bipolar disorder

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Note:  This blog hasn’t been the same lately.  I don’t know if I should keep going or not.  What do you think?

The night before…

The recent state of this blog is reflecting my personal life, and it has nothing to do with just turning 40.

40 is the biblical number of completion.  Moses was 40 when he fled Egypt and it was 40 years later when he returned to lead his people to freedom.  It was 40 years after that when the children of Israel arose to take the land promised them.

Jesus was in the wilderness for 40 days, fasting and being tempted by Satan.  Only after that did He begin His ministry.  Noah and his family endured rain for 40 days and 40 nights.  No doubt there are other examples.

(I haven’t seen the Noah movie.  I don’t plan to either.  When I heard there were Ents ...

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In light of the e-mails that came asking if things were okay on this end, I’m feeling led to address why I’ve been absent for the better part of the past two weeks.

There’s really no other way to put it: I got hit with a bipolar depressive episode.  The worst that I have had to go through in a very long time.  And it absolutely robbed me of my desire to write or to post anything at all.  Apart from a few Twitters or Tweets or whatever they’re called, my activity online was a fair reflection of my activity in real life: pretty much nil.

I’ve written about bipolar depression before, but this latest bout
refreshed in my mind how horrible this condition is and how I would
never, ever wish it upon any person.  One moment, you’re feeling high on life.  And the next, totally without warning, your ...

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Being Bipolar, The Knight Shift, bipolar disorder, mental illness


This is the latest in a series of articles that The Knight Shift and its strange proprietor is glad to present about what it is to have bipolar disorder.  As always, I am attempting to chronicle and document my journey through a life with mental illness thoroughly, with honesty, and at times with a healthy dose of humor!  If you are new to this blog (hey, stick around!  I  try to keep things interesting around here 🙂 then you may wish to read the previous entries of Being Bipolar.  Whether you have kept up with the series or are just now discovering it, this new installment takes us into the wild and unpredictable realm of medications and mental illness.



Let’s talk about… drugs!

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, medication time

I’ve had five possible installments for the next Being Bipolar sitting on my desktop for the better part of a year because I hadn’t been able ...

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This past weekend Matthew Warren – the son of Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church and author of The Purpose Driven Life – took his own life after struggling for years with mental illness.  In the wake of this tragedy there has already been considerable reflection by many among the body of Christ about mental illness and what our reaction should be to it.

Ed Stetzer, the president of LifeWay Research, has a very good guest essay on CNN.com.  Titled “My Take: How churches can respond to mental illness”, Stetzer relates his own experiences with Christians plagued with such conditions and how churches should and should not approach it.  From his article…

The first time I dealt with mental illness in church was with a man named Jim. I was young and idealistic – a new pastor serving in upstate New York. Jim was a godsend to us.

...
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Silver Linings Playbook, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, bipolar disorder, movie, mental illnessLast night I finally saw Silver Linings Playbook, the movie that came out late last year with Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro and Chris Tucker. My girlfriend Kristen watched it with me. In retrospect this was not a movie that I could have watched alone and she really was the only person that I could have watched it with.

Silver Linings Playbook is a movie that everyone who has ever suffered from bipolar disorder should see. It is a movie that everyone who has ever had a bipolar person in their life should see. It is a movie that every possible kind of person that I know of, should see. It was not only the best movie that I’ve seen in a theater since The Artist last year, it is also the movie that I am finding myself wishing more and more could have been made long ...

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