N is for Nothing Much
I seem to have hit the mid-month blogging slump. Although on the plus side, I’ve also reached the middle of the month and I’ve blogged every day. Hooray!
Today I went to the Bipolar group / course. Looks like it’s going to be good, and a nice group of people. It’s a sort of self management and education course, rather than a support group. There is one of those, but it’s down in town on a Wednesday evening – that clashes with KnitJam some weeks, and anyway there aren’t any buses after about 6pm. Which is a bit rubbish. So anyway, I haven’t been along to that, and I probably won’t. I’d rather be knitting ;-)
I still haven’t quite solved the problem I was having with the Ravelry progress bars, but it’s near enough so I’m going to stop being so picky now and leave it. Time to go back to knitting, I think, or possibly spinning. Although right now, I’m off to bed.
C is for (The) Crazy
Or to be a little more politically correct, (my) mental health. I don’t have all that much to say about it, really, but I suppose it has been the reason for my sporadic posting over the ten months or so. I started the long slow slide into a depressive phase probably in last August, but because it was gradual (and not constant), I didn’t notice for a while. It wasn’t much fun towards the end of last year, but this year I’ve been gradually picking up again, and I’ve been feeling properly myself again – it’s funny how you don’t notice that you weren’t until you suddenly are again – since some time in April. Hoorah! I have a really nice new psychiatrist (the previous one moved on to a neighbouring area) too, and I’ve been getting other support from the community mental health team which has been an enormous help in getting back on my metaphorical feet. In summary, I feel better, and I’m looking forward to the Bipolar Group course that’s starting next week, which is a self-management and education … thing. It’s going to be useful.
Today’s NaBloPoMo prompt is: Define “freedom”.
Hmmm. Freedom is… standing near the sea on a stormy day, salt on your lips from the wind whipping off it strongly enough to almost blow you off you feet; just jumping in the car (or on the bus, or on a plane) and going; living how you want to live; most importantly, freedom is being able to make your own choices – whether by yourself or in conjunction with others, as long as you choose the method – voice them, act on them, without persecution or oppression.
So yeah. I guess C is also for Choice.
Blogathon – sponsorship open til Friday
I’m all recovered from the Blogathon now, having got lots of lovely sleep Sunday night! I’m delighted to report that my sponsorship total is approximately £71 (I’ve been sponsored in pounds, euros and dollars, variously) – so far, that is. Because yes, it’s still possible to sponsor me – pledges are staying open on the Blogathon site until Friday. So if you want to chip in, just click the banner below. It’d be nice to top £100, after all ;-)
(All you have to do at the Blogathon site is sign up to sponsor me, you’re not paying anything through them, or to me: sponsors will be sent the details to send donations through the MDF website after Friday)
As for the rest of the bipolar related topics that I was planning to blog about during the ‘thon, but didn’t get around to (note to self for next time: choose quicker things to write about!!), I still intend to post them. I’ll just be spacing them out a little more. They’ll probably be quite long, but I’ll remember to use the “more” tag when I’m not in such a rush to post.
48: Q&A – Experiences with diagnosis
lunamorgan asked “What was diagnosis like? How did you get it all sorted, because from what I’ve heard, it’s really hard to get a proper diagnosis of bipolar, what with most people not seeing doctors during manic phases.”
There were stages to my diagnosis, and it probably didn’t help that I moved from Beverley into Hull a couple of months after I first saw a my GP because I was disconnected and depressed. Well, it did and didn’t help: part of what kicked the depression off was that I wasn’t happy in Beverley, so moving to my new place kind of helped that… but I digress already!
In October 2001, I went to see my GP, ostensibly because I’d strained something in my hand, I think, but also because I was bursting randomly into tears on the train home, feeling completely disconnected from everything, apathetic… all the classic symptoms of depression. My GP was absolutely lovely, very sympathetic, talked me through it all, and prescribed me Prozac. I don’t think he asked any further questions which would have indicated symptoms of mania as well… but if he did, I didn’t answer them correctly because I was depressed at the time, not really clear in the head – and at any rate, I’d never realised that the symptoms of mania I had were a problem. Even the serious hallucinations and paranoia, for some reason. I conveniently forgot about all that once I wasn’t going through it any more.
