The Bipolar Lens

My View from the Rollercoaster

by Terri Cheney

Petting the Pain

I've always felt too much, ever since I can remember. Playing hide-and-seek was nothing short of agony; I was certain that if I hid too well I'd be lost from sight forever. Tag was even worse. I couldn't stand the suspense of being chased, so I'd just stop dead in my tracks and refuse to run. It infuriated my playmates, who teased me no end. Read More

The Case Against Change

Things keep changing on me, and you know what? I don't like it. The Barnes & Noble café where I wrote my first two books, fueled by equal doses of caffeine and conversation, is no more. I showed up one Tuesday afternoon as usual, ready to write, only to find the windows all boarded up, the doors securely padlocked. Read More

Side by Side by Side Effect

"Here's the choice: you can have your mental health or your physical health. But not both." The doctor didn't actually say that, but that was the subtext. When you're bipolar, faced with the complexities of today's medications, it's a conundrum you face all too often. Read More

Embracing Duality

I've been feeling better lately, which is hard for me to admit. I've noticed this is true of a lot of people with bipolar disorder: we're afraid we'll jinx the normalcy. Or maybe we're afraid we won't be believed when the bad days strike again. Whatever the reason, I'm scared to say it, but it's true: I feel surprisingly good. Read More

Paying Your Dues

I was a lawyer long before I was ever diagnosed with bipolar disorder. It was my identity: Terri L. Cheney, Esq., attorney to the stars. I didn't realize back then that an identity can also be a stranglehold, a noose around your neck that never stops tightening no matter how hard you try to get free. Read More

To Cling, or Not

I've been known to be a tad obsessive at times. I don't like to admit it. I prefer to think that I'm highly focused. Driven. Single-minded. But every now and then, even I have to acknowledge that I've gone slightly overboard. Read More

The Amazing Weapon of Attention

I've been fighting a depression for a couple of weeks now – not a major suicidal bout, but a constant, grinding battle with existential despair. Routine usually helps, so in spite of my lethargy I forced myself to roll out of bed, get dressed, and drive to my weekly writing class, stopping at Starbucks first to fortify myself. I was walking out, feeling so gl Read More

Alone Again, Unnaturally

I'm going through a financial meltdown right now, like so many other Americans. But unlike those other folks, I haven't turned to family or friends for a pat on the back, a supportive hug, a few well-chosen words of wisdom. Much as I secretly long for it, I think sympathy would kill me. Read More

Too, Too Marvelous for Words

The Glories of Being Stuck in a Rut

I've been trapped in my house for a whole week now. I'd say I'm going slowly insane but when you're bipolar you have to use words like "insane" judiciously. I live in a little house in a canyon, which is accessible only by a narrow, winding street. The City is allegedly re-paving the street, which means that no one is allowed to drive on it. Whic Read More

Bipolar Disorder's Nasty Secret

Most people think that bipolar disorder consists strictly of manic and depressive episodes. That's like saying the rainbow consists only of red and blue. In fact, there's a whole range of moods on the bipolar spectrum. The one I seem to be all too familiar with these days is the most difficult one to describe: the dreaded "mixed state." Read More

A Fool’s Gold

It's politically incorrect if not downright subversive to say this in bipolar circles, as well it should be. But come closer and I'll whisper it: sometimes mania's not such a bad thing. Read More

Braving the Day

The hardest thing by far for me to do when I'm depressed is to get into the shower. It may sound like a trivial thing to people who don't have mental illness. "Why don't you take a nice hot shower?" my mother always asks me when I call her, crying. She might as well say, "Why don't you go climb Kilimanjaro?" I can't. I just can't face it. Read More

The Good News About Bad News

I've been flat-out exhausted for the past nine months. Not just tired – running on fumes. My new memoir, The Dark Side of Innocence: Growing Up Bipolar, was just released, and as any author knows, giving birth to a book can be grueling work. Not ditch digging by any means, but mentally taxing. Maybe that's why I felt so fatigued, I kept telling myself. Read More

Inside Childhood Bipolar Disorder

Children are naturally attuned to their senses: they learn the world through their eyes and ears and fingertips. But there are some children -- and I was one of them -- for whom such sensitivity becomes almost too much to bear. This can be true for many children with bipolar disorder, a mental illness which causes intense mood swings and heightened emotion Read More

Dangerous Façade

There's been a lot of hoopla lately about our underachieving children. You can almost feel the collective cringe every time another story runs about how American kids rank below other nations in essential subjects like math or science. We are being out-thought, out-tested, out-performed, and it's worse than just embarrassing: it's a national scandal. Something has Read More

The Dark Side of Innocence

Childhood bipolar disorder is a relatively new phenomenon -- until recently, it was thought that the disease didn't usually manifest until around the early twenties. But since the mid-1990s, there's been a staggering 4000% increase in the diagnosis in young people (and no, that's not a typo). Read More

When Is It Safe to Smile?

Last Tuesday, I woke up feeling strange. I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Was I sick? No, I felt surprisingly well. Was something bad supposed to happen that day? Not that I could remember. I brushed my teeth, took a shower, got dressed. Gradually, I forgot to worry. In fact, worry was the very last thing on my mind. Read More

A Day in the Life of a Rapid Cycler

Even I have to admit I'd been a little weird the week before my birthday – soaring toward exaltation one minute, sinking to dejection the next, my emotions flitting too quickly through me to be properly felt. Mood instability is the classic hallmark of bipolar disorder, and I wondered, briefly, if I should call my doctor and ask him to adjust my meds. Read More

The Naked Truth

I used to be a whiz at introducing myself. I was wanton and indiscriminate with my business card, laying it on everybody I met. "Terri L. Cheney, Esq./Attorney At Law," it read, and that "Esquire" meant everything to me. Read More