mean? Yeah. My big thing is, I remember my therapist said, make ridiculously small goals. Yeah. Woke up and then you can check.

And I do reverse to-do lists. So the only thing on that list is things I've already done. I won't put anything on it that, do you know what I mean? Because that's just another thing to blame myself. So at night I'll write them and I draw the box that I can check off. And yeah, it really, it doesn't make a huge difference. And yet it does.

I think it keeps me a little bit more, a little bit less stuck and a little bit, more present and I one of the things I do too is I force myself to reach out because my brain tells that here we are again nobody wants to hear it again it's the same old they won't want to be friends do you know what I mean and every time like especially when you find your good ones right or ones safe ones every time they're there and I think to myself I have a friend that lives with diabetes

if they i'm not going to judge them if every time their sugar is low every time i get in episodes yeah oh i love those ones and i love that you said because so often we're told.

Don't mask feel your feelings i think there's a place for that for sure but i think the in a depression isn't that isn't the same as being sad right yeah and i have this thing with feel your feelings yeah i'm big on that because i do a lot like spiritually on a healing journey and there is a time and a place for feel your feelings and work through your issues and your trauma and stuff and let that out in bipolar i don't necessarily think there's a place for feel

your feelings those feelings they're not necessarily real this is a mental health condition that's some of the worst advice I've ever received for bipolar and it's led me to a very low place if I'm just like oh okay let me sit and feel these feelings it's endless it's limitless don't go down there just close that close that door because and I think that's how people say oh it's tied to grief or oh it's tied to this that can all be intertwined it's shown that it's actually medical health

condition. It runs in families, et cetera.

And I think that ties into a lot. I get. Like I used to get so upset or feel so down because it was like, trust your intuition. You have your knowing. And I'm like, I don't know when my brain is lying to me. So I can't fully trust my intuition. There's a lot of what does your true self say? And I'm like, bipolar masks my true self. So I find, although I think that really helps for some people, and there are times in my life where I can trust my gut feeling, but not when I'm paranoid or sad.

My gut feelings run away. Nobody likes you. Everyone's better off without you. Am I going to sit in that feeling? Hell no. That's horrible. So I love that you said that. And I remember in one of my deepest depressions, I remember, and not in a creepy way, but when we would drive around and when people have their curtains open and you see someone walk by or whatever.

And I remember just looking and being like wow like I wonder if they just feel like regular feelings like I used to just wonder or imagine what it would be like that's why books and movies like being so sucked into a character that you just forget that doom and gloom yeah overwhelm yeah I love that I love those I remember I used to always almost like mock yoga right and silly enough it works it really helps and.

I can, I don't know about you, but I cannot do it alone. And so I like pay my instructor and it's one-on-one because I can't not show up. I can convince myself not to go to a class. And so I pay her and we meet one-on-one and it's the only thing I've kept consistent. And that's the only time that I can meditate at all. Like we do a little bit of breathing and stuff. If it's not guided at home, I'll be like, okay, I'm good.

Yeah or i do it really well when i'm teaching children will take a moment and because i have to model it i'll do it but i have to be in those situations where it's a forced thing like i don't yeah i get that yeah how do you do yoga i'm the opposite like i do it at home i rarely go to classes and particularly if i'm in a low like i don't think i could face going to it depends how I guess, that I would struggle to face going to a class. I'm quite an isolator.

But I think the way I do yoga and with a mood condition, a lot of the time you have yoga music playing and it has to be this calm and you have to get into this calm and spiritual headspace. You actually don't. I do yoga sometimes listening to Taylor Swift.

I'll be like, I feel like that, I'm going to do yoga listening to that. I'll do yoga listening to I have an upbeat playlist with a bit of Coldplay and Hosier and yeah you know chain smokers and like things like that I match it to my energy and I match it to my mood sometimes I do the yoga music and it's a bit more zen and a bit more yinny but I really, if I'm hypermanic or like just a bit more energized I can't slow down and do a fucking Zen session that's not happening and the same with.

In a depressive state, if I can force myself to the mat, it doesn't matter what I do there. I don't have to do an hour of yoga. I can do child's pose for like three minutes. The act of going to your mat gives you that 1%. And I think when you're in a low, it's all about the 1% shifts and the 1% changes, the tiny goals.

Accumulating a whole bunch of one percents over say a two-week episode is going to add up to a place where you are standing on a brick high enough to pull yourself over the ledge yes yeah there's this woman that I follow that at the end of all her videos she says.