Anyway, although I felt weird about being diagnosed with clinical depression – unsettled, worried, unsure what it all really meant – I think it helped me just knowing that there was something “real” wrong with me. The Prozac was also somewhat helpful, though it did make me pretty groggy and slow (mentally) a lot of the time. I decided to move out of where I was living and get a place in Hull, nearer my work. Everything was going to be rosy.
Of course, it didn’t quite work out like that. Within a couple of months, I was manic, and not in a good way. I now know that being on the anti-depressants was only helpful while I was depressed. With nothing else to counteract them and keep my mood from going to high, it shot straight past the on-top-of-the-world mania I’d had when I moved, and into hallucination territory again. Really, I guess I was in a mixed state, because I was also freaked out about leaving the house, and I also now now that I tend towards anxiety and agoraphobia when I’m down. Fun times! It all came to a head when I was due for a doctor’s appointment at the GP I’d transferred to, and I was having hallucinations that the buildings around me were moving and changing (rather like in Dark City, only in the daytime and with a tragic lack of Rufus Sewell). This was, I’m sure you understand, frightening and creepy as all hell. I was late to my appointment. The receptionist told me I’d have to go away and make a new one for another day. I went outside… and had an enormous freak out of truely epic proportions. Let’s just say I was a bit hysterical. I got to see the doctor that day after all. I was scaring the other patients. And myself, because I couldn’t stop. I don’t do public displays of extreme emotion, in general. Well, not ones that include hysterical crying and injuring myself. Thankfully, this has been a one off in my life so far!
Anyway, the point is, I saw the doctor, and he referred me to the mental health services and gave me a sick note. It took a couple of months for me to get my first appointment, during which time I was off work and mostly living on my sofa from what I remember. The very first appointmetn I has with the psychiatrist, she diagnosed me with bipolar. I didn’t believe her. I thought she’d just picked it out of a hat because I was creative / musical. I was actually probably displaying clear symptoms of being in a mixed state in that appointment, with hindsight. I was prescribed some anti-psychotics (to help with the mania and anxiety) to take alongside my anti-depressants (which had been changed to Venlafaxine by that time), but they violently disagreed with me breathing, so I only ever took the one dose. Next appointment, she put me on Depakote instead, which I’m on to this day. It took nearly a year, but finally I came to terms with the diagnosis when I started recognising manic episodes. It was knowing what to look for, and also having friends on LJ who were bipolar talking about their experiences which made me see it. One day I went to my appointment and said “I think I’m manic today”. My psychiatrist smiled and agreed.
46: A bit more on “normality”
Following on from my last post, I thought I’d just write a quick one (I hope!) covering what’s “normal” and not when you have bipolar. In my experience, that is.
As I said before, “normal” is when you can function. But in a way, that’s a reasonably wide definition of normal, and you could be in a manic or depressive phase while still meeting the criteria for being normal in that case. If you’re want to define “normal” as “not manic or depressed”, how would you do that? (I would actually call that “stable”, rather than “normal”, probably because normal is such a fuzzy label, but anyway.)
I think perhaps being manic or depressed means that you’re not in control of your moods or emotions any more. You can’t “just snap out of it” or “cheer up” or “calm down”. Your brain chemicals are out of whack, and you’re stuck on that rollercoaster until something happens to stop it. That could be outside intervention (from medication, to therapy, to just someone letting you know that you’re not well – because sometimes you can’t tell yourself ), it could be a sharp mood swing in the other direction, or it could be that you are able to put coping mechanisms in place yourself and start to haul yourself out by your bootstraps. So yes, it is possible to take control back if you catch the mood swing early enough, or at the right point when you’re going back in the other direction. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy helps you do that. The meditation that I spoke about earlier is one of my coping strategies. Getting it out of my head and into paper or screen is another. Knitting and spinning are another. And getting out of the flat and socialising is a very very important one.
