December 11, 2025 • 38 mins
I challenge the idea that a bipolar diagnosis explains your life and show how labels can block curiosity, fuel victimhood, and fuse to identity. I explore the layered tools that helped me heal: micronutrients, trauma work, mindfulness, and a Mood Cycle Survival Guide.
• diagnosis as observation, not explanation
• relief and fear at first diagnosis
• victimhood mindset and its costs
• when labels become identity
• accountability after harm and repair work
• layered healing: micronutrients, therapy, mindfulness
• the fire alarm versus the fire
• incentives in pharma and training
• switch language from disorder to symptoms
• becoming a detective of symptom sources
• practical tools: sleep, tracking, cues, supplements
• resources: prior episodes, book, Upsiders Tribe
Join the Upsiders' Tribe. If you want to talk to me about it, here is the →link← that will allow you to set up a free consultation with me. Make sure that you reach out. For more resources, visit www.theupsideofbipolar.com. If you haven't read my book, click here to grab a copy.
FREE Mood Cycle Survival Guide: https://theupsideofbipolar.com/free/
The Upside of Bipolar: 7 Steps to Heal Your Disorder: @upsideofbipolar | Linktree
website: https://theupsideofbipolar.com/
email: michelle@theupsideofbipolar.com
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SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
So the symptoms are very real.
I'm not saying the symptomsdon't exist, but bipolar
disorder as a diagnosis ismisleading because you have not
been given an explanation.
You have simply been given anobservation.
All a bipolar diagnosis does isobserve the symptoms.
Observe the symptom cluster thatyou're had that you have and put
(00:22):
it in a category.
That's it.
Welcome to the Upside ofBipolar, where we uncover the
true sources of bipolar symptomsand share proven tools for
recovery.
I'm your host, MichelleReitinger, number one
international best-sellingauthor of the Upside of Bipolar
Seven Steps to Heal YourDisorder.
(00:42):
In this podcast, I bring yousolo insights from my journey
and guest interviews withleading researchers and experts.
Join us to transform chaos intohope and reclaim your life.
Let's heal together.
Welcome to the upside ofbipolar.
(01:03):
I am your host, MichelleReitinger, and I am thrilled to
be doing a solo episode today,and it's a really interesting
topic.
We're talking about the barriersto healing that are created by
the bipolar disorder diagnosisitself.
And this is a topic that hasbeen coming up more and more for
me as I have been sharing theinformation about my book and
(01:23):
the research that led to myhealing and recovery.
And I honestly was not preparedwhen I very first started this
back in 2021, when I started myblog, I wasn't prepared for the
anger that what I was sharingwas going to incite in a lot of
people.
I wasn't prepared for thebacklash and the frustration
(01:43):
and, you know, anger, I guess isthe best word to say it, that I
was getting from people.
It really caught me off guard.
And I think it's because I, whenI started, when you first start
sharing something, you need toknow who you're talking to.
And the audience that I wasaddressing, that I created for
myself, was my younger self.
(02:03):
I wanted to share the thingsthat I wish somebody had shared
with me 27 years ago when I wasfirst diagnosed.
When I was first diagnosed withbipolar disorder, I was told I
had a chemical imbalance.
I was told that it was chronicand incurable.
You know, I was told that Iwould need medication for the
rest of my life.
And I believed what I was toldbecause they were doctors who
(02:24):
had been through medical schooland I didn't have any reason to
not believe what they weretelling me.
And it did create a mixed set offeelings for me.
When I very first was diagnosed,I remember feeling, on the one
hand, some relief because I feltlike they had given me an
explanation for what had beengoing on with me for the
previous couple of years.
Even going so far, you know, asfar back into my youth.
(02:47):
Um, I once I was told that thesesymptoms were part of a
disorder, my brain startedsearching back into my life for
evidence of this disorderearlier in my life.
And when you start looking atsymptoms as a disorder, it's
very easy to find those, thosethings.
It's very easy.
So it was very easy for me tolook back into my youth and see
(03:07):
patterns of hypomania when Iwould get hyper-focused on
things, when I would stay uplate working on projects, and
then depression.
I definitely experienced a lotof depression in my youth.
Viewing it through the lens of adisorder, I thought, oh yeah,
I've had this for a long timeand it just went undiagnosed for
a long time.
And so it created some issuesfor me when I was diagnosed with
(03:28):
this.
Because number one, like Imentioned, it was there was some
relief in having an explanation.
But there was also this feelingof worry and fear that I was
going to be stuck with this forthe rest of my life.
And what did that look like?
Like what who would want me?
I remember thinking that veryspecifically.
(03:49):
You know, I was in college, Iwas single, I had hopes of
getting married someday andbeing a mom.
And I remember thinking, if I'mgoing to have this for the rest
of my life, who's going to wantme like this?
I felt like I've been told I wasbroken.
And so over the years, therewere a lot of different sources
that I went to for help withcoming to grips with my
diagnosis, you know,psychiatrists specifically.
(04:11):
You know, I would go to mypsychiatric appointments very
faithfully, and I moved a numberof times.
And so each time I would move, Iwould immediately find a
psychiatrist in the area andestablish myself with a new
psychiatrist, go to the intake,get rediagnosed.
And, you know, each time thediagnosis was affirmed.
And so I was being reassured bydoctors on a regular basis that
(04:32):
this wasn't my fault, that Iwasn't doing something wrong,
that this was outside of mycontrol.
I had a disorder, I had achemical imbalance, I had a
mental illness.
And then I, you know, went totherapists.
I was advised to go to therapistto learn coping mechanisms, you
know, tools that could help memanage my bipolar more
effectively.
And that was a bit of a jokebecause it never, nothing ever
(04:53):
helped me manage my bipolareffectively.
I just kept getting worse.
I I, no matter how hard I tried,I just kept getting more and
more sick.
And I started feeling like avictim.
I started feeling like this washappening to me and I didn't
have any control over it.
And so I started trying to, itcreated this situation where I
(05:17):
didn't feel like I had theability to have control over
myself.
And I started to feel helpless.
And that is a terrible way tofeel, especially when I started
having children.
When I got married, and then Istarted having children, giving
birth, and I went through somevery serious postpartum
depression and postpartumhyperthyroidism.
I had some very serious issuesafter my first two births.
(05:39):
And I could see the damage I wasdoing to my marriage.
I could see the damage I wasdoing to my children.
And because I had been told thatI had a disorder and that it was
lifelong chronic, incurable, andI felt helpless to do anything
about it.
My brain started looking for away out.
It started looking for asolution that would that would
benefit my husband and mychildren.
(06:01):
My children were truly the mostimportant thing to me in my
life, and I would have given mylife for them.
And I think that my unwell mindknew that.
And I had been told that therewere, there was no cure.
There was, you know, I was goingto have this for the rest of my
life.
We were trying to find the rightmedications, according to the
doctors.
But my mind started thinking,maybe I just need to remove
(06:23):
myself from their lives becauseI didn't have any hope for
getting better.
And I could see the damage I wasdoing to them.
And I, one of the things that isperpetuated in this system,
because this diagnosis iscreated and viewed as an
illness, it's viewed assomething that people don't have
any control over, it's viewed assomething that is medical at its
(06:44):
core.
There is a lot of language thatis used in the mental health
care system that supports thisvictim mentality.
And my soul was rejecting what Iwas being told.
You know, I was being told thisis not your fault.
You need to have compassion foryourself.
You know, there were a lot ofthings like that where, you
(07:06):
know, I was being reassured,like you're doing your best.
This is not your fault.
You don't have any control overthis.
We're going to learn some toolsto help manage things.
But I kept thinking, it, well,maybe it's not my fault, but
it's definitely not my husband'sfault.
And it's absolutely not mychildren's fault.
So what are they supposed to do?
They just have to put up with melike this for the rest of their
lives.
That just didn't feel fair orright to me.
(07:28):
And it's interesting becausewhen I finally started healing,
I didn't know I was healing atfirst, but when I started going
through the recovery process andI started to take more
responsibility for myself andmore accountability for myself
and take ownership of mysymptoms and for paying
attention to them and managingthem more effectively using my
mood cycle survival guide, Istarted feeling better about
(07:51):
myself.
And I realized that we havecreated a class of victims with
people who are diagnosed withthese disorders because they
feel like they don't have anycontrol over what's happening
and they want to have otherpeople accept them the way they
are.
And it creates really unhealthyrelationships.
