Mango Media

We began to realize that if we wanted to change the situation, we first had to change ourselves.

And to change ourselves effectively, we first had to change our perceptions.

You always reap what you sow; there is no shortcut.

Now try this one. Next to each of these items, put a number from 0 to 4: 4 indicates very much, 3 indicates a great deal, 2 indicates somewhat, 1 indicates a little bit, and 0 indicates not at all. In the past week, I experienced the following quality, feeling, or attitude:
_____Gratitude and Appreciation
_____Positive Quality of Life
_____Happiness
_____General Sense of Well-Being
_____Satisfaction with Life
_____Hope
_____Optimism
_____Positive Beliefs and Attitudes
_____Peace
_____Joy
_____Self-Worth and Self-Esteem
_____Warmth
_____Friendliness
_____Positive Mental Health
_____Sense of Meaning and Purpose in Life
_____Trust
_____Empathy
_____Love of Others
_____Love of Self
_____Attentiveness
Now add up the 20 numbers on this checklist to get your
Total Positive Score_____(the total score ranges from 0 to 80).
Now subtract your Total Negative Score from your Total Positive Score to get your
TOTAL SCORE_____(this score will range from -80 to 80).

Total days of pain: lots and lots.
Social approval of bipolar: not obvious.
Overall experience with bipolar diagnosis: kinda really bad.

My dad flew out from Ontario to see how I was doing and make sure I wasn't completely crazy. We blasted through the Chapters bookstore in downtown Vancouver, and he bought me every bipolar-related book on the shelf. We made a stop at the Starbucks. As we were power walking down the street, my dad hailed a taxi midsentence, hopped in, and rushed off to catch his flight back to Ontario. I stood on the sidewalk with a bag of bipolar books in one hand and a half-finished Green Tea Frappucino in the other.
The party was just getting started.

This book is mainly about how to live with bipolar, but it's also about how to think about bipolar. Sure, you can think of bipolar as a chemical imbalance in your brain, but you can also imagine it as a video game, a shamanic journey, a crash course in existentialism, or a plain old pain in the ass.

No matter what the psychiatric community wants to call it, you're still you—whether you have bipolar, hysteria, a wandering womb, or just plain sand madness.

hough the environmental triggers of bipolar disorder are not well understood, one thing many accounts have in common is a period of lifestyle change, stress, or major life events (both positive and negative). Real specific, huh? Try naming a time in your teens and twenties when you're not going through a period of stress, lifestyle change, or major life events!

Paint rabbit faces on your meds so they look like recreational drugs. Wear furry clothing and plastic beads so people think you're a raver.

Hire a look-alike to impersonate you at social events when you're too depressed to go out.