Perhaps one of the problems with bipolar is that when you’re manic, it’s very easy to “fake normal”. Everything’s brilliant, you can do anything and everything right now if you’re at the “right” stage of mania. And it feels good. It’s actually harder to admit to mania when everythings awesome like the awesomest thing ever, than it is to admit to depression (which can be pretty hard if you can cope with talking to anyone!).
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Listening to: KT Tunstall – Miniature Disasters
via FoxyTunes
45: Q&A – How do we know what’s “normal” and what’s not?
Ptyx asked me: How do we know what’s “normal” and what’s not?
Before I got started answering that, I thought I’d better make sure I understood what she was asking, since there were a couple of different ways I can see to come at it (How do I know when I’m “normal” instead of in the grip of a manic or depressive phase; or how do we define normal as opposed to not?). When I asked her, she replied: “The question was mostly general, that is, the second option: how can someone tell who is normal, or what behaviour is normal? I think the first option is part of the problem, too. But I guess that, before deciding if someone is behaving normally, we have to decide what is normal and what’s not.”
I think my answer to that will have to run very much along the lines of something my psychiatrist once said to me. To give some background to that conversation, I’d been having what I like to call mild “reality issues” – and yes, I have degrees of reality issues, but when I’ve had the most severe ones, it’s been when I’ve been the most ill – so Mum was concerned that I might be heading in that direction. Which is very bad no good stuff. Anyhow, I’d been having some very vivid, lifelike, repetitive dreams. Repetitive in the sense that I went to the same place every time: what happened wasn’t the same. My sleep was a bit all over the place, so it all seemed a bit dreamlike when I was awake too, so it was making sense to me that both places were equally real. YMMV. However, in general, I was doing OK. I was sleeping every day at some point, I was eating and going out, I was getting other things done. There was just the risk that I might end up going too high. So, I went to see the doctor, and after going through it all with me, he asked if it was distressing me? No, it wasn’t, because the other place was perfectly nice and interesting, just different to here. Was it stopping me from functioning when I was awake – taking care of myself, eating, socialising? Nope.
In that case, he said, it doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about it, just carry on as you were. Make sure you keep taking your meds, keep track of your moods, and if it gets worse: becomes distressing, stops you functioning, makes you do things that are risky to yourself or others; that’s when there needs to be further intervention.
So I think that’s become my definition of “normal”. Able to take care of oneself and function safely and well in society. Does that make sense? I can be manic, I can be depressed, Person X can be a bit eccentric, Person Y can be schizophrenic, and so on, but if we’re all doing well enough that we’re not doing ourselves or anyone else any damage physically or mentally… then that’s “normal” enough for me.
“Normal”, of course, is just as much a label as anything else. And it’s a subjective thing – different people will have different definitions. Often, that definition will be “like me”. That’s too restrictive for me.
Once again, I’ll point you to Cia’s post on the subject – it’s a good one!
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Listening to: Florence And The Machine – Dog Days Are Over
via FoxyTunes
43: The Elevenses Post
Which means that I’m not only one post behind. Hooray! Unfortunately, I can’t think of anything to say for this one. How’s everyone else getting on? I was really sorry to see that Renee had needed to get some sleep, but I completely understand why – I was beginning to worry if I might have to do the same thing because I didn’t want to risk making myself ill, pushing myself into a manic or depressed, or mixed-cycling phase through lack of sleep. Or really, because my sleep routine was messed up. I’m pretty sure now that I will in fact be OK, and I’m likely going straight to bed at 2pm and I dare say I’ll sleep til morning.
And wow, talking of Elevenses, I’m suddenly hungry again. Toast, anyone?
