Either you or a loved one is living with bipolar disorder. You know what a roller coaster ride it is, and you’ve witnessed first hand, how traumatic the high’s and low’s can be. But there’s something that you may not know. Regardless how severe or the actual type of bipolar that you or your loved one is suffering from, there ARE things you can do to take control of your life and regain that confidence, happiness and put you on the path towards living the life you were truly meant to live....

Bipolar disorder is a difficult diagnosis for many. From social stigma to limited information on the topic, it’s easy to become frustrated, confused and ashamed of your condition, or that of a loved one.

Society associates bipolar with "controlled behavior", many believing that it’s something that can be easily ’cured’ just by calming down and being rational in stressful situations. But you and I both know that is far from reality.

When a high hits, you feel like you can take on the world. There is nothing you can do, in fact, you can operate on less sleep and still be incredibly productive.

You’re happy, you feel a rush of inner peace, and you hang onto it for as long as you can because you know that the next day might bring on a low.

The low’s.. this is the hard part about living with bipolar. You can go from walking on clouds to feeling as though you can barely get out of bed. Nothing seems to get you out of this depression but time.

You feel as though the world is crashing around you and that you ultimately are the cause of that - somehow.. yet you don’t know why you feel so down.. you just know the only way out of it is by waiting for it to pass.

And it does.. and the high’s and low’s keep on coming.

Living with bipolar is like being on an energized, intensive and unstoppable roller coaster ride. You cling to the moments where you feel at your best because you know they seldom last too long, and you’re back in the rigorous, intensive and outright heartbreaking cycle again and again.
I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in early 2004. At the time, there seemed to be very little information on bipolar disorder and instead, an abundance of information and associations to "manic depression".

But here’s the thing, manic depression and bipolar disorder are NOT exactly the same AND bipolar disorder comes in MANY DIFFERENT FORMS..

We should NEVER be thrown into a single "classification" nor should we be given only ONE treatment option.

It’s true that those of us suffering from bipolar disorder experience major depression and anxiety attacks, but bipolar disorder is a far more complicated disorder to live with. We live in a state of constantly being between extreme elation and deep depression, never knowing how we’ll feel the moment we wake up.

The first step in taking back control of your life is in understanding what type of bipolar disorder you are suffering from. If you shift between high to low and back again in varying degrees where one day you feel as though you can do absolutely anything but the next day you are tired, feeling helpless, worthless and suffer from uncontrollable bouts of crying, you’re likely suffering from what is called "BIPOLAR 1"........