I’m an independent contractor. This means I sit in front of a computer screen, working at home, alone and writing all day. While this is the dream for many a writer, I can tell you it gets lonely. It’s tough not having work in an office where there are coworkers to chat with at the water cooler. And this lack of socializing is particularly salient because I have bipolar disorder. I have a tendency to cocoon anyway, and then you take away the day-to-day interactions with people and I suddenly find that I haven’t talked to a person in real life in a week. So I have to schedule in a personal life – whether I want to or not.

I usually choose a specific topic for these blogs and work to describe the importance of managing and accepting mental illness. Last week, I wrote a blog focusing on recovering from and recognizing depression. This week, based on my life currently, I want to talk about stress and the impact it has on those who live with mental illness. I am really struggling with this right now.

Finding the right ADHD medication is just like finding the right medication for any illness: your clinician evaluates your symptoms, administers diagnostic tests, and prescribes a medication; you take the medication and report side effects and changes to your ADHD symptoms. Together, you and your clinician work to gradually find the right balance. It can take weeks, months, even years. But what if the process was more efficient?

Silver Linings aren't always visible right away, and sometimes we never find them.  In our family, the silver lining of new friendship emerged this week from an awful event a few weeks ago. On his way to an "anonymous" meeting he has attended for almost eight years without incident, my son Ben became the victim of a crime.  He was thrown to the ground, threatened with what the mugger said was a knife (we'll never know, nor do I want to), and robbed. The kids (two of them, he says) took his keys, his backpack with all his belongings, his cash, and his feeling of safety.  Ben will never go to that meeting again, because the neighborhood now holds these terrifying memories . The silver lining? Well, in finding a new meeting to attend, Ben has finally met some young people his own age who also have had issues with mental health.

Is your anxiety worse in the morning? Do you think, 'why can't I just get out bed'? I'm rarely on speaking terms with breakfast. The thought of getting up, a whole new day, it can be paralyzing. I'm told it isn't this way for everyone. Nor does a cup of coffee fix it, would that it could. If you have an anxiety disorder, or experience panic, it's not uncommon to find mornings particularly tough.

(continued from Part 1) I spent Tuesday afternoon with a delightful group of first-graders, at a school more like Bob's--middle-class, mostly native English-speakers. This class had only one Bob--a little girl I'll call "Bonnie"--but that wasn't the only contrast from Tuesday.

Surviving ED really is the fulfillment of a dream: to reach out to other people who have eating disorders, and to offer them both honesty and hope and perhaps help them feel just a little bit less alone in their own journeys of recovery. Surviving ED is one-year old  this week. The road of recovery has been long and winding, with many twists and turns, lapses and relapses, and picking myself up to try just one more time. The journey of recovery sometimes feels endless and tiring, and I know that it is hard to not want to give up. However, at the end is freedom from anorexia and ultimately, a full and healthy life.

Since my bipolar diagnosis, I’ve spent a lot of time worrying about romantic relationships: how to find one, how to act right when I'm in one, how to pick the right one. I've dedicated tons of blog air time to dating and to family because those relationships are my triggers. But I've neglected to address a very important person in many of our lives, an important relationship for people with mental illness: the therapeutic relationship.

Anyone can experience Schizophrenia I believe there is a self destruct button within each and every mind. For some, this button is easier to press than others, but given just the right conditions even the most humane, sane person can experience madness. There are many types of madness, most of which are described in detail on this website, however the type of madness my blog deals with, schizophrenia, is a true escape from our world into an imagined one. It is considered by many to be the most debilitating and severe mental illness, because

You can’t put a price on good mental health. I might go broke, but that’s better than the misery of full-blown depression.