Little things little things lead to big things let's not rot and I love it so much it's so beautiful I think of it I think of it all the time so you touched a little bit on the types of music and how you can't I'm that what I love about having an individual instructor and I'm privileged enough to be able to do that is I'll tell her so I'll be like if you were planning on 15 minutes of body scan and breathing I cannot do that so yeah cool yeah so it's really nice and she's Yeah,

flexible and so talented. She can just come up with whatever. We're not like to a programmer. I'll be like, look, I got 45 minutes in me tops. And sometimes not even that. But yeah, it's really, it's really cool.

But you talked a little bit about matching your energy. And I'm curious about things that you do when you're hypomanic. Yeah. So do you mean like activities that I'll do or like ways I sort of give it? Yeah. Like how you cope or what kinds of things help you, you not get super high or how do you harness it? Yeah. I think depression, I'm really good at picking up the minute I feel a little bit of depression.

Hypermania is a little bit harder to self-identify. so a lot of the time it'll be my husband that will nudge me or just prompt me to have a little bit more self-awareness and check in with me and just check are you starting to feel a bit hypermanic do you think this is a little bit of an episode and that could be two ways it could be that I'm getting quite irritable or snappy a lot of anger under the surface or it could be that But I'm starting

to become quite excited and get a racing mind and talk at him very fast. And particularly, I try and keep like a good sleep hygiene schedule as part of just lifestyle maintenance. But I do push that to the side when I'm feeling a bit hypermanic as well, because I might have projects or activities or things that I just don't want to stop. I really lose track of time in the sense of going to bed.

It's not that I won't shower, but I will shower at 1130 at night instead of 7pm when the kids go to bed. Like my routine goes off a bit. Like I won't eat. I'll skip dinner and have a bowl of cereal at 10 o'clock at night. It's those little time and space things cease to matter as much. Yeah. So something that really helps me is that very gentle prompting to notice. And once I'm aware of it, I can make steps to calm it down.

Like particularly if I need to go to a function or anything, then I can just be self-aware and be a bit mindful in the way I'm coming across at people. Because social cues, social norms go out the window and it can be very intense with all this energy just coming at you, I'm sure. Yeah. Little practices, little bits of awareness to just calm it back are probably the main thing that helped me deal with hypomania.

Yeah. I love that you said gentle nudges because if my husband flat out told me, I'd be like, go get lost. Yeah. I know he'll be like, oh, you're chatty or something. So that's like a signal. Oh, it seems like you have lots of ideas today. I'm like, damn it. Yeah. You're right.

And very like suggestive as well. It's like a prompting for you to self-reflect, not like an accusation or like assumption of, oh, you're hypermanic. It's, no, that's for you to decide, but I'm just making you aware that you're starting to show some symptoms. What do you think about that? Yeah. It is a really gentle way because as with hypomania, there's this.

Big energetic happy side there's also this irritability elevated side of it that you don't want to you don't want to wake that beast yeah yeah and it's like self-reflective capacity goes out the window and I hear you with the bedtime and that it feels like like delicious to steal the night be up when it's such a weird feeling it's so bad yeah I remember my last That's what it feels like.

I'm just going to read another chapter. Yeah. It's like this untapped time, this uncharted time that is like there for the taking and it hasn't got any rules on it. There's no like. Exactly. And no one can, I don't, no one can see or there's not, I don't have any should be doing, especially when the kids were little because you don't get a lot of time.

And even now because now my kids stay up the same or later so even though they're like they're in their rooms they're doing their own thing I have a lot of time but there's just and then my husband worked until recently worked at home all the time since 2020 even though he's downstairs he's not just that fact that I'm like alone in the house right so I remember like you I watch trashy tv I like but all. Binge like Secret Life of Mormon Wives or whatever.

And I just have to finish it. But that's one where I really have to kick my own butt. You are going to pay for this. When you get up to drive your kids in the morning, you are going to regret this. Do this for your future self, please. Don't have that extra iced coffee for your future self. I try to think about that. And I have a list too. I keep a list.

Remember these hypomanic signs and I'll review it because I you forget it's all encompassing you forget and that urgency that you said that's one of the big things that I feel like it's very urgent if I ask someone to do something or people not calling me back I'm like oh like so annoying like.

