Julie Fast Video: Feeling intimidated by your bipolar disorder doctor?

I recently did a series of interviews for a large mental health website called healthyplace.com. Here is one of the first videos I recorded. I’d like to set this up a bit before you watch it. I went through a terrible experience in 1994 when my partner Ivan got very sick and was in the hospital for three months in a manic/psychotic episode. I was scared, overwhelmed and very confused about what was going on. I never met his doctor when he was in the hospital! The nurses were wonderful, but no one actually explained the illness or why he was so sick. I literally had to do everything on my own. Things have changed a lot of course! I wrote books on this experience myself- so the information is more out there now. The video below is a response to the question of what we can do to work successfully without health care professionals [ Read More ]

A thank you from Julie

I got very, very sick today. I would say the depression was a 9 out of 10. Hospital style depression. It’s now 9PM and I have it down to a 4. I worked hard for that 4! I did a lot today to take care of myself and will write more about that later.

Before I go to sleep and sleep off the rest of this terrible mood swing- I want to say thank you for the amazing comments of support I get from all of you. You know how it is when you get really sick- you just get so worn out. I cried off and on all day and I’m now physically tired….. bla! My mom and friends helped a lot- I am glad I was able to get on with my day as best I could. The odd thing is that there was no obvious trigger. It was what my coauthor [ Read More ]