My last boyfriend had no clue that I suffered from depression. Some people may find that difficult to believe, but it's actually very easy to mask your feelings and symptoms. In my case, it was very easy to choose a partner from whom I could hide the truth and, therefore, to prevent myself from having a healthy and successful relationship.

Social connections in sobriety are touted by Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) to greatly aid an addict's recovery. But there are requests for more research into not only the benefits of AA's methods, but how those benefits are achieved. Are social connections in sobriety a piece of the answer?

When I was first diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, despite my young age, I was told that I would need to take medication. Probably for the rest of my life. I wondered, as many people do, if medication would change me. Sure, I was told it would make me well and make my life easier, but I was not sure what that really meant. Would I still be me?

When my son, Ben, finally began treatment for mental illness,  I kept careful notes on all the symptoms I saw between appointments.  At best, Ben would see his therapist and/or psychiatrist for 1 hour a week and was often able to hold it together for that one hour in a much better way than he'd been able to do all week with us.  So I made an effort to fax these notes to the provider the day before the appointment. Some read it. Most did not, citing "no time" as the reason. Really? What kind of session can you have if you don't have all the facts? Families know. They know a lot.

“How drunk do you have to be before cutting your own hair starts to seem like a good idea?” Taz Mopula Long ago, I had a hypothetical girlfriend we’ll call Prunella Entwhistle. Indeed, it was so long ago I was not yet sober and still cheerfully diving headfirst into debauchery as one might leap into a swimming pool. This was during that blissfully ignorant period in my life when I believed that, as a result of facing down bipolar disorder and defeating it, I had become bulletproof. By then I’d recovered from several devastating battles with the terrifying illness referred to at the time as manic depression. I had even written a memoir (Invisible Driving) that chronicled my ordeal. Having walked through fire and survived, I bristled with self-satisfied cockiness and swaggered through life like a cowboy breaking in new jeans.

It's hard enough trying to decipher the behavioral symptoms in children who have psychiatric illness. Trying to determine the root cause of physical complaints where no obvious cause exists is next to impossible.

According to Dr. Dimitri Christakis, who wrote an editorial accompanying the study, the results should be cautiously interpreted because they only tested a few tykes, but gosh darn if the data didn't look bad for TV. He even felt the study suggested that media exposure is a public health issue. Why, that means the government can get involved and finally do something about all those brightly colored cleaning supplies who sing silly sea shanties to our children!

Last week I wrote about how psych meds can make you feel boiling hot or freezing cold. And, of course, they can. What surprised me is the number of people who wrote in here and on Facebook about how they didn't know that. Not only did they not know it, but it had been happening to them and they didn't know it. They didn't make the connection and in some cases the doctor said it wasn't possible (like mine did). This brings me to something I always say: An effect that occurs after starting a medication is a side effect until proven otherwise.

Recently my therapist and psychiatrist became concerned about some self-harm urges I've had. Short version: I could either take clonazepam or go to the Crisis Respite Unit. The problem was I didn't want to do either!  I was afraid--afraid that I'd get a reputation for benzodiazepine dependency if I took the pill, and afraid I'd get sent back to the state hospital system if I went to Crisis Respite. My fear of the highly unlikely worst-case scenario was self-destructive; it was causing me to reject potentially helpful courses of action.

I consider myself hard to take, stubborn, I'm an over-talker and I don't know when to keep my mouth shut. And I have bipolar so signing up to be my friend is a commitment of which I expect people to tire rapidly. So when I'm having a bad time and someone expresses concern, I know I have a true friend.