WELCOME TO BIPOLAR BABE! A BABE IS BORN on May 14, 2009!
Posted by Babe in Uncategorized, tags: BIPOLAR BABE www.bipolarbabe.com Andrea PaquetteThis is Andrea, AKA Bipolar Babe, and I want to thank you for taking the time to check out the new site! I believe some people might be shy at first, but once we get this conversation rolling we are gonna kick some serious stigma butt! Please have a look around the site and come back to the blog and let me know what you think, and feel free to post items related to mental illness. Comments, questions, observations, criticisms, etc.
We plan to have a chat forum coming soon to further encourage a stigma free conversation about mental illnesses! We just launched so we will be tweaking the site as our wonderful site ‘Diva Danielle’ continues to do her flash magic. If you have suggestions please e-mail: babe@bipolarbabe.com This site will be monitored and updated on an ongoing basis, so please visit often.
Thank you *sniff* to all of those that made this dream possible…you know who you are. Most of all thank YOU to all the young people for sharing and listening. So come on! Let’s get blogging! Much Hugs! 
Entries (RSS)
Bipolar Babe/Andrea
I am so incredibly PROUD of you! As you know, I too suffer from Bipolar Disorder and have taken great steps to become well. I read all I can and presently am taking no medications, chosing to deal with my illness in a different way. What helps me is relaxation therapy, Yoga and Meditation. I think of you as my personal little hero! I love you. I miss you and will be visiting this site often. I am working on my story to share here with you all! Take each day as it comes and always know, I am thinking of you my sweet Andrea! Aunt Deb
This is it! The birth of something beautiful! So, you and me, let’s do it – jump empty handed into the void and enjoy the ride…
Love you,
Depressed Diva
Hi Andrea, Great website
I am very proud of you,
Thanks for making a website thats so inspiring, mental illness is a complicated thing. You and Mom and Aunty Debbie inspire me because you are all courageous. Im glad other people will have an outlet for education, sharing stories, ect.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the world understood mental illnesses and the stigma gone—It starts with the youth!!!!
Great job and I love you.
Your sis
Chris
Love the Website! <3
sis andrea, you’re so amazing! i’m so proud of you sis. the site is so perfect. so beautiful. wow! my heart is pumping so fast because im so happy for you sis. despite from all of our differences and struggles we are experiencing in our lives, yet, still you continue to do this wonderful things. to be a perfect example to others. and truly you’re an inspiration dear sis. personally, i would like to THANK YOU for everything sis andrea. BIPOLAR BABE, CONGRATULATIONS! Keep up the great job!
I have bipolar. I’ve been a facilitator and the phone contact person for the Victoria chapters of the Mood Disorders Association of BC for 8 years. Several hundred people have contacted our group and participated in our meetings. For some reason, young people, once they leave highschool, disappear off our radar and reappear in their 30′s and beyond when their mood disorders have created havoc in their lives and something drastic has happened, causing them to reach out for help.
I believe this gap, people from 16 to 28, exists because they have a hard time relating to groups of older people and perhaps they also haven’t learnt how to ask for help yet. Whatever the reason, it is of paramount importance that we reach young people with Mood Disorders as soon as possible. The illnesses are so much easier to recover from at the early onset of symptoms.
This website, BipolarBabe, is the most effective tool I have yet seen in reaching and teaching young people with or without Mood Disorders. Here at last is somewhere peers in their younger years can reach out to peers.
I was 45 when I was diagnosed, scared witless, but saved by peer support. Now the youngest, most important generation can learn the simplest fact that we their elders took so long to know. Reach out to each other and you will discover that in helping your peers you will help yourself. Expect to recover.
Now you have somewhere to go to ask the questions that you must know the answers to. This site will save lives and inspire others to spread the word that mental illness awareness belongs to all people of all ages everywhere in the world.
Stew you are a wealth of information! Please spread the word and keep coming back for a visit!!
Thanks for stopping by!
Albert all the way from the Phillipnes, thank for your smile! Please pass along http://www.bipolarbabe.com to all you friends ok? It will definitely help others, I just know it!
BipolarBabe
BiPolarBabe you have done it! You said you wanted to make a difference and now you are.
I will spread the word where ever I can because I believe that every person makes a difference, especially to inform and break down the stigma surrounding mental illness.
Andrea I wish you great success, I know you will touch the lives of so many and make it okay for them!
Your friend,
Melanie
Andrea, This is an awesome website – educational yet non-threatening, easy to navigate through and inviting!!
I am sooo excited that you got it off the ground and I’ll be sure to get the link out as a resource to some folks who I know would benefit. Thanks for sharing, Alison
Andrea, you have done a fabulous job with this website and I am so proud of you and everything you have accomplished. Keep up the good work and if I can do anything to help address this issue at a national level, I will be glad to work with you.
Troy DeSouza
Hey,
I’ve been doing what I can on a small scale to educate my friends/coworkers/family. I’m finding it helpful to just be honest. Way better than having people around me be confused by my random behaviors. Not all of ‘em get it fully but they are trying. My partner doesn’t really like me talking about it. He worries about people judging me. He doesn’t want me to feel stigmatized. But I told him that’s exactly why I do talk about it!
I was diagnosed in 2006. I didn’t even know I was different. I still don’t understand that other people don’t experience the ups and downs. I used to think that there was just a ‘proper’ way you act in public. I guess that’s why they say I’m high functioning.
