STABILISE

Disclaimer: It is important to note that STABILISE is a work in progress operated by an educated woman with lived experience with bipolar disorder and computer scientists interested in improving access to practical knowledge, medical professionals, and crisis responders. We are building a mobile application that is designed to track moods and analyse text so help can be provided sooner. For medical advice, please consult your family doctor or a trusted health care practitioner. If you believe you are in need of immediate medical assistance and live in North America, call 911. Otherwise, please reach out to the Lifeline at 988 (by phone or text).

Category: Blogging

  • On Self-Compassion

    Today, I would like to perform an excavation.

    I have lived with crippling self-doubt for too long and I would like it to end.

    As this idea simmers in my mind, I am reminded of Kristin Neff’s work on self-compassion. Reading her work has been a pivotal part of my journey because she teaches her readers how to counter negative thoughts with compassion that is directed inwards.

    I am an extremely self-critical person. Not just sometimes, but practically everyday at regular intervals. It helps to say that out loud. I am critical. I am mean. I am mean to the point where I self-sabotage relationships and experiences.

    Neff writes,

    “We can’t always get what we want. We can’t always be who we want to be. When this reality is denied or resisted, suffering arises in the form of stress, frustration, and self-criticism. When this reality is accepted with benevolence, however, we generate positive emotions of kindness and care that can help us cope.”

    She raises two important questions:

    1.) What do you want?

    2.) Who do you want to be?

    They give me pause.

    I want to be at peace in my head. I want to be a confident and intelligent woman. I want to get my Masters in Philosophy. I eventually want to get my PhD. I want to learn how to love people well and wisely. I want to be kind and thoughtful and considerate. I want to stop wanting to disappear from people’s lives whenever my emotions grow large.

    God, it feels so good to admit all of that, and that’s barely scraping the surface of my wants. But in reference to what she wrote, there are moments when I will not be what or who I want. I will be unkind and inconsiderate and pretentious. I will say stupid things and not read an article carefully enough. My research will be misguided and I will make false assumptions. I will tell someone I care about, “I want to disappear from your life.” I may not get into grad school.

    And I will survive.

    I will survive because I am not a static entity. I am a consistently evolving human being who is capable of tremendous growth and genuine progress. When I wanted to go to college at 35, I doubted my intellectual capacity. I went anyway. I thrived. I met people who will be my friends for the rest of my life. I moved provinces. I shifted my entire life in the direction of a single dream: get educated and strive towards a better life.

    If that is not a signal fire for hope, I am not sure what is.

    I deserve to offer myself compassion because imperfection is a human condition. A constant preoccupation with efficiency is the enemy of magic. I am allowed to love myself fiercely in the face of my misgivings and shortcomings because I am also wonderful.

    Here’s to dipping out of work early to enjoy the October sun and hear the pleasant crunch of leaves underneath my sneakered feet.

  • On Progress

    A significant part of recovering from a traumatic event is learning how to step outside the framework of pain. It sounds simple, but I am not sure that it is. If it was, then it wouldn’t have taken me from 2019 until now to heal from my first experience with psychosis. To hear voices in your head that do not exist is a tremendous experience. The hardest part of my journey has been learning how to trust my own mind again.

    John F. Nash Jr., the Nobel Prize winner in Economics, suffered from schizophrenia for years before eventually finding his own way to live a stable life. He was institutionalized, offered antipsychotic medication, and insulin shock therapy. In his own words, he found his way when he “began to intellectually reject some of the delusionally influenced lines of thinking which had been characteristic of my orientation. This began, most recognizably, with the rejection of politically-oriented thinking as essentially a hopeless waste of intellectual effort.”

    I find writing about my experiences with psychosis painful because I feel as though it makes me appear weak. When I read about people like John Nash or Mark Vonnegut however, I begin to find my footing. Real people suffer from real mental health concerns. In 1959, John Nash got up to make a lecture at Columbia University for the American Mathematical Society and it was incomprehensible. That is how the public began to understand that something was deeply wrong. Imagine that: a mathematical genius getting up to prove a mathematical hypothesis and inadvertently disclosing that he thought he was a part of a government conspiracy.

    What I have learned from his experience is to cease self-judgment. There is no sense in crucifying myself for trusting voices that came from the same place as my rational ideas. It is okay to get it wrong sometimes, to make mistakes, to flounder. As Maya Angelou wrote, “But still, like dust, I’ll rise.”