Like clearly my stuff should be the of utmost importance yeah I think I pitched a project at work one time and like it was just so passionate this was going to have such a huge impact and make a difference and I couldn't understand why no one else was like coming at it with the same enthusiasm and like rapture that I had and it was like it's very frustrating why no one else was like.

Jumping on board with this great idea and then coming out of that I was like I don't know if we need to do that that's so I remember too getting hurt feelings when I gave gifts that people weren't as enthusiastic as me when it's even though I knew they loved it when I love something I'm just like oh I cannot believe how this means the world to me and then someone's oh thank you I'm like what the hell oh thank you you hate it what's going on yeah why are you not giving me

the same reaction and I do this like double checking are you sure you like it I don't think you really like all badger my husband right like I don't think so or I don't think you're fully telling me and he's for the love what I'm saying is what I mean I'm like it doesn't feel yeah I know what you mean like it just doesn't you don't feel it on that same visceral level as the same sort of excitement and energy level that you feel and you're like

yeah and i think i'm getting it yeah i think i'm hard on them that way because i'm just like why can't you feel like about social justice how come you don't can't you feel that like in your bones. I'm concerned about it. I'm like, ah. So sometimes I tell him and I've talked to him before about, do you know that when you act anxious about something or if you're worried about something, that actually gives me a break.

So maybe could you pretend that some things are a big deal so that I can take the other side where I'd be like, oh, maybe. Do you know what I mean? Like sometimes when he has a big reaction to things, it almost gives me permission to not. Or if he meets me at my big reaction. Yeah, I think I know what you mean. It's like, if you're not having a reaction to it, I need to carry the reaction for both of us.

Yeah, and I need to convince you, and I will not stop if you're not convinced how important this is. Yeah, I think one thing I've been doing now, and I remember thinking the same, I rolled my eyes at all the simple things because I'm like, bipolar is so big, don't tell me simple things to do. But as we have discussed, small things lead to big things.

I do all just go even if i can't lay down even if i'm pacing i'll go in a dark room even for five minutes because i am so affected by light right and, Yeah, I'll go in, I'll just go in and just have some darkness. My friend Andrea told me about, there's actually like these amber glasses you can get that I want to get that just dull things a little bit. Yeah. And I find if I like do a little bit of like sensory deprivation, there can be some reflective.

And I'm telling you, sometimes it's five minutes, right? Right. Or sometimes I need to go away from everybody or I'll say to my husband, I just I'm going to be I need to be alone for the afternoon because I actually know I'm going to hurt your feelings or somebody else's. So I'm just going to go generally. I don't make a great choice and I go shopping, but sometimes I'll go somewhere and just or I during 2020, I did a lot of driving alone.

Yeah just being in my car just to have a calm sort of place to feel safe and just feel able to regulate a little bit because I get tired of doing the apology tour oh I'm sorry I said that, sorry I was mad again I'll go to my yoga mat again in a hypermanic episode yeah I find that super effective for trying to calm myself down like I might try and do a gentler session or put on the calming music and I find it really lowers my like I'll

go into it with a lot more racing mind and everything and it does actually it's effective in calming me down and just getting into the breath if you do child's pose and hold child's pose for even a minute you are forced to take a deep breath like i i do this as a getting to sleep trick sometimes too when you do child's pose i didn't know something about the angle or having your head on the ground after a few breaths like you always end up taking a deeper breath and it's very resetting

and that just that moment like really helps you settle into yeah and I think there's a few poses like that like legs up the wall and stuff and I think I'm not sciencey but I think I read something has to do with like your.

Parasympathetic nervous system yeah that's it get it it's too big of a word but yeah those kind of things and it's true like sometimes before bed or even if I do a nighttime practice the legs up the wall thing it feels so silly but it does help yeah always for hypomania because I get like the restless legs as well which makes it really hard to sleep so I'll often be lying in bed with my legs just sticking up in the air because that's.

Trying to do whatever you can to keep yourself like regulated and going to sleep. Something I found that really works for me as well, if anyone struggles with insomnia and getting to sleep, this was probably my most aggravating symptom throughout my teen years and early 20s. The one thing I found that helps me the most is reading on a Kindle. Because when you read on a Kindle, it's a non-LED light.