I want to go through point bypoint and talk about each of
(08:11):
these issues because it's reallyimportant to understand the
issues that are created by thisdiagnosis so that you can do
something about it.
So the first issue that iscreated by this diagnosis is
that it effectively endscuriosity into what's actually
happening.
One of the best analogies thatI've heard recently came from
Dr.
Joseph Witt During.
He is a specialist, he's apsychiatrist by training.
(08:33):
He came through, came up throughmedical school and psychiatric
training.
And he actually worked for theFDA for a little bit because he
wanted to understand how thesemedications were being approved.
He worked for a psychiatric drugcompany, seeing how they went
through the process ofresearching and proving the
efficacy or quote-unquoteefficacy of these medications.
And the result of his training,all of his training, was that he
(08:56):
created a company called theTaper Clinic where he helps
people get off of medicationsnow.
And he talks openly about theissues that are that we have
with these medications and thatthey are not actually treating
an underlying condition.
They are just attempting tomanage the symptoms and not very
well and at great risk to thepeople who are taking them.
(09:18):
And he used the analogy one daythat when you give somebody, he
was using specificallydepression, but it goes for all
of the psychiatric diagnoses.
When you give somebody withdepression an antidepressant,
quote unquote antidepressant, itis like trying to turn off the
fire alarm.
You are not resolving the fire.
(09:38):
You're not resolving the issuethat created the alarm.
You are just shutting off thealarm.
And that is what's happeningwhen you give somebody a bipolar
diagnosis, bipolar disorderdiagnosis, and then start
medicating them.
You are not addressing what isactually causing the symptoms.
You are simply turning off thefire alarm or attempting to turn
off the fire alarm.
And sometimes you make thingsway worse by using medications
(10:01):
to treat these symptoms.
And so the disorder diagnosisleads people to believe that
they have been given anexplanation.
That's what I believed.
I was told when I was diagnosedwith bipolar disorder that I had
a chemical imbalance.
I did not know at the time thatthat theory of illness had been
completely debunked andcontinues to be disproven.
(10:23):
But I believed I had been givenan explanation for why I was
sick.
And that's what I hear on aregular basis from people.
They tell me that bipolar is a,you know, they get very upset,
very defensive when I say thatbipolar is not a chemical
imbalance.
They believe that they have achemical imbalance.
They believe that they've beengiven an explanation,
explanation for why they areexperiencing these symptoms and
(10:46):
that the medications areaddressing this chemical
imbalance.
It's not true.
And it is terrible to be endingcuriosity because then people
don't look anymore for answers.
They don't look at why they'reexperiencing these symptoms.
So that's the first problem withthis bipolar disorder diagnosis
is that you are eliminating thecuriosity into what is actually
(11:07):
happening and what is causingthese symptoms to occur.
The symptoms are very real.
I want to be very clear.
A lot of times when I say thingslike bipolar is not a chemical
imbalance, people think I'msaying that bipolar symptoms
aren't real.
And they are very real.
I was, I experienced them frontand center for a long time.
You know, I was experiencingsleeplessness and symptoms of
(11:28):
mania and symptoms ofdepression, you know, going
through periods of time where Icouldn't get myself out of bed
in the morning.
Taking a shower was like a youknow a monumental task, and it
completely exhausted me.
Sometimes I would go throughtimes where I couldn't even
brush my teeth.
Like it, I, these symptoms arevery real.
The anxiety symptoms that Istarted experiencing, the first
(11:49):
time I had a major anxietyattack, I was in the in the
hospital in the ER for eighthours thinking I was having a
heart attack.
They ran all kinds of tests onme, and we discovered that it
was actually anxiety.
So the symptoms are very real.
I'm not saying the symptomsdon't exist, but bipolar
disorder as a diagnosis ismisleading because you have not
been given an explanation.
(12:10):
You have simply been given anobservation.
All a bipolar diagnosis does isobserve the symptoms.
Observe the symptom cluster thatyou're had that you have and put
it in a category.
That's it.
The second issue that thiscreates is as I mentioned
before, is it creates victimsout of the people who are
diagnosed.
(12:30):
And quite frankly, it createsvictims out of the people that
are loved ones of those peoplebecause you are told that you
don't have any control overwhat's happening, that it's it's
an illness, that you don't haveany control over it.
And so when somebody isexperiencing symptoms of mania
and they are spending money likecrazy and running their family
into debt, or taking on giganticprojects and talking a million
(12:51):
miles an hour and talking abouthow God's talking to them, or or
you know, seeing things thataren't there, or somebody who's
having serious depression andthey can't function, they're
unable to go to work, they losetheir job, they're unable to
take care of themselves, they'reunable to take care of their
children.
When they're experiencing thosesymptoms, the person feels like
they have no control over that.
(13:12):
So they are feel like a victimto the symptoms.
I remember feeling thissensation of being yanked onto a
roller coaster and just holdingon for dear life until it was
over, just praying for, youknow, to survive till it's over,
and then observing the damagethat I had done to my life and
to the people I loved duringthat episode.
It also creates victims out ofthe people who are loved ones of
(13:35):
those people because they areobserving with dismay all these
bad behaviors and destructivebehaviors.
It's doing damage to therelationship and they want to
keep loving that person and stayconnected to that person.
But if if they don't have anycontrol over it, people don't
want to subject themselves tothose, to that anymore.
(13:57):
And so it it creates victims outof everybody involved.
And it makes it so people don'tfeel like there's any way for
them to take responsibility forthemselves.
And being responsible forourselves is one of the main
sources of feeling good aboutourselves.
It's one of the main sources ofour feelings of self-worth is
being responsible for ourselves.
(14:19):
And so this disorder diagnosiscreates victims.
The third thing is that itbecomes people's identity.
I used to say this all the time.
I used to say, I have bior, I ambipolar.
I would tell people I'm bipolar.
I hear that all the time frompeople.
I am bipolar.
Also, you'll also hear thingslike, you know, I'm
(14:39):
neurodivergent.
They believe that their brainjust works differently from
other people's, and that thesesymptoms are just evidence that
they are neurodivergent.
And that has become, I'm notsaying this to be disparaging,
but it has become kind of abadge of honor for people.
Like my brain just worksdifferently from other people's,
and and they they wear it aslike a badge of honor or, you
(15:00):
know, it's something that makesthem unique.
And there are lots of thingsthat make each of us unique.
Every single person has uniquequalities and gifts and talents.
We should not be taking on thesesymptoms as part of our
identity.
But when you are given adiagnosis of bipolar disorder,
that's what we do.
(15:20):
In order to, you know, to tryand love yourself, you have to
take ownership of these thingsbecause you don't you can't help
it.
It's just part of your disease,it's part of your disorder.
And so people start to take onthis disorder as an identity,
and it creates a major barrierfor healing because that
threatens their sense ofidentity.
(15:41):
It threatens their belief aboutthemselves.
And so, if if somebody, youknow, when I tell people you
don't have to live with this forthe rest of your life, if they
have made that part of who theyare, it feels threatening to
that identity.
It feels threatening to thesense of themselves and it
creates a major barrier tohealing and recovery.
I understand where people arecoming from when they guard this
(16:04):
part of themselves so carefullybecause there is a lot of pain
associated with the symptoms andthe actions that we have taken
while we are experiencing thesesymptoms.
I know that very firsthand.
Like I experienced so much shameand pain and heartache because
of the things that I did when Iwas really sick, when I was
(16:26):
really struggling with thesesymptoms.
And it took years for me to,number one, to take ownership of
them.
And because it was verydifficult for me to take
ownership of them.
It was really painful to takeownership of the fact that I had
abused my children.
I wasn't trying to be an abusiveparent, but one of the things
(16:46):
I've talked about in the past iswhat they call what's a symptom
which was called bipolar rage.
And it was one of the worstsymptoms, in my opinion, that I
experienced as a mother becauseI had, I want to call it like I
always say it's kind of like ahair trigger.
So I would go to therapy.
You know, I was supposed to goto therapy to learn coping
mechanisms.
(17:06):
And they would say stupid thingsto me like, count to 10 when you
start feeling angry.
And I kept trying to explain tothem, you don't understand.
There's no like space betweenthe trigger and the response.
There's no space betweenwhatever happens that incites
the anger or this out of controlangry response for me to make a
decision.
I can't give myself a timeout.
(17:27):
I can't, I can't count to 10.
It wasn't, I wasn't capable ofdoing that at the time.
And it made me feel even worsebecause I kept thinking, like,
okay, next time I'll I'll try todo that.
And and every time I experiencedthis symptom, it was like a
switch was flipped.