41: A knitty post
Since I don’t think I actually posted here when I finally finished Mum’s birthday shawl, I shall do so now! I was almost a year late giving it to her in the end, so instead of it being finished for her birthday in April 08, it was finished for Mother’s Day in February 09. The border had taken me *so* much longer than I anticipated, and then I had blocking anxiety so it took me ages to screw up the courage to do that in case I messed it up! But the finished result was worth all the work:
Actually, I don’t think I ever put put the project stats here for this, since it was Sekrit Knitting, so here they are now:
Pattern: Wild Flower Shawl by Dee Bamford. [Ravlink]
Yarn: Posh Yarn Sophia 2ply (100% cashmere) in ‘Strawberry Shortcake’.
Needles: 3.25mm circular (Addi Turbo bamboo)
Ravelry Project Page: WFS
And would you believe, this shawl is now almost-famous? Our knitting group was in the Readers Projects section of The Knitter magazine, issue 7, and this shawl was one of the ones we sent off to them to feature. Hee!
36: Meditation
I’ve just been thinking that maybe I should go and do some meditation to relax my back muscles and refresh my brain a little… and it’s occurred to me that I could also make a quick post about the subject as well!
Until about a year ago, I was very sceptical about both meditation and hypnosis – I particularly didn’t like the idea of giving up control, which is how it felt to me it would be. I suppose I associate that with the horrible out of control feeling I get when mania goes past the getting everything done productive creativity stage, and into the point where I obsess and over-spend and can’t concentrate or control my behaviour. (Mind you, when I’m in the creative manic state I can’t really control my behaviour either, it’s just not destructive: I’m still functional.) Anyhow, the point here is, last year I was having some trouble getting any rest because I was manic, or possibly rapid-cycling (going up up up then crashing, then back up a day later for a few days, slightly higher this time, then crashing… and so on). I had rapid thoughts, I couldn’t stop thinking long enough to sleep or even stay still to rest my body. The guy who was my ‘link person’ at the Hastings Wellbeing Centre suggested meditation. I was doubtful at first, but I was really at the end of my tether. So in the end I dug out a meditation tape that Mum had given me a few years previously. I dug around further and found my walkman(!) and I gave it a try. It took me a couple of goes to stop giggling at some of the imagery used (‘imagine the warm sun is moving nearer, compressing into small ball of light’ made me either imagine I’d been immolated, or that the compression of the sun caused the creation of a black hole into which all life was painfully sucked! I may have been too literal) and get accustomed to letting the words take me along. To calm down enough to make best use of the meditation practice, I guess.
Once I did, it became an enormous help. I got hold of some other meditations, on CD this time, some guided and some just music. I also came across some hypnotherapy recordings, and I gave those a try as well. They’ve been invaluable tools to me ever since, when I need to relax and let go. Sometimes I need them to get to sleep, sometimes I use them if I get tense or jittery in the middle of the day. Sometimes I am still too jittery to be able to concentrate on them, but mostly, they’re a big help. I generally do need the guided ones if I’m a bit manic, as I can’t stop thinking a mile a minute with just music.
I doubt I’m going to need one to get to sleep after the blogathon today, but the one I am planning to use in just a minute is a ‘wake up’ one. Let’s see if it helps!
ETA – I also have a couple for when I’m down: those are hypnotherapy recordings. I’ve found those really useful too.
22: Other Bloggers for Bipolar
I’m not the only person to be blogging for and about bipolar during the Blogathon. There are more people blogging for other mental health issues too. I’ve already linked to a couple, but I’m going to do so again because you should visit them, and sponsor them if you can:
- Cia at crazed and infused is blogging for the Mood Disorders Society of Canada: Sponsor her
- Renee at Renee Rigdon is Genre Impaired is blogging for the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance: Sponsor her
- Terre at The Not-Right Writer is blogging for the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance: Sponsor her
You can see the full list of bloggers who are participating on the Blog List at Blogathon.org
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Listening to: Bat For Lashes – Sarah
via FoxyTunes
19: Friends and Family: It’s Not Just All About Me
Finally, my first ‘proper’ post on a bipolar related topic! I’ve taken way too long over writing this… I need to speed up for the others! I’ve chosen this one to start with because it got the highest number of votes in my poll – so really I didn’t choose it at all. I’m not actually all that certain where to start with this subject, but let’s have a crack anyway!
