Tag: bipolar disorder


  • December 2025, In Photos

    December 2025, In Photos

    Took a 2400 mile solo road trip to Northern California. Worked my way up the Pacific Coast from San Francisco to the Oregon border. Cried a lot. Walked 150 miles. Went to the psych ward for two days. Kissed a beautiful stranger at midnight on New Year’s Eve. Took a couple selfies. A challenging and…

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  • For years I’ve been fighting shadows, trying to “fix” myself through willpower, discipline, or distraction.

    For years, I thought my relentless dopamine chasing was a personal failure. Weak willpower. Poor discipline. Another addiction story. It turns out it was biology. Genetic testing confirmed what I’d long suspected: my brain is wired with significantly fewer dopamine receptors, making “normal” life feel chronically underpowered. That truth changed everything. Recovery stopped being a…

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  • TL:DR – Love your parts.

    This week, I finally stopped arguing with permanence. Not the things I can change—I know that dance well—but the things I can’t. Chronic conditions. Lifelong diagnoses. Bodies and brains that don’t magically “turn around” if I just try harder. In IFS terms, I hit a trailhead where perfection, fear, shame, and denial were all standing…

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  • The thing that frustrates me to no end with bipolar disorder

    One of the cruelest parts of bipolar disorder is never fully trusting good feelings. Is this joy—or the start of hypomania? Is it real, or is it a glitter-bomb that’s about to explode into consequences? Right now, I can see that some recent “good” feelings were actually mild destabilization during a medication change. Not a…

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  • 28 days into a psychiatric medication change.

    On paper, I’m “stable.” My mood is steady. No swings. No spirals. But underneath that stability is a brutal reality: crushed energy, flat dopamine, and relentless akathisia. For years, one side effect quietly dictated my life and drove me to self-medicate with alcohol and kratom just to function. I finally named it for what it…

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