This video It explains the three stages of bipolar disorder: Crisis, Managed, and Recovery. It reveals the results of an important recent study by the National Institute of Mental Health that you will find shocking. There are many who wish the study would remain buried, but as they say, “The cat is out of the bag now!” Be sure to check it out and share your comments.

When my first book The Bipolar Advantage came out, I almost made a version of it replacing my name with Steve Jobs to send to him. The two of us looked so alike at the time that even Apple employees would come up to me and ask if I was a Steve when I dressed like him.

I have heard many people postulate that Steve is bipolar, so I thought the stunt would get his attention. The book cover was easy for people to mistake as him and with his name on it the legal team would be wondering what it was about. The crazy idea was that they would show it to him and he would contact me because of it. He has been a hero to me and at the time I was obsessed like so many with finding examples of famous people who were bipolar.

The recent announcement that Steve Jobs is stepping down reminded me of my old fantasy. Back then I was convinced that his success was a result of being bipolar and it was proof that we have advantage, which is partly why I named the book The Bipolar Advantage. He may be bipolar, but the fantasy really says more about where I was at the time than anything else. Like so many others, I needed to find things that made up for the horrors of the condition. If we could just survive all of the terrible things about mania and depression, perhaps we could gain something from having been through it.

One of the many traits of being bipolar is the ability to see the world in a different way. Many might say it is a curse, but it can also be a gift when looked at from a positive perspective. This change in perspective can literally help you to see with greater clarity.

From early childhood, we have been taking tests to assess our understanding of the world. These tests have had a profound impact on us in ways that we are often unaware. They have created a world view that places too much importance on passing the test and not enough on learning more about ourselves. In some ways, the tests themselves have gotten in the way of what the goal was in the first place.

I have been wearing glasses for almost thirty years. Every year or so I take a new exam to make sure my prescription is still the same. The test seems simple enough: the clinician shows me letters at different sizes and asks me to identify what letters I see. Anyone who has a driver’s license has taken a similar test as has anyone who wears glasses or contact lenses.

A few years ago I discovered a major breakthrough that has completely changed my life. It has brought my life into focus in many ways. I share it with you in hope that it will help you to see better too.

Depressed individuals have a shorter life expectancy than those without depression, in part because depressed patients are at risk of dying by suicide.1 However, we also have a higher rate of dying from other causes.2 Some researchers conclude that we may be more susceptible to medical conditions such as heart disease.3 I had an experience that might point to another cause that we need to address: we don’t treat many health issues because we think they are just symptoms of depression.

Last winter, I went through one of the deepest depressions of my life. It was very intense physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. It was a beautiful experience, but that is for another article. The physical aspect is what I want to focus on here.

My physical experience this time was far more intense than any other depression. I was in tremendous pain throughout my body, but especially in my digestive track and chest. I was also completely drained of energy. It took a tremendous act of will just to get out of bed. It was so intense that I found myself reviewing my life in search of any other time that I had similar experiences.

There was a demo of a video car racing game at the mall the other day and I became fascinated by the reactions of the people who were trying it out. I stayed around for a couple of hours and did an informal study of the phenomenon.

I watched almost 100 people drive into walls and other cars and asked 25 of them what they thought was the reason for so many crashes. Almost to a person, it was the fault of the car. Although they sat in seats that were identical to those in a race car, they said it was too twitchy, loose in the corners, and was nothing like driving a real car.

I was ready to conclude that the game was not very good when a man came along who drove incredibly fast without crashing at all. I asked him his secret and he said that he had taken driving lessons at a race track and practiced often in a real race car. He concluded that the game was very realistic and those who thought otherwise were trying to compare it to a normal car. He said the problem is they don’t know how to drive and the game is not at fault.

I gave a talk the other day for NAMI Santa Rosa about my next book and a woman remarked how different it is from my previous ones. I said that my first three were about me being the black swan.

She asked if I was referencing the movie called Black Swan and I have not seen it yet, so I do not know if it is related at all to Karl Popper’s concept from the 1930s that I was referencing. Have you seen it? Does it mention Popper? Should I see it either way?

Popper suggested that if you observe only white swans, you are using inductive reasoning to extrapolate that all swans are white. This was falsified when black swans were discovered by the English naturalist John Latham in 1790. Science was forced to change the hypothesis that all swans are white by the new evidence.

I noticed it when I was first diagnosed, but have been watching the phenomenon ever since. I have seen it happen in so many people that it might be true in three quarters of the cases. What is even more amazing is how fast it happens. Bipolar may be the fastest path to perfection known to man!

I have been working on more thorough assessment programs for my new book and think that I have found a breakthrough. Through the assessments I have it traced to the exact moment that it happens. I wonder if you can help me verify my research with your own experiences and share your ideas on how to improve upon it?

We often hear people make the distinction between HAVING Bipolar and BEING Bipolar. Rarely, do we hear a distinction comparing Bipolar to Bipolar Disorder. I coined the term Bipolar In Order ten years ago to help make the distinction, but wonder what it means to you?

Bipolar used to be called Manic-Depression. Mania means that we are elevated. Depression means lowered. Bipolar means that we have two poles (high and low), so it is meant to replace manic-depression as a more acceptable way of describing the same thing. Or, is it just more marketable?

One of my earliest memories is of learning to ride a bike. I remember the fear, exhilaration, and hyper-awareness, along with the tension in my body and how my breath became both more rapid and shorter. I was outside of my comfort zone and challenging myself to grow. It was also a blast!

My father had a wisdom common with most dads. He didn’t push me down a steep hill and hope I survived; he ran along next to me making sure I was not too far outside of my comfort zone as to be incapable of handling it. He taught me one of the most important lessons that day about what it is to be human. We need to challenge ourselves to grow, while at the same time making sure we don’t go too far outside of our comfort zone.

The thrill of learning something new and challenging myself to grow has been a constant companion ever since my first bike ride. On too many occasions, I took on challenges far outside of my comfort zone and was either debilitated by the fear and lack of skills, or took risks that caused more harm than the potential reward from succeeding.

Another notion that needs to be challenged is that depression and bipolar are “mood disorders,” while hallucinations and delusions are “thought disorders.” There is nothing wrong with having moods, thoughts, feelings, visions, delusions, or any other experiences. The problem is our behavior.

Mood is “a conscious state of mind or predominant emotion.”1 Psychology likes to add disclaimers to it like long lasting or long term, but the essential element is not how long it lasts, it is the emotional feeling that we have.

Behavior is “the manner of conducting oneself, anything that an organism does involving action and response to stimulation, and the response of an individual, group, or species to its environment.”2 I would include our thought process as part of the response.

It is interesting that bipolar is called a “mood disorder” but is treated at a behavioral health clinic. If you think about what the “disorder” is for people around a person with depression, mania, hallucination, and delusion, it is the behavior that is the problem. Does it matter if I hallucinate all day long if my behavior does not bother anyone or myself? Does it matter if I am manic or depressed if my actions are completely under self-mastery?