If you haven’t heard the tragic news, I’m very sorry to tell you that Robin Williams died by apparent suicide, Monday, August 11, 2014. He was 63 years old. Williams suffered from substance abuse issues and likely bipolar disorder (his depression was confirmed recently by his publicist, bipolar not as much). In other words, we lost one of us. We lost one of the bipolar/depression community at large. And the stark reality of losing a person with a mental illness who is so incredibly brilliant, talented and outwardly happy can easily bring about feelings of depression, anxiety and even our own thoughts of suicide. All of us, myself included, need to react to this tragically genuinely, but without allowing it to make our own mental health or depression worse.

In a traditional model of bipolar disorder, a mood episode (depression/mania/hypomania) lasts (untreated) for a prolonged period of time. Typically, an episode will last from weeks to months. In a traditional model, people with untreated bipolar disorder only experience three or fewer mood episodes per year. To many people that actually sounds like a great blessing because, for many people, mood changes come far more rapidly. People who experience more than three mood episodes per year have what’s known as rapid cycling bipolar disorder. People who have moods that only last days have ultra-rapid cycling bipolar disorder. And people whose bipolar moods last less than that? That’s known as ultradian cycling bipolar disorder.

So I’ve just returned from 10 days in Parma, Italy (see about bipolar vacation planning, here). It was a week-and-a-half of parmigiano reggiano, prosciutto di Parma, gelato and other things that only Italians really know how to make. People often joke that they “need some time off to recover from that vacation.” Yes, hilarious. I’m not exactly sure what they mean by this but what I can say is that as a person with bipolar, I absolutely do need time to recuperate from a vacation.

When I think about depression I think of crushing sadness. I think of heavy, devastating sadness that will not move or shift for anything. I think of a sadness that penetrates your bones and makes life feel like it’s not worth living. I definitely identify sadness with depression. But is depression really just profound sadness?

These days my functionality, and bipolar pain level, is fairly predictable. When I wake up, I feel pretty crummy. Slowly, as the coffee hits my system, I feel a little better and become more functional. That functionality, though, only lasts for a few hour before the bipolar pain comes raging in and I find myself too depressed, in too much pain, or too anxious to do much of anything. In other words, midday, I know that bipolar pain is on its way. I know it’s coming.  I am anticipating my bipolar pain. But how do you handle it when you know that bipolar pain is on its way?

I’ve been having a very hard time making myself take a shower. There is nothing like knowing that your hair needs to be washed, trying to make that happen all day, and then realizing, at bedtime, that you’ve failed, again. Now, as I’ve remarked earlier, we don’t want to shower when we’re sick and this is just a part of the grand disease known as depression. I get that. But somehow, that doesn’t make me feel like any less of a failure.

Yesterday I gave a talk about bipolar disorder to a group of students in 11th grade for the Bipolar Disorder Society of British Columbia. I have given this talk many times and, in general, students love it. It might just be because they get out of math class for the day, or, possibly, I do a good job. Who can say? We get feedback from every teen we give this talk to. After the talk, I review all the feedback and make sure there are no issues with it (such as a teen in immediate need to help). And yesterday, one of the feedback forms called me an ego-stroking b*tch. And, I have to say, this never happens. The students are normally a very good audience and their feedback is usually quite genuine. Sometimes they have a comment on something they think can be improved, which is entirely legitimate, but never, has anyone called me a b*tch before. Out of the class of 30, that was the only negative thing. But it’s the only thing I can think about. Between my bipolar obsessiveness and my depressive negativity, I seem to be solely focused on the negative.

There is legislation in the United States that prevents people from being discriminated against based on an illness - and this includes mental illness. So, then, there should be no discrimination against those with bipolar disorder in the workplace. Right?

According to Substance abuse and bipolar comorbidity, up to 50% of people with bipolar disorder also have a history of substance abuse or dependence, and some studies have found even higher numbers.1 So, half of us folks with bipolar disorder also battle an addiction to drugs (including alcohol). But why is that? Why are so many people with bipolar disorder addicted to drugs?

I’ve been writing about bipolar disorder and mental illness for 11 years. Eleven years. It’s been a long road. And during that time I have heard a lot of people say a lot of horrible things about people with bipolar disorder. In no particular order, people have accused people with bipolar disorder of being: violent, manipulative, self-centered, selfish, abusive and many other negative things. Certainly, if I bumped into a person with those characteristics, I wouldn’t want to be in a relationship with him or her. However, are people with bipolar really like that? Should people with bipolar disorder be in relationships? (I'm Bipolar: Will Anyone Ever Love Me?)