Bipolar people
 

I sourced a really great book about staying well with bipolar. Was wondering if anyone was like a health care practitioner who was "successfully" living with bipolar?
Do you have any role models (famous/ not famous people) living with bipolar that inspire you?
I had a teacher living with bipolar who inspired me.

Check out the books by Kay Redfield Jamison. She's the top psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins and she has quite severe bipolar.

Stephen Fry. So much Stephen Fry.

^ I don't have bipolar but that a million times that. Try his documentary The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive.

Here it is!
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGDl6-lyfMY"][subtitled] Part 1: Stephen Fry The Secret Life Of The Manic Depressive - YouTube[/ame]

I don't have bipolar either, but Stephen Fry is a role model to me. His documentary was amazing.

Yes to Dr. Jameison- are there any non actors that are bipolar?

Honestly can't see why this makes a difference... suffering is suffering, regardless of chosen profession.

I've seen the Stephen Fry documentary. There is a certain allowance that is made for actors IMHO and having a condition like bipolar for stars such Chris Brown, Catherine Zeta Jones and others can be used as an excuse or a fashion accessory. They may be able to channel their creativity and hypomania etc. into their work. I am just interested in hearing more about every day persons who are surviving withe diagnosis in the world. It is not just about suffering- I actually am more interested in theories of staying well.

Rachel Perkins is a British psychologist with bipolar

Black box is a new series on ABC- just seen a clip but I think it is similar to Do no harm. I think it sensationalizes the mental illness though. And I do not believe suffering is suffering. Disclosure is a big part of working with mental illness and I think that it compounds matters when either the employer or the employee cannot acknowledge the elephant in the room. Even the client is entitled to their opinion about mental illness- but ideally it should not be an oppressive work environment. My experience has been that one gets sifted out in university because the commonly held view by educators is that persons with mental illness should not be health care practitioners. Then you actually go into practice and realize that the best ones are often certifiable or even certified.

as bad as this may sound, emilie autumn. i'm not bipolar, but i do have bpd which is basically bipolar on steroids with abandonment issues. she describes all the medications and doctors perfectly.

I should add that whilst currently ill and in hospital I have been working in mental health for the last 18 months or so!

My background is healthcare also, but I came from having severe discrimination at the beginning of my studies and if it was not for meeting one significant person in my profession with my diagnosis I possibly would have dropped out. Right now I am between jobs so I consider it fool hardy to out myself, but I do plan to document and share my experiences eventually- once I get stable enough to do so. I realise that quite a few people on RYL have health care jobs or are studying it.

I find vignettes- or stories of "real people" living with bipolar are more helpful to me at the moment. I am just at that stage in my life where I choose not to be public, and I need to know that is okay. Celebrities are public figures- therefore their meltdowns and private lives tend to be given intense media coverage/ scrutiny whether accurate or not.

I have BPD so not quite the same as bipolar, but I work with challenging children in residential placements, some of which have severe mental health issues.

Has anyone disclosed to their employers in health care? That is probably my biggest fear because of the stigma and lack of disability discrimination laws. I don't want to be the precedent- but it feels like it sometimes.

I'm open as my job is based on me having lived experience I haven't encountered any stigma and most people have bed very supportive. I work in a few different teams.

http://ibpf.org/blog/finding-work-wo...polar-disorder

Found this article and was pretty excited about it. Everyday I want to be public about my condition and it is so challenging to not out myself. I am working on deleting my facebook account and just making my life less open to the world.

Whoa, first post in absolutely years.

But yeah, I'm a learning disability support worker/psychology graduate, my diagnosis flips from bipolar to BPD to depression/anxiety (depending on the psychiatrist), I have so many colleagues with moderate-severe mental health problems, it seems a lot of us flock to these sorts of jobs. Also my dad is a retired GP, who like me suffered with dissociations and anxiety.

BPD is not the same, but often seems to be diagnosed interchangeably with Bipolar II, but Marsha Linehan, the leading psychologist who developed Dialectical Behavioural Therapy had BPD and was initially diagnosed with schizophrenia.

http://www.upworthy.com/demi-lovato-...-others?c=ufb1

My therapist shared this with me today.
Right now going through a rough spot, and surprised to see this thread still salvaged.