  • On Embracing the Quiet

    There is something to be said about being able to exist in the quiet revolutions of change.

    It is possible to slow down, to take a minute to breathe.

    This morning, I was walking to work and I could feel exhaustion creeping its way through my entire body. I asked myself, Do you want to go home and rest or do you want to power through?

    For the first time in years, I called in sick, grabbed a coffee, and returned home.

    I have been considering how only a week or two ago, I was frantic with worry.

    Reading and writing have offered me an opportunity to digest other people’s views while expanding my own.

    I have made the decision to apply for my Masters in Philosophy. I intend on writing about psychosis, mental illness, and the role that cultural frameworks plays in both.

    There is a profound liberation in releasing old paradigms. Not everything that you believe is true, is.

    I have missed this part of my personality deeply, the girl who wanted to follow her dreams wherever they might take her.

  • On Waking Up at Dawn

    I woke up at 4:55AM.

    I woke up and decided not to fight my body’s desire to be awake.

    Life has been shifting rather quickly.

    Somebody on social media told me, “Trust the process.”

    So I did.

    I trusted that I may not know better than time or the people who exist in the world.

    I listened to Richard Dawkins. I worked at the library. I learned the value of intellectual freedom.

    We do not all need to be the same in order to connect deeply.

    There is a strong misconception that people need to be the same, that when we argue a point, we are trying to convert others.

    I don’t believe that is the case.

    People are consistently and predominantly allowed to be exactly who they are.

    That’s the greatness of living in a democratic country. Each view counts.

    But there are also those instances when people need to be called into account, ie. Jim Keegstra. He was a school teacher and former mayor of Eckville who taught his students antisemitism. He was convicted and lost his esteemed positions in society.

    Sometimes it is the duty of the court to cast a line and catch those who cause destruction to run rampant.

    This began as a celebration of waking up. It will end as a shout into the void: Be yourself, but recognize that you are a consistently evolving entity whose identity is not restricted or contained. Don’t be afraid to let your views change.

  • On the Long Road

    Michel de Montaigne, a French philosopher from the Renaissance, said,

    “To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.”

    I chose Michel’s words and the picture because death has been weighing heavy on my mind. Pampas grass grew outside the townhouse I lived in with my mother right up until she passed away. There are moments when I feel her presence near, when I think communicating with her would be as simple as picking up the phone.

    I remember her daily.

    I hear her voice in my head, not as a symptom, but a painful sense of missing someone I love who is no longer here. A professor I write to every once in a while told me that it is a strangeness to lose the person who brought us into this world.

    Strange is right, hollow too.

    At root, what I’d like to tell her is about my day. At heart, I want to hear about hers. The afterlife of loss is profound. There are instances when my soul lurches and pivots and does cartwheels.

    I think about what Michel is saying, how he emphasizes the importance of accepting one’s mortality. It isn’t strictly acceptance, but a relinquishing of the fear that can help us avoid becoming subservient.

    I know that I feel subservient to my own fear of death. The unknown is terrifying with its unseen variables. However, I have noticed that my fear of death is in proportion to the excitement I feel learning how to engage with the world again.

    Everyday, I grow more confident, a skill that I have been trying to manifest since I was a kid.

  • On Seeking Calm

    In his Meditations, Marcus Aurelius writes,

    “You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”

    Lately, I have been thinking about the value of seeking calm. It is essential that I find a way to do this because my volatile nature can hurt others. It also prevents me from seeing intense situations with clarity. When I speak strictly from a place of feeling, my capacity to be rational dwindles.

    I think it is really important for human beings to reflect on themselves with both self-compassion and discernment. It is possible to say and do the wrong thing. It is possible for someone who is generally kind and compassionate to display undesirable traits.

    Some people connect this to Carl Jung’s concept of the shadow, an archetype that is meant to represent the hidden or repressed aspects of ourselves. It has been proposed that when we are not capable of accepting the darker parts of ourselves, those parts come out in undesirable ways.

    It takes courage and resilience to be able to look at one’s self honestly. I think this is because it can be hard to navigate that certain parts of ourselves do need to change, or at the very least, be reconsidered. I know that psychosis encouraged me to acknowledge my repressed ideals and values. It was difficult to accept that I contained that much fear, anger, and intensity. In myself, I saw the capacity to inflict psychological harm on others and myself.