Being Bipolar is something that, like any long-term illness, doesn’t just affect the person with the illness. Pretty much whatever your situation, it has an effect on your family and your friends. Of course, I can only really speak for myself, but in general terms, it can make a difference in how people relate to you, and how you relate and act towards others.
Does having bipolar, a mental illness – one which is gradually becoming more generally known – change the was that people look at you, once they know? Probably. Not always in a negative way, but often enough. I’ve been lucky enough to only have had one really bad experience with a now ex-friend who “couldn’t deal” with the way I was when I was manic. Unfortunately, I didn’t know I was manic, because I was in that stage where everything is brilliant … and annoying as hell to anyone on the receiving end of it, I’m sure. Yet, if this friend had said to me that I was being kind of insane (you know, in a tactful way), I would have realised what was going on – I wasn’t so high that I wouldn’t have recognised it with a little outside help. And in fact that’s what happened a short while after the ex-friend told me where to go, with a nudge from someone else.
Other than that, I’ve been lucky – my friends have been wonderful and very understanding of my illness and the resulting failings as a friend that it brings. I can be somewhat unreliable, for example, if I drop into depression and can’t drag myself out of bed, let alone the house. I can seclude myself for long periods if I’m down, and not talk to anyone for weeks or longer. Or conversely, I can talk a mile a minute and not be able to shut the hell up – that can be amusing, but it can get really annoying. I get annoyed with me! I need friends who aren’t afraid to tell me when I’ve started talking really fast. Luckily, I have people like that, because that stops me getting worse and therefore making things worse for all of us.
As for family, once again I’m really lucky. From conversations with my Mum, I know it was difficult for her and Dad to accept that I had the illness (it was difficult for me, too, but in a different way). She’s told me that she’s felt as if she somehow failed me, maybe by passing on a gene that predisposed me, or by doing something “wrong” in my upbringing. Dad was in a bit of denial for a while, I think (clearly where I get it from!) – neither of them wanted their little girl to have a life long condition like this. Mum of course knows logically that it’s not her fault… but she and Dad wanted to be able to make it magically better, as I guess you do for your children. Mum has come to terms with it now. I think Dad did, but he’s not with us any more so I can’t ask him.
Mum now generally comes with me to my psychiatrist appointments, and she’s done a course for carers and family members that was run locally. Most of the others on the course had family members who were schizophrenic rather than bipolar, but there are plenty of common areas, and she found it very useful. She’s not there at my appointments because I’m not capable of going on my own (well, unless I’m down and freaking out about leaving the flat!) or talking to the psychiatrist. She’s mainly there so that I have a back-up brain in the room – I forget things that happen when I’m in one state or another, sometimes. Or she can let him know how I’ve been when talking to her on the phone, which I do most days even if I’m badly down. In fact, she’s the main person who will point out to me when I’m sounding manic or depressed, and will prod me until I call the CMHT1 if I don’t get better in a day or so.
The main thing that she’s done is take over supervising my finances. One of my worst problems when I’m manic is over-spending. Obsessively buying every book on the one thing I’ve fixated on, for example (Ooo, cable knitting! Ooo, Stargate! Ooo, shiny things!!). Or spending £800 on sock yarn in 3 months when I didn’t have anything remotely approaching that coming in. This is a pattern that’s been repeating for years, and Mum and Dad had to help me out on more than one occasion. It wasn’t until I was diagnosed with bipolar that I knew why it was happening… but I still couldnt’ stop! So in the end (after the yarn incident), Mum stepped in. She doesn’t manage my money, but it’s a kind of joint effort. I gave her my debit and credit card, and cheque book, and we worked out a strict budget. I only spent cash, or occasionally on the credit card with pre-agreement. Within a year, my enormous overdraft was paid off. There’s no way I could have possibly done that without Mum. Not a chance! These days, my budget is a lot less constrained, and I have my credit card back in my purse. I still speak to Mum first if I’m going to spend on it, but it’s mainly a sort of double-check system, to make sure that I’m not trying to spend out on something silly. It does mean she has extra work to do, keeping an eye on me, and I feel bad about that… but I’m not sure I’d feel confident in having complete control again. Which is weird, because I generally like to be independant. I spose the thing is, when I spend while manic, I feel so horribly out of control. This is stopping that, it’s stopping that stress for me, and it’s stopping eventual stress for Mum.