And I felt like I was having anout-of-body experience watching
(17:48):
myself.
I was, and I've been told sincethen that what I was
experiencing was calleddissociation.
But I was viewing myself ragingat my children, and it was so
terrifying to them when I whenthis would happen.
And it didn't happen all thetime, but when it happened, it
was terrifying.
So when I was starting to gothrough the healing process and
(18:08):
I was starting to learn how totake responsibility for myself,
it was a very painful experienceto take ownership of that and to
acknowledge, even though I lovedmy children, I was abusing them.
That was abusive.
And even though I didn't do iton purpose, they still
experienced abuse.
And so I had to go through somevery painful experiences with my
(18:29):
children when I was trying tohelp them heal, going through
therapy sessions and lettingthem talk about the pain that I
caused, and just sitting andlistening to it and
acknowledging it and takingownership of it and telling them
how sorry I was and that I wasworking on that.
And that leads to one of thebiggest challenges that I've
seen with people when they areworking on trying to heal, when
(18:51):
they are actually getting to thepoint when they are ready to
start the healing process, whichis takes it takes tremendous
humility and courage to gothrough the healing process.
Because part of that healingprocess is learning how to take
responsibility for yourself,learning how to take ownership,
(19:13):
not allowing yourself to behaveas a victim any longer, but
recognizing that yes, you can dosomething about it.
And maybe not in that moment,maybe not when you're
experiencing like I experiencedwith the those that bipolar rage
symptom.
But I can do something to workon preventing it from happening.
I can work on the source of thesymptoms.
(19:33):
I can work on identifying, youknow, for me with this symptom.
There were it was a layeredapproach.
So the very first thing wasgetting off of the medications
and onto micronutrients throughcross titration.
That takes time and it takesdiligent effort and patience.
And once my brain started toheal, then I was able to start
(19:55):
working on going to therapy forworking on unhealed trauma.
That was that created, you know,a hair trigger for me.
I would, I was experiencing,part of what I was experiencing
was micronutrient insufficiency.
Part of it was um a traumaresponse that was being
triggered.
And and so my I was going frommy upper part of my brain into
(20:16):
the lower part of my brain whereI stopped having control over
myself.
So I had to acceptresponsibility to go to therapy
and go through the pain ofprocessing past trauma.
I had to work diligently atdeveloping mindfulness
meditation, the skill ofmindfulness meditation, because
that started creating a spacebetween the trigger and the
(20:36):
response.
It started creating space for meso that when something happened,
I was staying present and I wasable to stay aware or become
aware of the fact that I wasstarting to feel a trauma
response and I could removemyself from the situation.
I could, you know, choose whatto do in that moment rather than
it just happening.
(20:59):
So it takes a lot of diligence,persistent effort, and humility
and courage to go through thehealing process, to be first
engage with it and to persist init.
And one of the things that I'vetalked with people about is when
I was first starting to gothrough the healing process, and
I started like I wasn't goinginto the hospital anymore, which
(21:21):
was very costly every time I hadto go to the hospital.
And I wasn't on all themedications and I wasn't going
to, you know, regularpsychiatric visits.
You know, there was a lot ofmoney that went into my care.
And even though I was paying forthe supplements, overall I was
saving a lot of money becausethe supplements were not costing
as much as all the other thingscombined.
(21:42):
And I told my husband one day, Ifeel like there's a financial
incentive to keep me sick.
And this thought has persistedwith me.
And I've started to consider allthe different aspects that the
money that is made off ofpsychotropic drugs and this
industry, how that hasinfluenced the diagnoses, the
treatment, all of these things.
(22:03):
Because there is a financialincentive here.
There is a big one.
It's a, you know, thepsychiatric drug industry
itself, by itself, is a$20billion a year industry.
And I I actually did a TikTok onthis and it got taken down for
community violations.
I appealed it and theypersisted.
They said, nope, you've violatedthe community.
And so just just pointing outthe fact that there is a
(22:27):
financial incentive to keeppeople sick was enough to get me
flagged on TikTok.
And it's really important tothink about what the who
benefits from these labels, fromthe bipolar disorder label.
Who benefits from that?
Certainly not the person who'sdiagnosed.
(22:47):
Certainly not the person who'sdiagnosed.
When somebody is diagnosed withbipolar disorder, that's a life
sentence, according to thepsychiatrist and according to
the industry.
You have been given a lifesentence, no hope of recovery.
You're going to need medicationsfor the rest of your life.
How is that helping that person?
And 83% of the people who arediagnosed and treated for
(23:08):
bipolar disorder end up, theycall it severely impaired.
So 83% of the people diagnosedand treated with bipolar
disorder end up severelyimpaired.
They end up disabled by thetreatment and by the diagnosis.
Not the diagnosis, but but thesymptoms that go along with it,
(23:29):
that are not being treated attheir source.
They are being masked, andattempted an attempt is being
made to control it usingmind-altering psychotropic
medications.
And so it is definitely not theperson who's diagnosed that
benefit that is benefiting fromthe diagnosis.
And it's not the per the peoplethat love them.
The people that love them whohave somebody who is diagnosed
(23:51):
with bipolar disorder, which issometimes I call it like a
get-out-of-jail free card.
Like somebody is behaving in abad way, and we're supposed to
just put up with that behaviorbecause they have bipolar
disorder and they can't help it,and they're doing the best they
can.
So that diagnosis is notbenefiting the people who love
(24:12):
the person who's diagnosed.
Who benefits from the diagnosis?
The people that benefit from thediagnosis are the industry
themselves.
The psychotropic drug companieshave zero incentive to find
anything that will that willresolve the symptoms.
They want drug customers forlife.
And the earlier somebody isdiagnosed, the better, because
(24:35):
the sooner you start somebody onpsychotropic medications, the
longer you will have them as acustomer.
They have no incentive to makesure that these drugs are safe
long term.
There's the financial incentiveis just to try and make sure
that they can prove that thesemedications, at least in the
short term, are safe andeffective, is the words you
(24:58):
know, a lot of times that wehear.
And there is a lot ofmanipulation that goes on.
That was one of the things thatwas so impressive about
listening to Dr.
Joseph Witt Doring's experiencesworking for the FDA and for this
drug company, is that he he kindof saw how the sausage was made
and recognized this is not,these are not being tested
(25:18):
thoroughly and properly.
And they are not being testedlong-term.
None of these drugs are testedfor longer than like eight
weeks.
There is no long-term efficacystudies that are done on these
or safety studies that are doneon them.
There's no financial incentiveto do those studies.
They don't have any, there's nobenefit, and there's only risk
involved in doing those.
And so they just don't do thestudies.
And so there is a huge financialincentive to keep people sick,
(25:43):
to keep people on these drugs.
And all of the psychiatrictraining has been funded by drug
companies.
I that was a biggest eye-openerfor me, one of one of the
biggest eye-openers for me whenI read Anatomy of an Epidemic by
Robert Whitaker.
That all of the psychiatric drugtraining training that
(26:04):
psychiatrists go through overthe years has been funded by
pharmaceutical companies.
All of the textbooks andeverything have been written by
doctors who were on the payrollof psychiatric drug companies.
And when I went to my lastpsychiatrist that I saw, when I
went to him with the informationfrom True Hope, the only reason
he looked at it was because hehad been treating me for eight
(26:26):
years at that point.
And he felt so bad that I wassuffering so much.
And he wanted to help me.
He put my needs ahead of his ownhubris and over, you know, over
his own, you know, professionalego.
And he admitted to me at onepoint that had I come to him
even a year before, he would nothave considered looking at these
(26:48):
this information because all ofhis training in medical school
taught him that the only validtreatment for bipolar disorder
was psychotropic medications.
And all of the continuingeducation that he had been
through in the following yearsafter his after his licensure
was funded by drug companies.
So it's really the benefit, thepeople who are benefiting from
(27:12):
this diagnosis are not theperson who's diagnosed and not
the people that love them.
It is the drug companies and thepsychiatric industry that is
benefiting from this diagnosis.
And one of the things that isreally important to remember as
well is that you have to changethe way that you view yourself,
(27:35):
that you view these symptoms inorder to even believe that it's
possible to heal.
If you keep viewing this throughthe lens of bipolar disorder and
you keep looking at it as anincurable condition, you know, a
chemical imbalance, a braindisease, neurodivergence, all of
those things that we've beentold that, you know, are what
(27:55):
bipolar is, it's very difficultto believe that it's possible to
heal.