    The journey inward is long, but quite evocative in its capacity to invoke change.

  • On Building Stabilise

    In her book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou writes,

    “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

    Years ago, I began to think about what I wanted my life to mean. By mean, I was searching for a purpose, a grand narrative that was ethical and forward-thinking. I was working at a flower shop at the time. Although it was soothing to be around beauty on a daily basis, I felt an internal lurch to alter the course of my life.

    At first, I wanted to build a physical safe space, a real place where people could feel free to be themselves. For that, I considered returning to school for an MA in Social Work or Psychology. I ended up studying Social Service Work at Seneca Polytechnic, an institution that was instrumental in teaching me how to approach myself and others better.

    I was mentally ill when I began my studies. There were clear symptoms of psychosis – voices in my mind and the belief that I was being tracked and monitored by governmental forces. Once, I threw out every identification document I had: birth certificate, passport, drivers license, and bank card. I was trying to prove to the voices in my mind that I was not going to run away from Canada, that I was strong enough to stay.

    It was startling for my mother, agonizing for me. It was only when I reached out to a highly esteemed university professor that I realized something was deeply wrong. He advised me to seek medical attention for the delusions and hallucinations I was experiencing. By calling them what they were, I was able to seek help. Attending Seneca was beneficial because they offered immediate access to a psychiatrist and social worker. I spoke with a female psychiatrist who diagnosed me with bipolar disorder and prescribed an antipsychotic medication. With time, the voices stopped and I was able to live a relatively normal life.

    While recovering, it occurred to me that I could build a digital safe space instead, an application where people are offered access to a mood tracking feature and interactive virtual journal. The reason why it is beneficial to include AI is because it can be designed to look out for warning signs (disorganized thinking, delusions, hallucinations, suicidal ideation, etc.). It also offers users a chance to speak openly and not be afraid of judgment in a private space. It is not meant to be a replacement for a medical professional, but a guide on when a user may benefit from seeking real professional resources.

    Stabilise is a passion project led by real individuals – experienced computer scientists and a woman who graduated with a BA Honours in Philosophy and a diploma with Honours in Social Service Work. We are not medical professionals, but we are people who care deeply about improving mental health and access to knowledge. I look forward to continuing my education, both academically and professionally. I also look forward to sharing my learning experience with all of you.

  • On Being Honest

    In the preface of Emmanuel Levinas’ book, Totality & Infinity, Yale professor John Wild writes,

    “But, according to Levinas, speaking becomes serious only when we pay attention to the other and take account of him and the strange world he inhabits.”

    There are moments when it is simpler to quote philosophy than it is to actually live it. I want to spend time discussing what it means to pay attention to another human being. A strong component is actively listening to what somebody has to say. This doesn’t necessitate agreement, but rather, an acknowledgment of the other as a person in the world who deserves to be heard.

    I would like to get better at this.

    My fascination with Levinas began in my final year of undergrad. I was introduced to him by a female professor who was teaching Philosophy of Religion. His book is dense and intricate, each page requiring me to read over them multiple times. It has been more than a decade since I got my degree and I still stumble over what he meant by the face-to-face encounter. From what I have gathered this far, it involves care and recognition of the other as an essential being in the world. It also requires lived experience.

    The difficulty I encounter is pausing before reacting. I can be mercurial, often speaking before thinking. I think what Levinas is requesting in his ethical framework is for human beings to be thoughtful in their approach of the other. It is more than kindness or care, but genuine acknowledgment of the shared humanness. When this acknowledgment is made, there is an active space for listening.

    While I am still in the process of reading through his book, I do want to mention that I believe this is a premeditated and perpetual process. That is, one must make a decision to approach others from this ethical framework at all times consistently and repeatedly. It is not a choice that happens once, but steadily throughout the course of each interaction. Here’s to hoping I strive towards that ideal and improve my understanding of his articulate concepts.

  • On Vulnerability

    In an interview Junot Diaz had with Identity Theory, he said:

    “You can’t find intimacy—you can’t find home—when you’re always hiding behind masks. Intimacy requires a certain level of vulnerability. It requires a certain level of you exposing your fragmented, contradictory self to someone else. You run the risk of having your core self rejected and hurt and misunderstood.”