You can turn all the other lights in the room off and you can lie there and just read and I do this every single night and it is the number one thing I found most effective, in turning my brain off because it's like depression or hypomania or just normal states as well I struggle to turn my brain off and struggle to sleep so it's it's like turning on a track but when you read it's like you're giving it something else to yeah to churn on And then naturally,

like, I will generally just read until I drop the book in my eyes close. Like, it sounds a bit, like, intense, I guess. It probably is intense. This is the way I experience the world. This is what happens. And that's, I could not love Kindle enough. That's awesome. I've been listening to audiobooks because then I don't have anywhere to look. So it's like I'm deprived of everything else. And I love, which took me way longer than another person to learn, I bet, that you can put a timer on.

Because what I was doing is it would play all night and then I lost my spot. But you can put 15 minutes or 30 minutes. And I find because I have to.

I almost am forced to close my eyes or whatever it's that's been really helping me because paper books i still the night with them it's really helped me and i think one thing before we wrap up my therapist said too is probably what happens when you go to your mat mat probably what happens when you've got the kindle also too if you repetitively repeat something that makes you feel a certain way or even if you are telling yourself it makes you certain feels you certain a way your brain

recognizes that and is oh this is what we do we calm down here oh this is what we do when we're looking at our kindle otherwise i'm like that i need to have guts for sleeping i don't go in there until i'm ready to read my kindle and go to sleep basically anything else i have to do out of the room yeah so i think that's really important even if you do it on a couch just having that it's it you really can do little tricks you can trick your little brain yeah yeah it's cool isn't it and that's like

really encouraging because i think it's good to say once you start to learn these tricks and these practices and what figure out what works for you and what triggers you. Bipolar gets easier to live with in my experience anyway easy or not easier it gets more manageable You figure out your management style, your pattern, it becomes quite bearable, still hard work, but...

It's worth it yeah and i think yeah i agree that about the becoming more manageable and i think i feel less desperate even if they're no because it's like there's forward movement if i'm trying to do something even if it's little because the biggest thing is getting stuck right and yeah like there's nothing you can do and yeah what's if i just do these things so yeah if you're someone that's lying in bed today or feeling so down or so hard, just,

the smallest thing right change out of your clothes do the thing brush your teeth just do the thing and know that that isn't that's enough and then just keep showing up and you'll add to those things and so I have a really funny one that I love that I'll just share quickly, for me straightening my hair to some extent but to a bigger extent painting my nails.

Makes me feel good because you get this when you have a freshly painted set of nails and you look down and you're like ah it's that little moment where you're like my nails look amazing yeah I don't know why but when I was in my early 20s and I was really struggling with these loads and stuff this was just one little thing that I did that okay I was having a really bad night or something I'd go and sit on the couch and I'd put something on and I'd do my hair and I'd paint my nails yeah and

it's just a one percenter but it was like one little funny thing that kept kept me moving forward yeah that reminds me and I remember my I have this one friend that would always when she gets sad or whatever she would get dressed up and or even to stay at home she'd put on a sparkly shirt she always put on lipstick she'd be like unshowered or whatever she'd put on lipstick or I wear big jewelry.

I'll wear it even when I'm at home. And I have, I never used to have at-home clothes, but COVID, I owned my first pair of sweatpants when COVID happened. I refused, but now I have, but instead of the gray, I buy the brightest, like my husband hates me. I have these bright yellow sweatpants are bright because I think even seeing those colors, right? Colors, yeah. So I know when I was really down in COVID, I'd put on this sparkle.

I just feel ridiculous but it makes me laugh a little and yeah and whatever so it's so bizarre it's. You can be the lowest, like most apathetic feeling, like nothing matters. There's no purpose in the world, but my nails look great. Yeah.

Yeah, I love that. I'm so glad you brought that up. Jade, before we end our conversation, I could talk to you forever. I would love to hear what is something or something someone's done or said to you that's actually been helpful. One of the biggest questions I get is, what can I do? And I don't know what to say. And I'm just wondering, yeah, I'm wondering what you think about that.

Yeah, it's a really hard question for me, actually, because I think there's a lot of things that have been said that are not helpful. And a lot of the times I have felt very alone with my experience of being bipolar and trying to feel seen and heard and feel safe with other people has often not been the reality for me in that.

But through that I've learned what I need from others when I'm in an episode and particularly a low episode and when I'm not in one I can articulate that quite clearly so over the years it's gotten a little bit easier none of my support network are trained or were ever exposed or trained in like how to support someone with bipolar no one really is right they're learning it at the same time it's very confusing for everyone to know what to do in that circumstance.