And interestingly, the treatmentitself validates those claims
because the psychotropicmedications are not addressing
any underlying issue.
There has never been anunderlying etiology.
There has never been anunderlying disease identified.
(28:18):
When this diagnosis was firstdeveloped, it was developed for
the sole purpose of prescribingmedications.
The first DSM, the diagnosticalstatistical manual, was created
so that doctors would know whichmedications to give to people.
And they had not identifiedunderlying sources of symptoms.
(28:39):
They had created diagnoses basedon symptom clusters.
That's it.
And then over the years, thereason why this manual has
expanded so much is that becausewe are viewing symptoms as
diseases, and as people startedpresenting with symptom clusters
that didn't fall within thoseparameters, they would either
(29:00):
create a new diagnosis or theywould expand the parameters of
the diagnosis in order to keepthese people or put these people
in a category.
And I've heard people over andover again say to me, you know,
oh, you must have beenmisdiagnosed.
And I always ask them, whatconstitutes an accurate
diagnosis?
We have been led to believe thatthis diagnosis is identifying an
(29:22):
underlying etiology, anunderlying condition.
And it is not true.
Bipolar disorder is onlyidentifying a cluster of
symptoms.
And I met every marker on that,on that, the list.
That's why I saw over eightdoctors in the 12 years that I
was in psychiatric treatment.
And every single one of thedoctors affirmed my diagnosis,
(29:43):
every one of them.
Because I had all of thesymptoms.
And there's no such thing as atrue bipolar diagnosis, because
a bipolar diagnosis is onlyidentifying a cluster of
symptoms.
So what do we do about this?
If you want to heal, if you ifyou want to believe that it's
possible to heal, the firstthing you have to do is stop
(30:05):
viewing yourself as a victim toa disorder.
It's very difficult when youfirst start doing this because
if you've had this diagnosis forany length of time, you've had
to adjust your thinking.
You've had to adjust yourself tothis idea that you have this
disorder, because you've beentold that you'll have it for the
rest of your life and it's veryhard to live with.
(30:26):
And so your brain has to acceptwhat you're dealing with.
You have to accept that you havethis disorder.
So you've already gone through aprocess of a mindset shift to
try and accept what you'redealing with.
But if you are not wanting tolive that way anymore, if you
want to believe that it'spossible to heal, you have to
(30:47):
change the way you talk aboutwhat you're experiencing.
We do this in my uh coachingprogram all the time.
We don't talk about bipolardisorder.
We talk about bipolar symptoms.
And the language you use mattersbecause it affects the way your
brain views things.
So the reason we don't talkabout bipolar disorder is
(31:07):
because bipolar disorder keepsyou in that mindset that you
have a disease, that you have abrain issue, that it's a
biological issue that you willhave for the rest of your life.
So we don't talk about bipolardisorder.
We talk about bipolar symptoms.
And the reason that thatlanguage change matters is
because symptoms have sources.
(31:30):
And we talk about becoming adetective.
And I've talked about this inearlier podcasts.
We talk about becoming adetective in your life.
You are looking for clues thatare going to help you identify
the underlying sources of yoursymptoms.
And if you can identify theunderlying sources of your
symptoms, then you can identifywhich tools and resources are
going to help you address theunderlying sources of your
(31:53):
symptoms so that you can heal.
So moving forward, if you arenew to my podcast and this is
the first time you've everlistened to an episode, welcome.
We're so happy to have you here.
I want to encourage you tolisten to more episodes.
The episodes right before these,um, I believe it's 70, 70, 71,
and 72 are fantastic episodesbecause it's it is uh I am
(32:16):
interviewing the vice presidentof True Hope, which is a
micronutrient company thatchanged my life.
And I don't make any money offof this.
So this is not, you know, I'mnot trying to sell these
vitamins, but it is alife-changing company.
And those three episodes talkabout the origin of this
company, how they came to be.
(32:36):
You know, it was a man trying tosave his two children's lives
who were in psychiatrictreatment for bipolar.
His wife had ended her life.
His father-in-law had ended hislife.
Both of them were in treatmentfor bipolar schizoaffective
disorder, I believe, or bipolareffective disorder.
And two of his children werewell on their way.
They were headed in the samedirection.
And he was being told by the toppsychiatrist in the country that
(32:57):
there was nothing that could bedone for them.
That they were, that was theirlife, that they were going to be
on medications for the rest oftheir life.
When, you know, his teenage son,they told him he'd probably have
to be institutionalized.
So in the first episode, episode70, we, you know, I talked to um
to David Stefan, who's the vicepresident of this company, about
their founding story, about howthis company came to be.
(33:21):
In the second episode, we talkabout micronutrients and omegas
and aminos and why those thingsare so essential to our brain
function and why taking thesesupplements can help actually
resolve the underlying sourcesof symptoms.
And then in the third one, wetalk about the challenges that
are presented by going throughcross-titration or
(33:42):
cross-tapering, which is theprocess of helping your brain
heal with micronutrients andslowly going through the process
of withdrawing the medication sothat you can actually get the
brain functioning in a healthyway.
So you can start addressing theother underlying sources of
symptoms.
So if you're new here, go backand listen to those three
episodes.
They're phenomenal.
I learned more.
You know, I've been studyingthis for several years, but I
(34:03):
even learned more in thoseepisodes.
If you've been here for a while,if you haven't read my book yet,
I highly encourage you to do so.
I wrote that book as if I waswriting to my younger self.
I wrote the book to try andprovide the information I wish I
had been given back in 1998 whenI was first diagnosed.
It is the steps that I took torecover, to heal.
(34:24):
And yes, I am completely healed.
I have I have been symptom-freefor years and it's not in
remission.
I hear I hear people say thatall the time: that it's not
possible to heal bipolardisorder.
And we've already addressed thefact that bipolar is not
identifying an underlyingcondition, it is just symptoms.
And I have gone throughsystematically and resolved all
the sources of my symptoms.
(34:44):
And I have been throughtremendous trials in the past
five years, like life-alteringtrials.
And I have still been able tomaintain stable mental health
through all of it because theunderlying sources of the
symptoms that led to my bipolardiagnosis have been resolved.
So I still experience normalemotional responses to things.
(35:06):
I still experience grief when Ilose a loved one.
I still experience stress whenwe go through a move or a job
loss, or but I am able tomaintain a healthy, balanced
perspective on life and able tomaintain, you know, do all the
things I need to do, take careof myself, take care of my
family, because I have resolvedthe underlying sources of my
(35:26):
symptoms.
And if you have not, if you havenot registered and developed a
mood cycle survival guide, Istrongly urge you to do that.
There is a link to it in my shownotes.
It is a free resource that Ioffer on my website.
But this was the first step inthe healing process for me.
It was the thing that helped mestart taking responsibility for
(35:48):
myself.
And I've done episodes on that.
So if you want to listen to thepodcast episode, I'll link the
episode that I talk moreextensively about what the mood
cycle survival guide is.
But I urge you to go and getstarted on developing a mood
cycle survival guide foryourself.
If you are ready to heal, ifyou've been listening to this
and you're thinking, yes, I'mready to do this, I've read your
(36:09):
book.
This sounds like what I need,please join the upsiders tribe.
If you want to talk to me aboutit, there will be a link in the
show notes that will allow youto set up a free consultation
with me where we can talk aboutyour specific needs and what you
might need in order to gothrough the healing process.
We can talk about the upsiderstribe.
And one of the new features thatwe've added to the Upsiders
(36:31):
tribe is something calledpartner support.
We've realized that whensomebody's going through the
healing process, their lovedones, if they're married, their
spouse, if they're in acommitted relationship, their
partner, you know, familymembers, there are people who
are trying to support them thatneed support themselves.
So we have added a feature tothe upsiders tribe, which is um
(36:52):
the upsiders partner support,which is specifically for loved
ones of people who are in theupsiders tribe.
So if you are, if you areinterested, please click the
link in the show notes andschedule a session with me to
talk about your specific needsand see if maybe joining the
upsiders tribe might be yournext step.
If you have any questions, Iwould love to hear from you.
(37:14):
Make sure that you reach out.
I would love to hear yourquestions.
I would love to hear yourinsights.
And I really hope that you areable to gain the courage that
it's necessary to start viewingyourself through the lens of I
don't have bipolar disorder, Ihave bipolar symptoms.
And symptoms have sources, andI'm ready to heal.
I look forward to hearinghearing from you.
(37:36):
I hope that you are takingadvantage of all the resources
that I have to offer on mywebsite, my podcast.