    Beginning anything new is an exercise in vulnerability. The creative process is ripe with possibility and intrigue and fear. It requires one to accept the risk that Junot describes of “being rejected, hurt, or misunderstood.” While Junot is referencing two of his characters from The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, what he has to say is reflective and thoughtful about what it is like to exist as a creative person in the world.

    Most of my creative decisions tend to be deliberate and careful. This may be what Junot means when he refers to “hiding behind masks.” While it is beneficial to care deeply about the research behind one’s work, there does come a point when one must attempt to create without the intellect. It was actually Anne Sexton who wrote, “Watch out for intellect, because it knows so much it knows nothing…”

    When I reflect on what she and Junot mean, I trace it back to vulnerability. The power of the intellect is forming a strong foundation with factual information. Information can construct a mask that prevents a person from saying or accessing the underlying truth behind what they are doing. Information can obstruct our desire to connect meaningfully with another person.

    For instance, there is a certain feeling that accompanies being truthful with a person about an experience. There is the fear of being misunderstood, the terror of not expressing one’s self correctly, and the pain of needing to confide. It is easier to speak in quotations or rely on what has already been done because it transfers the burden to another.

    In saying that, I reckon that a significant aspect of being a human in the world is accepting our “fragmented, contradictory self.” It is okay to make mistakes, to get it wrong, to bite our tongues, and to concede a point. Vulnerability requests this type of honesty. Isn’t it true we grow more when we are challenged?

    Intimacy is one of my challenges. I find that I am always seeking an external source to validate my emotional experiences. I am learning there is value in being able to define such an experience for one’s self. For me, intimacy is a sense of returning to one’s self, acknowledging internal truth values while respecting the narrations made by others. Vulnerability seems to be an acceptance of our imperfect natures and a willingness to express these imperfections without over-editing. The mask must come off sometime. Perhaps art is the chipping away.

    Sources:

    Interview with Pulitzer Prize winner, Junot Diaz

    Admonitions to a Special Person, Anne Sexton

  • On AI Chatbots

    In his article, Understanding AI Psychosis: A Neuroscientist’s Perspective, Dr. Dominic Ng writes,

    “The problem isn’t that people use AI for support. The problem is when AI becomes the only support – when it replaces rather than supplements human connection.”

    Human connection is vital, specifically in today’s world where one can spend a fairly substantial amount of their time online. There is doom-scrolling and a never-ending vortex of information. I read recently that information is not wisdom, implying a necessity for people to spend time processing a theory or concept.

    There can be severe implications to excessive AI use, like the psychosis that Dr. Ng mentions. Psychosis is defined as “a set of symptoms” that includes “hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized thinking.” He explains that excessive reliance on AI for therapeutic purposes can cause damage when a user is vulnerable and faces a trigger. Rather than emphasizing when a user may need medical attention, the AI chatbot can augment psychosis by acting as both “a trigger and amplifier for vulnerable users.”

    Part of why AI chatbots are appealing is because they tend to agree with the thoughts of the user. For someone who struggles with low self-esteem or low self-worth, this may be a welcome shift. The dilemma, as Dr. Ng, describes, is that “we need real people to keep us grounded. They disagree with us. They push back. AI doesn’t do this – it just agrees, making delusions worse.”

    The reason why we have chosen to build Stabilise, a health and fitness application, is because I believe that people do need access to an AI chatbot. First, to provide access to local resources and events. Second, to recognize patterns and track moods through a philosophical framework. The point is not to be pervasively kind to the user, but to emulate the manner in which a human being can point out errors in one’s thought processes. It is also meant to provide an analysis of the user’s way of thinking, elucidating different concepts and ideas that the user may not have considered.

    It is our hope to integrate Dr. Ng’s suggestions in order to create an app that keeps the integrity of its users in mind. While there is a necessity for elegant safeguards, like those described by Dr. Ng, it is equally necessary to provide users with consistent access to medical professionals and crisis responders. An AI chatbot is not a replacement for genuine human connection, but rather, a means of communicating when one is in between sessions or interactions with other human beings. It can provide different and practical modes of thinking and approaching emotional experiences.

    Please read Dr. Dominic Ng’s article here.