The other main person affected is my brother. Me being bipolar means that he is the sole executor of Mum’s estate should anything happen to her – not because Mum doesn’t trust me, but because she doesn’t want to put the extra pressure on me in that situation. It means that he has to come and pick me up when we go to Mum’s for dinner every week, because not only can I not afford a car any more, but my driving licence has been medically revoked. (This is also another partial reason why Mum takes me to my psych appointments) He has also become aware that he has to ‘look after’ me a bit sometimes, which is really sweet! For example, we went to see the new Harry Potter film last week, and when we got there it looked like the cinema was going to be pretty full, despite it being 11 in the morning on a Thursday! (We were trying to dodge hordes of kids and foreign exchange students by going to an out of town showing in the morning before the schools broke up!) As it happened, I was absolutely fine in myself, but he thought to ask if I was going to be alright in a crowd. Sometimes I can’t be doing with too many people, you see. He was quite willing to turn around and go home if it would be too much.
So, um, I think that’s about it. If you’ve got any questions or thoughts about this, please leave a comment!
1 Community Mental Health Team
14: A recommendation
While I’m eating my dinner, can I just point you in the direction of an excellent post that Cia made about ‘normality’. I’ve been asked a question about this by Ptyx, and I’ll give a bit of my own take shortly. But I think that Cia says it so much better than I can – you should definitley have a read of “Are you normal?“
2: A short history of me
Before I start talking about the various bipolar related topics, I just wanted to give a summary of my “qualifications”. An outline of my experience with the illness. Something like that.
I was diagnosed with bipolar in June 2002, but I didn’t really accept the diagnosis until some time in 2003 – I didn’t want to be bipolar. Depression I was reasonably OK with the idea of, since that could be circumstantial and therefore go away once whatever the circumstances were had been fixed or dealt with in therapy. But bipolar was a bit more permenant, so it took me some time to come to terms with that. I’ll talk more about this when I write the post about experiences with diagnosis. So, that’s 7 years now that I’ve been diagnosed and on various medication, some of which has worked better than others. Again, I’ll go into more detail on that later.
Previous to that, I can now recognise manic and depressed episodes from my late teens onwards – which once again I’ll talk about more later. I’ve had therapy of various kinds, I’m currently being treated by the local Community Mental Health team – I see a psychiatrist every three months or so, depending on how I’m doing. Right now I’m doing pretty well, but I’m not technically “stable” because I still go up and down a few times a year. I occasionally go to a local drop-in centre and take part in some of the things they run, or just have lunch and a natter with some of the other members.
Any questions you’d like to ask? Just leave a comment.
Topics for the Blogathon / Q&A
As I said yesterday, one of the things I’m planning to do during the Blogathon is to talk about some of my experiences with being bipolar, and I was hoping that people would ask me any questions they have about the subject so that I could have a go at answering and maybe make some things clearer. I’ve thought of some possible topics to start with, so here’s a handy poll:
Which bipolar related topics shall I blog about during the Blogathon?