If you haven't read my book,please read that.
And I look forward to seeingthose of you who are ready to
heal in the Upsiders Tribe.
Until next time, Upsiders.
(37:56):
Thanks for joining me on theUpside of Bipolar.
Your journey to recoverymatters, and I'm grateful you're
here.
For more resources, visitwww.theupsideofbipolar.com.
If you're ready to dive deeper,grab my book, The Upside of
Bipolar (38:11):
Seven Steps to Heal Your Disorder.
If you're ready to heal yoursymptoms, join my monthly
membership, The Upsiders Tribe,to transform chaos into hope.
Until next time, Upsiders
So the symptoms are very real.
I'm not saying the symptomsdon't exist, but bipolar
disorder as a diagnosis ismisleading because you have not
been given an explanation.
You have simply been given anobservation.
All a bipolar diagnosis does isobserve the symptoms.
Observe the symptom cluster thatyou're had that you have and put
(00:22):
it in a category.
That's it.
Welcome to the Upside ofBipolar, where we uncover the
true sources of bipolar symptomsand share proven tools for
recovery.
I'm your host, MichelleReitinger, number one
international best-sellingauthor of the Upside of Bipolar
Seven Steps to Heal YourDisorder.
(00:42):
In this podcast, I bring yousolo insights from my journey
and guest interviews withleading researchers and experts.
Join us to transform chaos intohope and reclaim your life.
Let's heal together.
Welcome to the upside ofbipolar.
(01:03):
I am your host, MichelleReitinger, and I am thrilled to
be doing a solo episode today,and it's a really interesting
topic.
We're talking about the barriersto healing that are created by
the bipolar disorder diagnosisitself.
And this is a topic that hasbeen coming up more and more for
me as I have been sharing theinformation about my book and
(01:23):
the research that led to myhealing and recovery.
And I honestly was not preparedwhen I very first started this
back in 2021, when I started myblog, I wasn't prepared for the
anger that what I was sharingwas going to incite in a lot of
people.
I wasn't prepared for thebacklash and the frustration
(01:43):
and, you know, anger, I guess isthe best word to say it, that I
was getting from people.
It really caught me off guard.
And I think it's because I, whenI started, when you first start
sharing something, you need toknow who you're talking to.
And the audience that I wasaddressing, that I created for
myself, was my younger self.
(02:03):
I wanted to share the thingsthat I wish somebody had shared
with me 27 years ago when I wasfirst diagnosed.
When I was first diagnosed withbipolar disorder, I was told I
had a chemical imbalance.
I was told that it was chronicand incurable.
You know, I was told that Iwould need medication for the
rest of my life.
And I believed what I was toldbecause they were doctors who
(02:24):
had been through medical schooland I didn't have any reason to
not believe what they weretelling me.
And it did create a mixed set offeelings for me.
When I very first was diagnosed,I remember feeling, on the one
hand, some relief because I feltlike they had given me an
explanation for what had beengoing on with me for the
previous couple of years.
Even going so far, you know, asfar back into my youth.
(02:47):
Um, I once I was told that thesesymptoms were part of a
disorder, my brain startedsearching back into my life for
evidence of this disorderearlier in my life.
And when you start looking atsymptoms as a disorder, it's
very easy to find those, thosethings.
It's very easy.
So it was very easy for me tolook back into my youth and see
(03:07):
patterns of hypomania when Iwould get hyper-focused on
things, when I would stay uplate working on projects, and
then depression.
I definitely experienced a lotof depression in my youth.
Viewing it through the lens of adisorder, I thought, oh yeah,
I've had this for a long timeand it just went undiagnosed for
a long time.
And so it created some issuesfor me when I was diagnosed with
(03:28):
this.
Because number one, like Imentioned, it was there was some
relief in having an explanation.
But there was also this feelingof worry and fear that I was
going to be stuck with this forthe rest of my life.
And what did that look like?
Like what who would want me?
I remember thinking that veryspecifically.
(03:49):
You know, I was in college, Iwas single, I had hopes of
getting married someday andbeing a mom.
And I remember thinking, if I'mgoing to have this for the rest
of my life, who's going to wantme like this?
I felt like I've been told I wasbroken.
And so over the years, therewere a lot of different sources
that I went to for help withcoming to grips with my
diagnosis, you know,psychiatrists specifically.
(04:11):
You know, I would go to mypsychiatric appointments very
faithfully, and I moved a numberof times.
And so each time I would move, Iwould immediately find a
psychiatrist in the area andestablish myself with a new
psychiatrist, go to the intake,get rediagnosed.
And, you know, each time thediagnosis was affirmed.
And so I was being reassured bydoctors on a regular basis that
(04:32):
this wasn't my fault, that Iwasn't doing something wrong,
that this was outside of mycontrol.
I had a disorder, I had achemical imbalance, I had a
mental illness.
And then I, you know, went totherapists.
I was advised to go to therapistto learn coping mechanisms, you
know, tools that could help memanage my bipolar more
effectively.
And that was a bit of a jokebecause it never, nothing ever
(04:53):
helped me manage my bipolareffectively.
I just kept getting worse.
I I, no matter how hard I tried,I just kept getting more and
more sick.
And I started feeling like avictim.
I started feeling like this washappening to me and I didn't
have any control over it.
And so I started trying to, itcreated this situation where I
(05:17):
didn't feel like I had theability to have control over
myself.
And I started to feel helpless.
And that is a terrible way tofeel, especially when I started
having children.
When I got married, and then Istarted having children, giving
birth, and I went through somevery serious postpartum
depression and postpartumhyperthyroidism.
I had some very serious issuesafter my first two births.
(05:39):
And I could see the damage I wasdoing to my marriage.
I could see the damage I wasdoing to my children.
And because I had been told thatI had a disorder and that it was
lifelong chronic, incurable, andI felt helpless to do anything
about it.
My brain started looking for away out.
It started looking for asolution that would that would
benefit my husband and mychildren.
(06:01):
My children were truly the mostimportant thing to me in my
life, and I would have given mylife for them.
And I think that my unwell mindknew that.
And I had been told that therewere, there was no cure.
There was, you know, I was goingto have this for the rest of my
life.
We were trying to find the rightmedications, according to the
doctors.
But my mind started thinking,maybe I just need to remove
(06:23):
myself from their lives becauseI didn't have any hope for
getting better.
And I could see the damage I wasdoing to them.
And I, one of the things that isperpetuated in this system,
because this diagnosis iscreated and viewed as an
illness, it's viewed assomething that people don't have
any control over, it's viewed assomething that is medical at its
(06:44):
core.
There is a lot of language thatis used in the mental health
care system that supports thisvictim mentality.
And my soul was rejecting what Iwas being told.
You know, I was being told thisis not your fault.
You need to have compassion foryourself.
You know, there were a lot ofthings like that where, you
(07:06):
know, I was being reassured,like you're doing your best.
This is not your fault.
You don't have any control overthis.
We're going to learn some toolsto help manage things.
But I kept thinking, it, well,maybe it's not my fault, but
it's definitely not my husband'sfault.
And it's absolutely not mychildren's fault.
So what are they supposed to do?
They just have to put up with melike this for the rest of their
lives.
That just didn't feel fair orright to me.
(07:28):
And it's interesting becausewhen I finally started healing,
I didn't know I was healing atfirst, but when I started going
through the recovery process andI started to take more
responsibility for myself andmore accountability for myself
and take ownership of mysymptoms and for paying
attention to them and managingthem more effectively using my
mood cycle survival guide, Istarted feeling better about
(07:51):
myself.
And I realized that we havecreated a class of victims with
people who are diagnosed withthese disorders because they
feel like they don't have anycontrol over what's happening
and they want to have otherpeople accept them the way they
are.
And it creates really unhealthyrelationships.
I want to go through point bypoint and talk about each of
(08:11):
these issues because it's reallyimportant to understand the
issues that are created by thisdiagnosis so that you can do
something about it.
So the first issue that iscreated by this diagnosis is
that it effectively endscuriosity into what's actually
happening.
One of the best analogies thatI've heard recently came from
Dr.
Joseph Witt During.
He is a specialist, he's apsychiatrist by training.
(08:33):
He came through, came up throughmedical school and psychiatric
training.
And he actually worked for theFDA for a little bit because he
wanted to understand how thesemedications were being approved.
He worked for a psychiatric drugcompany, seeing how they went
through the process ofresearching and proving the
efficacy or quote-unquoteefficacy of these medications.
