Please do not use the following article for self-diagnosis or the diagnosis of others. Even mental health professionals cannot diagnose themselves. It is intended instead for information and to provide useful subject matter to discuss with a psychiatrist or therapist.

The distinction between bipolar I and bipolar II is confusing enough (I have written another article on that subject), but sometimes people receive even less-known diagnoses, which are “cyclothymia” and “bipolar disorder, not otherwise specified.” When people receive these diagnoses, they are often even more confused by what is going on. Continue reading →

Today, I was initially going to write my post about the definition of mental “health.” I still plan to write that post, but I realized that before I write anything about the definition of “health,” “illness” and “disease,” I needed to write something about what it means to define something at all.

As someone with a mental illness, how words are used is very important to me. It affects the way that I think about mental illness, and the way that my condition is communicated to other people. Continue reading →