That's great you're doing so well. It's hard to be sane in an insane world.

As a mental case myself, I just want to say exercise only depresses what scraps of happiness my constant depression hasn't yet crushed. If it works for you, great, but I know a lot of people suffer from severe depression/anxiety after excercise. Apparently exercise affects the mu-opioid receptor (same area of brain stimulated by substances like alcohol and cocaine). So you do get something like a "runners high" but of course what goes up most come down. So these mental health experts claiming exercise does wonders for you are actually excusing another form of addiction. Of course, exercise has its benefits and if it's improving your life all the better. It's just that for others, it may do more harm than good as far as mental health's concerned.

G&C : this was a good post/update

Thank you so much for this post. It's not like I'm going to use it for an excuse not to exercise (well...I might...) but I can also show this to my father who recently found exercise to be like the holy grail in his life and it has become an obvious addiction. (He's not bipolar though, only has been diagnosed in my mother and I... he just broke his neck last summer and decided he wanted to be in shape after he got the halo off)

Anyone agree that fish oil though, and certain vitamins, like vitamin B, can be very beneficial for mental health. Do you yourself take these?

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Men are only as good as their technical development allows them to be- George Orwell

What everybody else said! Like TracyR, I too have at least one close family memeber dealing with bipolar disorder. With her condition as extreme as it is, it's easy for her to get into the rut of "Nothing will ever be right, why am I even here, etc etc". She has come to understand, finally (she is much much older than I imagine you are) that in her case at least it's not what works, but what works right NOW -- and may have to be changed by & by.
So whatever it throws at you -- this too shall pass is exactly right, as Champers said above.

GO YOU!


Chyia, rly glad to hear your, & everyone's, "stabilization" stories

I'm really happy for you, G&C! I'm sort of in the same situation: last year I realised that I hadn't felt so stable....ever. At least since I was 7 and first started getting proper depressive episodes. I might have slipped a bit, but I know it's going to take a lot to get me back to being properly in trouble again.

Keep going

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