And the result of his training,all of his training, was that he
(08:56):
created a company called theTaper Clinic where he helps
people get off of medicationsnow.
And he talks openly about theissues that are that we have
with these medications and thatthey are not actually treating
an underlying condition.
They are just attempting tomanage the symptoms and not very
well and at great risk to thepeople who are taking them.
(09:18):
And he used the analogy one daythat when you give somebody, he
was using specificallydepression, but it goes for all
of the psychiatric diagnoses.
When you give somebody withdepression an antidepressant,
quote unquote antidepressant, itis like trying to turn off the
fire alarm.
You are not resolving the fire.
(09:38):
You're not resolving the issuethat created the alarm.
You are just shutting off thealarm.
And that is what's happeningwhen you give somebody a bipolar
diagnosis, bipolar disorderdiagnosis, and then start
medicating them.
You are not addressing what isactually causing the symptoms.
You are simply turning off thefire alarm or attempting to turn
off the fire alarm.
And sometimes you make thingsway worse by using medications
(10:01):
to treat these symptoms.
And so the disorder diagnosisleads people to believe that
they have been given anexplanation.
That's what I believed.
I was told when I was diagnosedwith bipolar disorder that I had
a chemical imbalance.
I did not know at the time thatthat theory of illness had been
completely debunked andcontinues to be disproven.
(10:23):
But I believed I had been givenan explanation for why I was
sick.
And that's what I hear on aregular basis from people.
They tell me that bipolar is a,you know, they get very upset,
very defensive when I say thatbipolar is not a chemical
imbalance.
They believe that they have achemical imbalance.
They believe that they've beengiven an explanation,
explanation for why they areexperiencing these symptoms and
(10:46):
that the medications areaddressing this chemical
imbalance.
It's not true.
And it is terrible to be endingcuriosity because then people
don't look anymore for answers.
They don't look at why they'reexperiencing these symptoms.
So that's the first problem withthis bipolar disorder diagnosis
is that you are eliminating thecuriosity into what is actually
(11:07):
happening and what is causingthese symptoms to occur.
The symptoms are very real.
I want to be very clear.
A lot of times when I say thingslike bipolar is not a chemical
imbalance, people think I'msaying that bipolar symptoms
aren't real.
And they are very real.
I was, I experienced them frontand center for a long time.
You know, I was experiencingsleeplessness and symptoms of
(11:28):
mania and symptoms ofdepression, you know, going
through periods of time where Icouldn't get myself out of bed
in the morning.
Taking a shower was like a youknow a monumental task, and it
completely exhausted me.
Sometimes I would go throughtimes where I couldn't even
brush my teeth.
Like it, I, these symptoms arevery real.
The anxiety symptoms that Istarted experiencing, the first
(11:49):
time I had a major anxietyattack, I was in the in the
hospital in the ER for eighthours thinking I was having a
heart attack.
They ran all kinds of tests onme, and we discovered that it
was actually anxiety.
So the symptoms are very real.
I'm not saying the symptomsdon't exist, but bipolar
disorder as a diagnosis ismisleading because you have not
been given an explanation.
(12:10):
You have simply been given anobservation.
All a bipolar diagnosis does isobserve the symptoms.
Observe the symptom cluster thatyou're had that you have and put
it in a category.
That's it.
The second issue that thiscreates is as I mentioned
before, is it creates victimsout of the people who are
diagnosed.
(12:30):
And quite frankly, it createsvictims out of the people that
are loved ones of those peoplebecause you are told that you
don't have any control overwhat's happening, that it's it's
an illness, that you don't haveany control over it.
And so when somebody isexperiencing symptoms of mania
and they are spending money likecrazy and running their family
into debt, or taking on giganticprojects and talking a million
(12:51):
miles an hour and talking abouthow God's talking to them, or or
you know, seeing things thataren't there, or somebody who's
having serious depression andthey can't function, they're
unable to go to work, they losetheir job, they're unable to
take care of themselves, they'reunable to take care of their
children.
When they're experiencing thosesymptoms, the person feels like
they have no control over that.
(13:12):
So they are feel like a victimto the symptoms.
I remember feeling thissensation of being yanked onto a
roller coaster and just holdingon for dear life until it was
over, just praying for, youknow, to survive till it's over,
and then observing the damagethat I had done to my life and
to the people I loved duringthat episode.
It also creates victims out ofthe people who are loved ones of
(13:35):
those people because they areobserving with dismay all these
bad behaviors and destructivebehaviors.
It's doing damage to therelationship and they want to
keep loving that person and stayconnected to that person.
But if if they don't have anycontrol over it, people don't
want to subject themselves tothose, to that anymore.
(13:57):
And so it it creates victims outof everybody involved.
And it makes it so people don'tfeel like there's any way for
them to take responsibility forthemselves.
And being responsible forourselves is one of the main
sources of feeling good aboutourselves.
It's one of the main sources ofour feelings of self-worth is
being responsible for ourselves.
(14:19):
And so this disorder diagnosiscreates victims.
The third thing is that itbecomes people's identity.
I used to say this all the time.
I used to say, I have bior, I ambipolar.
I would tell people I'm bipolar.
I hear that all the time frompeople.
I am bipolar.
Also, you'll also hear thingslike, you know, I'm
(14:39):
neurodivergent.
They believe that their brainjust works differently from
other people's, and that thesesymptoms are just evidence that
they are neurodivergent.
And that has become, I'm notsaying this to be disparaging,
but it has become kind of abadge of honor for people.
Like my brain just worksdifferently from other people's,
and and they they wear it aslike a badge of honor or, you
(15:00):
know, it's something that makesthem unique.
And there are lots of thingsthat make each of us unique.
Every single person has uniquequalities and gifts and talents.
We should not be taking on thesesymptoms as part of our
identity.
But when you are given adiagnosis of bipolar disorder,
that's what we do.
(15:20):
In order to, you know, to tryand love yourself, you have to
take ownership of these thingsbecause you don't you can't help
it.
It's just part of your disease,it's part of your disorder.
And so people start to take onthis disorder as an identity,
and it creates a major barrierfor healing because that
threatens their sense ofidentity.
(15:41):
It threatens their belief aboutthemselves.
And so, if if somebody, youknow, when I tell people you
don't have to live with this forthe rest of your life, if they
have made that part of who theyare, it feels threatening to
that identity.
It feels threatening to thesense of themselves and it
creates a major barrier tohealing and recovery.
I understand where people arecoming from when they guard this
(16:04):
part of themselves so carefullybecause there is a lot of pain
associated with the symptoms andthe actions that we have taken
while we are experiencing thesesymptoms.
I know that very firsthand.
Like I experienced so much shameand pain and heartache because
of the things that I did when Iwas really sick, when I was
(16:26):
really struggling with thesesymptoms.
And it took years for me to,number one, to take ownership of
them.
And because it was verydifficult for me to take
ownership of them.
It was really painful to takeownership of the fact that I had
abused my children.
I wasn't trying to be an abusiveparent, but one of the things
(16:46):
I've talked about in the past iswhat they call what's a symptom
which was called bipolar rage.
And it was one of the worstsymptoms, in my opinion, that I
experienced as a mother becauseI had, I want to call it like I
always say it's kind of like ahair trigger.
So I would go to therapy.
You know, I was supposed to goto therapy to learn coping
mechanisms.
(17:06):
And they would say stupid thingsto me like, count to 10 when you
start feeling angry.
And I kept trying to explain tothem, you don't understand.
There's no like space betweenthe trigger and the response.
There's no space betweenwhatever happens that incites
the anger or this out of controlangry response for me to make a
decision.
I can't give myself a timeout.
(17:27):
I can't, I can't count to 10.
It wasn't, I wasn't capable ofdoing that at the time.
And it made me feel even worsebecause I kept thinking, like,
okay, next time I'll I'll try todo that.
And and every time I experiencedthis symptom, it was like a
switch was flipped.
And I felt like I was having anout-of-body experience watching
(17:48):
myself.
I was, and I've been told sincethen that what I was
experiencing was calleddissociation.
But I was viewing myself ragingat my children, and it was so
terrifying to them when I whenthis would happen.
And it didn't happen all thetime, but when it happened, it
was terrifying.
So when I was starting to gothrough the healing process and
(18:08):
I was starting to learn how totake responsibility for myself,
it was a very painful experienceto take ownership of that and to
acknowledge, even though I lovedmy children, I was abusing them.
That was abusive.
And even though I didn't do iton purpose, they still
experienced abuse.
