How I Keep My Friends Despite My Bipolar Challenges

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broken relationships with bipolar, how to keep friends, how to make friends

Bipolar disorder tends to shatter relationships. We sometimes “burn bridges” with anger, sometimes vanish into holes of despair. It’s hard for friends to stick with people whose patterns are so inconstant. And yet, I have found, it is possible to maintain even long-time friendships when living with bipolar.

Making and keeping friends can be challenging with bipolar disorder. Image by Jess Foami from Pixabay

Soteria Shelter Offers Deliverance in Hungary

‘Soteria‘ is a Greek word for deliverance or salvation (rescue) that many of us know from the New Testament. It popped up in my feed this week as the name of a non-religious mental health nonprofit in Hungary.

Soteria Shelter takes the perspective that life difficulties happen to everyone, and all people in difficulty deserve kind, generous help.Dániel Ács writes:

We are together in order to help the people in crisis by means of our presence. Our ethical motto is: “It can happen to you, too.” This change of aspect puts our thinking in a new light: What if we were to get into trouble? How would we feel? Who or what would be good for us?

This makes Soteria Shelter an embracing community, in the tradition of what we best desire our congregations to be. Read more about this project and imagine how the people of your church could become a true place of soteria for those in emotional crisis.

Suicide Prevention: Churches Provide Community and Meaning

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Anthony Pisani, suicide, suicide prevention, Thomas Joiner

Lately, I’ve been reading Thomas Joiner and Anthony Pisani on suicide and its prevention. They approach the subject from slightly different views, but at base have community- and person-focused theories. The key distinctive between their theories and most of what I’ve seen is they don’t assume a suicidal person is “mentally ill.”

Illness or Lack of Community?

Here’s the difference between the mainstream and how these two researchers approach the subject.
Mainstream theories – 90-95% of people who suicide suffer from 1 of these 4 mental illnesses: depression, substance abuse, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia.
Joiner / Pisani – People who suicide have reached a point where they cannot find meaning in life, lack a community where they feel valued, feel burdensome to those around them — and have also obtained the fearlessness, means, and skill to do the deed.

I’m Sinking and Stuck in One Place … and That’s Progress

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aspergers, bipolar disorder, stress

The last couple weeks have been challenging, to say the least. I’ve moved; I’ve met the divorce attorney; and although many of the boxes are unpacked, there are still a lot of items to be settled into their proper places. For example, the top of my great-grandmother’s cabinet Victrola is absolutely littered with the salt and pepper shakers I have collected over the years. And did I mention that I’m job hunting?