My turning point was during a depressive episode curled in a ball on the floor and it suddenly occurred to me that my partner never acted like that. So I did a bit of research and talked to my doctor and she encouraged me to go to a psychiatrist. I admit that was a bit scary. I didn’t know what that meant and I thought I would get locked up in a hospital if I told too much. Took me awhile to admit I need and still need help. I have a psychiatrist and psychologist now. I’m on meds and trying to do research and work on getting myself holistically healthy too. But I struggle with that, I don’t like to exercise and I have a passion for chocolate
but I will keep trying! I’ve reconnected with people and made some really solid friendships. I also just started working again. It was stressful and hard at first. I thought I couldn’t manage and was about to quit. Everyone there was so nice to me I decided to stick it out a bit and now it feels pretty good. Except when mean customers come in. I’m still worried I might freak out if I have to deal with a difficult person but I will cross that one when it comes.
Stress and change are big triggers for me, I think for most people they are from what I’ve been reading. So I find University is a brutal environment. I can just manage 3 courses. I get help with that from RCSD on campus. I encourage others to go there. I cried at my first meeting with them though. I found my diagnosis wasn’t as bad as having to fill out forms saying I was ‘disabled’.
I really don’t and never have thought anything is wrong with me. My brain just works differently. It’s nice to be able to tell people why. My philosophy is that if they get scared off by it then I really don’t want to be around em anyways. I like joking about
I’ve been wanting to meet people other bipolar people in Vic but didn’t know how to do it. I was excited to read about bipolar babe in the martlet! I want to help educate. I’m happy to tell my story. So how can I get involved? and how can I get one of those wicked t-shirts?
Wow that was long and I have a typo. Forgot to finish a sentence. My brain went faster than my fingers, that happens sometimes
Warrior
A face unknown but an obvious warrior with a cause,
Come on everybody, stand up and offer some applause!
This little hero is not standing down on her fears or woes,
She is here to spell out for us, telling us how it’s gonna go!
The news ever so recent, and now she knows there are reasons,
Why her moods seem to change and transform like the seasons.
What is ‘proper’ or ‘high functioing’ anyway?…she began to finally see,
Several of the questions that over time would soon come to be.
A love in her life simply trying to protect her interests close,
But her story being shared seems to empower her the most.
Seeming not to notice the strength and power she exudes,
Living in a world she calls brutal, she maintains a hopeful mood.
She accepts her brain is ‘different’, then I ask different from who?
As our hearts, hands, eyes and skin are also uniquely different too.
A laugh will ease her discomfort but perhaps there is more,
For this soul has decided that for her there is much in store.
So as we build an army of babes and boys from across the land,
We seek from towers and swim the oceans to find that helping hand.
With one single story, it grows, moves, touches another friend,
Holding hands together we will stand proud until the end.
BIPOLAR BABE
I will post this here too as you wrote on two pages!
Hey there Kirsti,
Thanks for encouraging me to reply to you on the BLOG. I wrote u a lil poetry therapy, I hope you like it!
I just want to commend you on sharing so candidly. This is the purpose/mission of bipolar babe and I am sure everyone is very thankful for your contribution, as I am! I used to also fear slipping back into the abyss, getting all sick/have a breakdown etc., and possibly head back to the hospital, but then I realized a few things. I was living in fear of the ‘what if’ and we face the ‘what if’ every day, bipolar or not. We don’t know what the future holds for anyone for that matter, so I pondered ‘why would I fear getting ill’? I realized I could just do my absolute best. It is key to build a security net of supportative and educated friends/family, resources from the community, a psychiatric team, med regime (if you have one), and whatever else will aid in keeping you well! I also found it included my life choices and a decision of whether I truly wanted to take responsibility for my life. These things weave together and I picture it like a tightrope, we are walking the line but if we fall, BOOM!…we are caught 100% and ready to get back up! I never knew about this ‘security net’ that I could have created, and I believe this was why I was hospitalized a second time. I just wish that someone had spelled it out for me, but it took some personal experience to learn what worked for me, hence why I pass on the message to others now. Mental illness is difficult to manage and as I still have internal stigma about the fact that I tried to commit suicide, I find it essential to discuss even if we feel weird or awkward talking about it. This reality is intertwined with the effects of having a mental illness, but if we build our security nets we will never fall, we will be caught and get right back on that tightrope of life when we are ready.
We all have fear and pain lingering from our pasts but there is good news, it is gone. Zip..outta…forever gone! You will never have to go back there ever again because the past is all but a memory and you can create anything you want for your future. I live by this mantra and I swear it to be true!!!
As for what you can do for the project? We need to get the word out!! At this time Bipolar Babe needs as much help as possible! This project and site are in its beginnings, just launched and the forum will be up soon..so I will be in touch with you as per the details and inform you of out how new troops can help with fighting stigma. If anyone is interested in helping out, please e-mail babe@bipolarbabe.com As for a t-shirt we have white ones at $10 each, but for you Kirsti ‘free’ as you are the first new trooper to join.
Thanks Warrior, your voice means the world to so many!!
Andrea AKA Bipolar Babe
You know, I don’t read blogs. But yours is really worth beeing read.
I have been looking looking around for this kind of information. Will you post some more in future? I’ll be grateful if you will.
Andrea, this site is fabulous! I will pass it on! and I KNOW it will help people–I hope you are proud of yourself–you SHOULD be! all the best…i hope this site stays alive..god knows we need it!
Hi,
well written article, I think our views on Bipolar Babe » WELCOME TO BIPOLAR BABE! A BABE IS BORN on May 14, 2009! differ a little however you put foward some good points
Thanks
Thanks for writing, I very much liked your newest post. I think you should post more frequently, you evidently have natural ability for blogging!
http://www.bipolarbabe.com – cool!!!!
All the best for your future.