And so I had to go through somevery painful experiences with my
(18:29):
children when I was trying tohelp them heal, going through
therapy sessions and lettingthem talk about the pain that I
caused, and just sitting andlistening to it and
acknowledging it and takingownership of it and telling them
how sorry I was and that I wasworking on that.
And that leads to one of thebiggest challenges that I've
seen with people when they areworking on trying to heal, when
(18:51):
they are actually getting to thepoint when they are ready to
start the healing process, whichis takes it takes tremendous
humility and courage to gothrough the healing process.
Because part of that healingprocess is learning how to take
responsibility for yourself,learning how to take ownership,
(19:13):
not allowing yourself to behaveas a victim any longer, but
recognizing that yes, you can dosomething about it.
And maybe not in that moment,maybe not when you're
experiencing like I experiencedwith the those that bipolar rage
symptom.
But I can do something to workon preventing it from happening.
I can work on the source of thesymptoms.
(19:33):
I can work on identifying, youknow, for me with this symptom.
There were it was a layeredapproach.
So the very first thing wasgetting off of the medications
and onto micronutrients throughcross titration.
That takes time and it takesdiligent effort and patience.
And once my brain started toheal, then I was able to start
(19:55):
working on going to therapy forworking on unhealed trauma.
That was that created, you know,a hair trigger for me.
I would, I was experiencing,part of what I was experiencing
was micronutrient insufficiency.
Part of it was um a traumaresponse that was being
triggered.
And and so my I was going frommy upper part of my brain into
(20:16):
the lower part of my brain whereI stopped having control over
myself.
So I had to acceptresponsibility to go to therapy
and go through the pain ofprocessing past trauma.
I had to work diligently atdeveloping mindfulness
meditation, the skill ofmindfulness meditation, because
that started creating a spacebetween the trigger and the
(20:36):
response.
It started creating space for meso that when something happened,
I was staying present and I wasable to stay aware or become
aware of the fact that I wasstarting to feel a trauma
response and I could removemyself from the situation.
I could, you know, choose whatto do in that moment rather than
it just happening.
(20:59):
So it takes a lot of diligence,persistent effort, and humility
and courage to go through thehealing process, to be first
engage with it and to persist init.
And one of the things that I'vetalked with people about is when
I was first starting to gothrough the healing process, and
I started like I wasn't goinginto the hospital anymore, which
(21:21):
was very costly every time I hadto go to the hospital.
And I wasn't on all themedications and I wasn't going
to, you know, regularpsychiatric visits.
You know, there was a lot ofmoney that went into my care.
And even though I was paying forthe supplements, overall I was
saving a lot of money becausethe supplements were not costing
as much as all the other thingscombined.
(21:42):
And I told my husband one day, Ifeel like there's a financial
incentive to keep me sick.
And this thought has persistedwith me.
And I've started to consider allthe different aspects that the
money that is made off ofpsychotropic drugs and this
industry, how that hasinfluenced the diagnoses, the
treatment, all of these things.
(22:03):
Because there is a financialincentive here.
There is a big one.
It's a, you know, thepsychiatric drug industry
itself, by itself, is a$20billion a year industry.
And I I actually did a TikTok onthis and it got taken down for
community violations.
I appealed it and theypersisted.
They said, nope, you've violatedthe community.
And so just just pointing outthe fact that there is a
(22:27):
financial incentive to keeppeople sick was enough to get me
flagged on TikTok.
And it's really important tothink about what the who
benefits from these labels, fromthe bipolar disorder label.
Who benefits from that?
Certainly not the person who'sdiagnosed.
(22:47):
Certainly not the person who'sdiagnosed.
When somebody is diagnosed withbipolar disorder, that's a life
sentence, according to thepsychiatrist and according to
the industry.
You have been given a lifesentence, no hope of recovery.
You're going to need medicationsfor the rest of your life.
How is that helping that person?
And 83% of the people who arediagnosed and treated for
(23:08):
bipolar disorder end up, theycall it severely impaired.
So 83% of the people diagnosedand treated with bipolar
disorder end up severelyimpaired.
They end up disabled by thetreatment and by the diagnosis.
Not the diagnosis, but but thesymptoms that go along with it,
(23:29):
that are not being treated attheir source.
They are being masked, andattempted an attempt is being
made to control it usingmind-altering psychotropic
medications.
And so it is definitely not theperson who's diagnosed that
benefit that is benefiting fromthe diagnosis.
And it's not the per the peoplethat love them.
The people that love them whohave somebody who is diagnosed
(23:51):
with bipolar disorder, which issometimes I call it like a
get-out-of-jail free card.
Like somebody is behaving in abad way, and we're supposed to
just put up with that behaviorbecause they have bipolar
disorder and they can't help it,and they're doing the best they
can.
So that diagnosis is notbenefiting the people who love
(24:12):
the person who's diagnosed.
Who benefits from the diagnosis?
The people that benefit from thediagnosis are the industry
themselves.
The psychotropic drug companieshave zero incentive to find
anything that will that willresolve the symptoms.
They want drug customers forlife.
And the earlier somebody isdiagnosed, the better, because
(24:35):
the sooner you start somebody onpsychotropic medications, the
longer you will have them as acustomer.
They have no incentive to makesure that these drugs are safe
long term.
There's the financial incentiveis just to try and make sure
that they can prove that thesemedications, at least in the
short term, are safe andeffective, is the words you
(24:58):
know, a lot of times that wehear.
And there is a lot ofmanipulation that goes on.
That was one of the things thatwas so impressive about
listening to Dr.
Joseph Witt Doring's experiencesworking for the FDA and for this
drug company, is that he he kindof saw how the sausage was made
and recognized this is not,these are not being tested
(25:18):
thoroughly and properly.
And they are not being testedlong-term.
None of these drugs are testedfor longer than like eight
weeks.
There is no long-term efficacystudies that are done on these
or safety studies that are doneon them.
There's no financial incentiveto do those studies.
They don't have any, there's nobenefit, and there's only risk
involved in doing those.
And so they just don't do thestudies.
And so there is a huge financialincentive to keep people sick,
(25:43):
to keep people on these drugs.
And all of the psychiatrictraining has been funded by drug
companies.
I that was a biggest eye-openerfor me, one of one of the
biggest eye-openers for me whenI read Anatomy of an Epidemic by
Robert Whitaker.
That all of the psychiatric drugtraining training that
(26:04):
psychiatrists go through overthe years has been funded by
pharmaceutical companies.
All of the textbooks andeverything have been written by
doctors who were on the payrollof psychiatric drug companies.
And when I went to my lastpsychiatrist that I saw, when I
went to him with the informationfrom True Hope, the only reason
he looked at it was because hehad been treating me for eight
(26:26):
years at that point.
And he felt so bad that I wassuffering so much.
And he wanted to help me.
He put my needs ahead of his ownhubris and over, you know, over
his own, you know, professionalego.
And he admitted to me at onepoint that had I come to him
even a year before, he would nothave considered looking at these
(26:48):
this information because all ofhis training in medical school
taught him that the only validtreatment for bipolar disorder
was psychotropic medications.
And all of the continuingeducation that he had been
through in the following yearsafter his after his licensure
was funded by drug companies.
So it's really the benefit, thepeople who are benefiting from
(27:12):
this diagnosis are not theperson who's diagnosed and not
the people that love them.
It is the drug companies and thepsychiatric industry that is
benefiting from this diagnosis.
And one of the things that isreally important to remember as
well is that you have to changethe way that you view yourself,
(27:35):
that you view these symptoms inorder to even believe that it's
possible to heal.
If you keep viewing this throughthe lens of bipolar disorder and
you keep looking at it as anincurable condition, you know, a
chemical imbalance, a braindisease, neurodivergence, all of
those things that we've beentold that, you know, are what
(27:55):
bipolar is, it's very difficultto believe that it's possible to
heal.
And interestingly, the treatmentitself validates those claims
because the psychotropicmedications are not addressing
any underlying issue.
There has never been anunderlying etiology.
There has never been anunderlying disease identified.
(28:18):
When this diagnosis was firstdeveloped, it was developed for
the sole purpose of prescribingmedications.
The first DSM, the diagnosticalstatistical manual, was created
so that doctors would know whichmedications to give to people.
And they had not identifiedunderlying sources of symptoms.
(28:39):
They had created diagnoses basedon symptom clusters.
That's it.