So I've had to figure out what I need and then teach it to say my husband but one of the most helpful things for me is just holding space for me and my emotions and just, being a protective bubble I can't face the world today Okay. I need to know that that's okay and that someone is holding that space for me. Someone has my back. I don't need to worry about it. And also just knowing that it's okay. It's okay to be me with my emotions. Like it's okay that I'm having an episode.

Not to worry. Like I don't need other emotions thrown on top of that. I don't need to feel guilty because I'm unable to show up to a social event today.

I don't I don't need to feel guilty because trying to cook dinner for the kids is making me cry yeah no it's holding that space for me to have my experience I can cook dinner for the kids crying that's fine I can do that I'm still doing it it's getting done it's fine but having that reaction of like why are you crying like you need to stop crying god that's so bad that's not helping anything so just let me do my thing let me work through my episode help me

with my schedule and help me do the things that I know works for me but just hold the space while I go through that really yeah yeah it's true because you feel crappy enough to then judge yourself or feel like other people are disappointed in you is a whole extra layer yeah I love that I remember for. I had one friend and I remember it be like almost shocking when she was like, what do you need? And I was like, I don't know. No one's ever asked me that before. Yeah.

Thought about it and wrote it down. And I wrote it down when I was not in the episodes because what I need from someone when I'm depressed is very different than what I know when I'm hypomanic. And also if someone asks you when you're in an episode, you're like, what do you need? I don't know. If I'm in a depressive episode, I don't know. I can't think straight.

I can't. I'm so confused. Everything's blurry. I can't communicate it even if I knew words aren't coming right now so I think communicating it when you're in a normal state and having a sit down and be like this let's talk about this is an action plan for the next time I go into an episode yeah it's really key as well yeah and I love that some of my friends now they'll say would this be helpful and give me two things that they could do And I'm like, oh, I can do that. I can choose that.

I'll know if it's helpful or not, but I might not be able to tell you it's helpful. And about a month ago, I was back in the whole, what's the point? This world is a dumpster fire mood. And I let them know we have a WhatsApp chat, the three, four of us. And she said, I've done these series a couple of times where I did 45 reasons to stay alive in my 45th year of life and different.

She's like, would it be helpful if I sent you a message every day telling you my reason to stay alive and you don't have to message me back? And I was like, that actually would be really helpful. And then I look forward to them. And then it usually makes me say something back or.

Yeah. Yeah, and I found that, really powerful instead of if someone just asked me how I was every day I'd be like I'm crappy every day thanks she's just telling I'm like distract me tell me something yes distract me let me tag along talk to me as if everything's normal but don't expect me to talk back as if it's normal on my end let me sit with you even if I'm crying yeah let me be in the world without having to engage in the world yeah yeah and like nothing you're going to say

or do is going to bring me out. Of the depression or out of this and so i feel like there's the extra guilt because i know they're trying and want me to like when i used to go to church i don't go anymore to this church i used to end up on the prayer list and i knew they wanted me to move to the answered prayer part right so i'd end up telling i'd end up lying because i knew there was disappointment that i was always back on and that and the meaning was well but it was actually the

worst oh i love that this was such a good life-giving conversation thank you for saying yes and coming on the podcast and being my friend can you tell everybody where to find you where can they find yeah absolutely And first of all, thanks for having me on. I've loved this conversation.

It's so helpful to connect with other bipolar people. Like it is hard in real life to find anyone that has bipolar because a lot of the time people aren't openly bipolar. It's hard to have those real conversations and put yourself out there. So just the ability to connect with you and have this conversation and have shared experience. Because one of the hardest things is never feeling seen or heard or understood. Because if you don't have bipolar, you just can't get it on a felt level.

Knowing other people that do experience that, connecting with this beautiful community is, yeah, as you say, life-saving, life-giving as well. So really appreciate you having me on today. If you want to find more of my things, you can find me on Instagram under jade.rose.rights. So I share on there about both about my lived experience with bipolar and also updates on my novel, which is called Hearts of Glass. And it's about a young woman coming to terms with bipolar.

And you can also find me at the Neuro Diaries podcast. That's the Instagram handle. There's links to it from the Jade account. And if you want to listen to more episodes about lived experience with bipolar, but also autism, ADHD, depression, postnatal, anxiety, everything, mental health, mental illness, neurodivergence, then you can come and check us out and give that a listen as well.

I love it. I love it. I will be listening to more episodes and everybody go and everything and just give Jade some love sender messages. Again, thank you so much. Loves being here. Thank you, Shaylee. This is Bipolar. 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 this is.