- Friends and Family: it's not just all about me. (100%, 4 Votes)
- Agoraphobia and anxiety: my non-optional extras. (50%, 2 Votes)
- Self management and monitoring moods. (50%, 2 Votes)
- Mania / Hypomania: Everything faster than everything else. (50%, 2 Votes)
- Depression: How low can you go? (50%, 2 Votes)
- When do you tell people you're bipolar? (50%, 2 Votes)
- With hindsight: when did I first show signs of bipolar? (50%, 2 Votes)
- My experience with diagnosis. (50%, 2 Votes)
- My experience with medication. (25%, 1 Votes)
- So, Stacey and her mum on Eastenders... is that a realistic portrayal? (25%, 1 Votes)
Total Voters: 4
Loading ...Or do you have any other questions or related topics you’d like me to expound upon? Is there anything specific that you’ve heard about bipolar, or gathered from the media, that you want to know about? Or do you want to know about stupid things I’ve done while manic? Or what knitting has to do with it? Feel free to ask absolutely anything (er, about bipolar / being bipolar) even if you think it’s a bit personal – if I feel it’s not something I want to talk about then I’ll say so, but I’m going to try to be as open and thorough as possible with this. Anyway, leave any other questions in the comments. Thank you!!
And as well as that whole topic, I’m planning to post about:
- Knitting: what’s on my needles, recent finished objects, and what I want to do next.
- Spinning: it’s the last two days of the Tour de Fleece!
- Books, film, TV… maybe. Things that I’ve been reading or watching recently, which may include fanfiction. (Funnily enough I’ve just started reading Harry Potter fanfic again, which is what I did during the first Blogathon I took part in back in 2003. Oh the synchronicity!)
- Links to other ‘thon-ers (mostly likely when my brain has shut down in the middle of the night ;-) )
I think that should keep me going!
Blogathon 2009
So, rather later than I’d originally intended (July, where did you go?!), I have signed up for this year’s Blogathon. Which is this coming Saturday and Sunday, 25th-26th July. What does that actually mean? Well, I’ll be blogging an entry every half hour (or thereabouts) for 24 hours, starting from 2pm Saturday. It’s for charity, and like the last time I did this two years ago, I’m blogging for MDF the Bipolar Organisation. They are a marvellous organisation which I’ve been a member of for a few years now, and as their mission statement says, they work “to enable people affected by bipolar disorder / manic depression to take control of their lives”. That includes supporting and funding self-help groups around the country, running courses, providing information and advice services, increasing awareness of bipolar, and much much more. In short, a really worthwhile charity.
Now comes the begging part: I need sponsors! The way the Blogathon works is, if you’d like to sponsor me, please please click through and make a pledge on the Blogathon site (you can either click that link, or the banner above and then look me up on the Blog List). You can either sponsor me for a lump sum for completing the ‘thon, or for every hour. Once I’ve completed then ‘thon, you’ll get an email from the Blogathon site letting you know, and giving you the link to make a direct donation to MDF. Easy-peasy! MDF doesn’t have a minimum donation amount, and even a pound or two goes towards providing important services. Donations are handled via Paypal, and even if you don’t have an account you can use your credit or debit card.
I know this is a little late in the day, but hopefully someone will be able to chip in. The Blogathon people did a Charity Spotlight on Medical, Health and Awareness charities, listing the blogs who don’t yet have $10 sponsorship. I’m one of them! (Thank you for the publicity Blogathon people – now I’m doing my bit!) I would rather like to break that ceiling if I can, at the very least.
Anyway, let me know if you happen to be Blogathoning too, or if for any bizarre reason you’re going to be up all night Saturday – I’ll be signed on to every chat thingy I have. And look out for a new site design: I’m just in the process of putting one together and it should be up before the ‘thon starts. Which might be famous last words, of course. I’m also intending to come back tomorrow and tell you what I’m going to be blogging about – this is another thing I’m leaving way too late, but I wanted to ask for questions about bipolar that I could answer during the ‘thon. Mainly because I was thinking that rather than writing one enormous long post about it that takes too long (I have to post every half hour, remember!), doing a question or topic at a time would break it down better. And I can do other stuff in between. But that’s for tomorrow! Which is now technically later today. Good night!
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Currently
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