And then over the years, thereason why this manual has
expanded so much is that becausewe are viewing symptoms as
diseases, and as people startedpresenting with symptom clusters
that didn't fall within thoseparameters, they would either
(29:00):
create a new diagnosis or theywould expand the parameters of
the diagnosis in order to keepthese people or put these people
in a category.
And I've heard people over andover again say to me, you know,
oh, you must have beenmisdiagnosed.
And I always ask them, whatconstitutes an accurate
diagnosis?
We have been led to believe thatthis diagnosis is identifying an
(29:22):
underlying etiology, anunderlying condition.
And it is not true.
Bipolar disorder is onlyidentifying a cluster of
symptoms.
And I met every marker on that,on that, the list.
That's why I saw over eightdoctors in the 12 years that I
was in psychiatric treatment.
And every single one of thedoctors affirmed my diagnosis,
(29:43):
every one of them.
Because I had all of thesymptoms.
And there's no such thing as atrue bipolar diagnosis, because
a bipolar diagnosis is onlyidentifying a cluster of
symptoms.
So what do we do about this?
If you want to heal, if you ifyou want to believe that it's
possible to heal, the firstthing you have to do is stop
(30:05):
viewing yourself as a victim toa disorder.
It's very difficult when youfirst start doing this because
if you've had this diagnosis forany length of time, you've had
to adjust your thinking.
You've had to adjust yourself tothis idea that you have this
disorder, because you've beentold that you'll have it for the
rest of your life and it's veryhard to live with.
(30:26):
And so your brain has to acceptwhat you're dealing with.
You have to accept that you havethis disorder.
So you've already gone through aprocess of a mindset shift to
try and accept what you'redealing with.
But if you are not wanting tolive that way anymore, if you
want to believe that it'spossible to heal, you have to
(30:47):
change the way you talk aboutwhat you're experiencing.
We do this in my uh coachingprogram all the time.
We don't talk about bipolardisorder.
We talk about bipolar symptoms.
And the language you use mattersbecause it affects the way your
brain views things.
So the reason we don't talkabout bipolar disorder is
(31:07):
because bipolar disorder keepsyou in that mindset that you
have a disease, that you have abrain issue, that it's a
biological issue that you willhave for the rest of your life.
So we don't talk about bipolardisorder.
We talk about bipolar symptoms.
And the reason that thatlanguage change matters is
because symptoms have sources.
(31:30):
And we talk about becoming adetective.
And I've talked about this inearlier podcasts.
We talk about becoming adetective in your life.
You are looking for clues thatare going to help you identify
the underlying sources of yoursymptoms.
And if you can identify theunderlying sources of your
symptoms, then you can identifywhich tools and resources are
going to help you address theunderlying sources of your
(31:53):
symptoms so that you can heal.
So moving forward, if you arenew to my podcast and this is
the first time you've everlistened to an episode, welcome.
We're so happy to have you here.
I want to encourage you tolisten to more episodes.
The episodes right before these,um, I believe it's 70, 70, 71,
and 72 are fantastic episodesbecause it's it is uh I am
(32:16):
interviewing the vice presidentof True Hope, which is a
micronutrient company thatchanged my life.
And I don't make any money offof this.
So this is not, you know, I'mnot trying to sell these
vitamins, but it is alife-changing company.
And those three episodes talkabout the origin of this
company, how they came to be.
(32:36):
You know, it was a man trying tosave his two children's lives
who were in psychiatrictreatment for bipolar.
His wife had ended her life.
His father-in-law had ended hislife.
Both of them were in treatmentfor bipolar schizoaffective
disorder, I believe, or bipolareffective disorder.
And two of his children werewell on their way.
They were headed in the samedirection.
And he was being told by the toppsychiatrist in the country that
(32:57):
there was nothing that could bedone for them.
That they were, that was theirlife, that they were going to be
on medications for the rest oftheir life.
When, you know, his teenage son,they told him he'd probably have
to be institutionalized.
So in the first episode, episode70, we, you know, I talked to um
to David Stefan, who's the vicepresident of this company, about
their founding story, about howthis company came to be.
(33:21):
In the second episode, we talkabout micronutrients and omegas
and aminos and why those thingsare so essential to our brain
function and why taking thesesupplements can help actually
resolve the underlying sourcesof symptoms.
And then in the third one, wetalk about the challenges that
are presented by going throughcross-titration or
(33:42):
cross-tapering, which is theprocess of helping your brain
heal with micronutrients andslowly going through the process
of withdrawing the medication sothat you can actually get the
brain functioning in a healthyway.
So you can start addressing theother underlying sources of
symptoms.
So if you're new here, go backand listen to those three
episodes.
They're phenomenal.
I learned more.
You know, I've been studyingthis for several years, but I
(34:03):
even learned more in thoseepisodes.
If you've been here for a while,if you haven't read my book yet,
I highly encourage you to do so.
I wrote that book as if I waswriting to my younger self.
I wrote the book to try andprovide the information I wish I
had been given back in 1998 whenI was first diagnosed.
It is the steps that I took torecover, to heal.
(34:24):
And yes, I am completely healed.
I have I have been symptom-freefor years and it's not in
remission.
I hear I hear people say thatall the time: that it's not
possible to heal bipolardisorder.
And we've already addressed thefact that bipolar is not
identifying an underlyingcondition, it is just symptoms.
And I have gone throughsystematically and resolved all
the sources of my symptoms.
(34:44):
And I have been throughtremendous trials in the past
five years, like life-alteringtrials.
And I have still been able tomaintain stable mental health
through all of it because theunderlying sources of the
symptoms that led to my bipolardiagnosis have been resolved.
So I still experience normalemotional responses to things.
(35:06):
I still experience grief when Ilose a loved one.
I still experience stress whenwe go through a move or a job
loss, or but I am able tomaintain a healthy, balanced
perspective on life and able tomaintain, you know, do all the
things I need to do, take careof myself, take care of my
family, because I have resolvedthe underlying sources of my
(35:26):
symptoms.
And if you have not, if you havenot registered and developed a
mood cycle survival guide, Istrongly urge you to do that.
There is a link to it in my shownotes.
It is a free resource that Ioffer on my website.
But this was the first step inthe healing process for me.
It was the thing that helped mestart taking responsibility for
(35:48):
myself.
And I've done episodes on that.
So if you want to listen to thepodcast episode, I'll link the
episode that I talk moreextensively about what the mood
cycle survival guide is.
But I urge you to go and getstarted on developing a mood
cycle survival guide foryourself.
If you are ready to heal, ifyou've been listening to this
and you're thinking, yes, I'mready to do this, I've read your
(36:09):
book.
This sounds like what I need,please join the upsiders tribe.
If you want to talk to me aboutit, there will be a link in the
show notes that will allow youto set up a free consultation
with me where we can talk aboutyour specific needs and what you
might need in order to gothrough the healing process.
We can talk about the upsiderstribe.
And one of the new features thatwe've added to the Upsiders
(36:31):
tribe is something calledpartner support.
We've realized that whensomebody's going through the
healing process, their lovedones, if they're married, their
spouse, if they're in acommitted relationship, their
partner, you know, familymembers, there are people who
are trying to support them thatneed support themselves.
So we have added a feature tothe upsiders tribe, which is um
(36:52):
the upsiders partner support,which is specifically for loved
ones of people who are in theupsiders tribe.
So if you are, if you areinterested, please click the
link in the show notes andschedule a session with me to
talk about your specific needsand see if maybe joining the
upsiders tribe might be yournext step.
If you have any questions, Iwould love to hear from you.
(37:14):
Make sure that you reach out.
I would love to hear yourquestions.
I would love to hear yourinsights.
And I really hope that you areable to gain the courage that
it's necessary to start viewingyourself through the lens of I
don't have bipolar disorder, Ihave bipolar symptoms.
And symptoms have sources, andI'm ready to heal.
I look forward to hearinghearing from you.
(37:36):
I hope that you are takingadvantage of all the resources
that I have to offer on mywebsite, my podcast.
If you haven't read my book,please read that.
And I look forward to seeingthose of you who are ready to
heal in the Upsiders Tribe.
Until next time, Upsiders.
(37:56):
Thanks for joining me on theUpside of Bipolar.
Your journey to recoverymatters, and I'm grateful you're
here.
For more resources, visitwww.theupsideofbipolar.com.
If you're ready to dive deeper,grab my book, The Upside of
Bipolar (38:11):
Seven Steps to Heal Your Disorder.
If you're ready to heal yoursymptoms, join my monthly
membership, The Upsiders Tribe,to transform chaos into hope.
Until next time, Upsiders
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