The Upside of Bipolar: Conversations on the Road to Wellness
Living with bipolar disorder sucks! Each week Michelle Reittinger and her guests explore tools and resources that help you learn how to live well with your bipolar. If you are tired of suffering and want to live a healthy, balanced, productive life with your bipolar, this podcast was designed with you in mind.
Episodes
We trace Angie Peacock’s (MSW, CPC) journey from combat trauma and antibiotic injury to a maze of labels and polypharmacy, and how trusting her inner voice led her out of withdrawal and into advocacy. We unpack iatrogenic harm, challenge the illness lens, and offer grounded steps toward safe tapering and real recovery.
• combat stress, gut injury, and hypervigilance as clear causes of distress
• first...
I explore the gap between bondage and freedom, and how agency survives even when diagnosis and treatment narrow your choices. Through poems, personal turning points, and practical tools, I map a path from helplessness to daily actions that restore control.
• defining agency versus freedom with clear examples
• reframing bipolar from victimhood to informed choice
• choosing life, asking for help, b...
I trace the path from blind trust in a chemical imbalance story to a research-based, integrated approach for resolving bipolar symptoms. I share the books, experts, tools, and daily practices that rebuilt stability through nutrition, trauma therapy, and mindfulness.
• conditioning to trust credentials over outcomes
• harms from long-term medication, hospitalization and ECT
• turning points as a pa...
I challenge the idea that a bipolar label defines a life and show how reframing symptoms creates room for choice, tools, and repair. I share a practical survival guide, language shifts, and boundary skills that turn chaos into traction.
• labels built on symptom clusters create helplessness
• medication roulette, side effects, and why talk therapy often stalls
• rage and dissociation explained as ...
We explore how yoga shifts healing from labels and behavior control to embodied awareness, and how grounding builds real emotional regulation for bipolar symptoms and trauma. Dr. Ghada Osman shares her three-prong model so listeners can ground first, then safely energize or calm.
• mental health labels versus emotional health signals
• witness consciousness and bottom-up healing
• shame cycles, un...
I share a practical plan to turn New Year hope into steady recovery by choosing one habit, building agency, and treating sources of symptoms rather than endlessly managing them. I outline seven habits for healing, from mood tracking and nutrition to therapy, mindfulness, yoga, exercise, and mindful living.
• healing as a long-term process built on one change
• shifting from victim mindset to personal...
I share how faith and action led from despair and repeated hospital stays to a practical path for recovery. The story moves from early experiences of God’s love to a step-by-step survival guide, therapy, micronutrients, and an open invitation to choose agency today.
• the role of faith as a source of hope and direction
• the moment a clear thought interrupted suicidal despair
• why healing came th...
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 labe...
In this engaging third conversation with David Stephan, we unpack why symptom spikes during micronutrient use often signal overmedication, not relapse, and how to time reductions for smoother tapers. We share stories, protocols, and tools that make withdrawal safer while building real, durable stability.
• intake essentials and complete disclosure of meds and supplements
• medication potentiation expl...
What if the brain isn’t broken—but under-supplied? This episode continues the conversation with David Stephan, VP of Truehope, as we dive into the specifics of how vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and omegas provided in bioavailable, balanced forms, help the brain recover. In this conversation we talk about:
- The difference between the function of drugs and micronutrients on the brain
- How micronutrients actually ...
Join me as I speak with Truehope Vice President David Stephan as we trace how a family’s tragedy led to a nutrient-based approach for mental health, why absorption and balance matter more than labels, and how research and real lives converged. The science behind serotonin and dopamine pathways shows why broad-spectrum micronutrients can restore function where drugs often fall short.
• origin of Truehope a...
We challenge the reflex to medicate and the vacuum around de-prescribing by tracing Jen’s 25-year story with SSRIs, from teenage labels and muted emotions to neonatal withdrawal, metabolic fallout, and a hard-won hyperbolic taper. We share tools for safer tapering, building a support tribe, and reclaiming informed consent and agency.
• prescribers trained to start meds, not de-prescribe
• teen SSRIs w...
We challenge the “gold standard” of therapy plus meds and show how nutrition, sleep, and curiosity reveal root causes that the psychiatric labels miss. Dr. Teralyn Sell shares her journey from traditional psychotherapy to functional brain health, and why feeding the brain changes everything.
• how siloed systems block simple solutions like omega‑3s
• the cost of medication‑first care on memory, mood a...
Understanding the true source of bipolar symptoms requires becoming a detective in your own life rather than accepting diagnosis as the final answer. Approaching symptoms with curiosity instead of judgment allows us to identify what's really happening beneath the surface and find effective paths to healing.
• Diagnoses are observations of symptom clusters, not explanations for why you have symptoms
Michelle shares her transformative realization that bipolar disorder isn't a disease but a cluster of symptoms, and how this understanding freed her from decades of believing she had an incurable condition.
• The bipolar diagnosis ends curiosity about why symptoms occur because people believe they've been given a complete answer
• Being told bipolar disorder is lifelong and incurable creates...
Michelle shares why she took a hiatus from her podcast to fully experience planning her daughter's wedding and supporting her son through his senior year of high school.
• Decided to pause her podcast, blog, and social media when life became overwhelming with a job change, moves, planning a wedding, and senior year activities.
• Realized the purpose of healing from bipolar was to be present for t...
In her new book "Chemically Imbalanced: The Making and Unmaking of the Serotonin Myth" Professor Joanna Moncrieff exposes how millions have been misled to believe they have brain chemical imbalances requiring drug treatments when no evidence supports this view.
• Depression is a normal human emotional response to life difficulties, not a brain disease
• The "drug-centered" model re...
Dr. Sheri Johnson shares groundbreaking research on how circadian rhythms and reward sensitivity affect bipolar symptoms, offering practical approaches to wellness through lifestyle interventions. Her work at UC Berkeley's CALM program explores how time-restricted eating and Mediterranean diet patterns can strengthen body rhythms and improve mood stability.
• Bipolar symptoms affect circadian rhythms...
Episode Highlight:
After years of navigating the complex intersection of marriage and mental health, Sue Best shares her deeply personal journey of supporting her husband, Travis, through his bipolar disorder recovery. In this heartfelt conversation, Sue opens up about the emotional challenges, pivotal moments of growth, and the resilience required to maintain stability in the face of adversity. This episode ...
Don't miss this episode! Travis Best, a member of the Upsiders' Tribe recovery program, and his wife Sue share their journey navigating the challenges of bipolar disorder within their marriage. They highlight the profound impact of community, communication, and therapeutic resources. With candid reflections on symptoms, medication struggles, and the importance of mutual support, they emphasize that whil...
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