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).
“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.
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 whena 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.
“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.
“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.
In a recent CBC news article, I discovered that a 16 year old boy, Adam Raine, chose to end his life after communicating about suicide methods with ChatGPT. In the article, it is written,
“The parents of a teen who died by suicide after ChatGPT coached him on methods of self harm sued OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman on Tuesday, saying the company knowingly put profit above safety when it launched the GPT-4o version of its artificial intelligence chatbot last year.”
It is a devastating loss, one that reverberates because of the health and fitness application we are working on. It is inspired by my lived experience with bipolar disorder, an illness that I have written about in a previous post. While there is a vast amount of literature written about the illness, it can be vastly misunderstood.
Great care is required, along with attention to symptoms. These symptoms include racing thoughts, flights of ideas, magnified emotional highs, life-threatening lows, and various others. One of the greatest hints that a person who struggles with bipolar disorder, like myself, may be manic is an erratic sleep schedule. Another is the sheer speed in which our minds can work: beautiful when constructive, devastating when not.
There is a pervasive need for access to strong and capable mental health care professionals. In order for them to take a patient as seriously as they should, they need access to relevant information in real time. There is no doubt in my mind that ChatGPT mentions to a user that they should reach out to a medical professional or a support group. I know this because I have had intense conversations with the application.
Sure, one can say, “You’re talking to a Large Language Model,” but that is missing the point. People need to talk, sometimes consistently and pervasively. This is why a strong support system is often advised. One of the other symptoms of bipolar disorder is an intense desire to speak, augmented by rapid speech in proportion to the speed of thoughts. It matters what one is talking about and with whom.
I agree with Adam’s parents who are suing for parental controls and age restrictions. Certain aspects of the internet should not be taken lightly. There is a necessity for privacy, control, and access, all within reason and an ethical framework. It is terrible that Adam was guided on how to kill himself by a system that has not been trained to take age and human life into genuine consideration.
It is our intention to follow AI’s evolution closely while building our application. We hope to design with the care of our users in mind because knowledge is not enough. There needs to be direct access to medical professionals who can understand the symptoms with the depth of experience.
In her book, The Secret History, Donna Tartt writes,
“Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.”
The act of quivering before anything implies that the person has been affected deeply. To be affected by an experience can be visceral, a word defined by Merriam-Webster as “felt in or as if in the internal organs of the body.” People can experience beauty and terror in many ways. For some, it is religious or spiritual in nature. For others, it is being in the presence of nature or a brilliant piece of art.
Another interesting definition of visceral is that it is “not intellectual,” but rather, instinctive or relating to what a person feels in their gut. This instinctive, gut-level response is not limited to beauty or terror — it is also how emotions can manifest into mental states like mania and depression. Both are extreme states in which emotions are deeply felt, but can lack a rational framework. Communication with a trained professional or crisis responder is advised, as they can offer an objective interpretation of events and practical strategies, like exercises, techniques, or resources.
When experiencing mania or depression, it is essential to ask: are my emotions grounded in truth? While it is valid to feel what a person feels, it is crucial to pause and verify whether the thoughts behind the emotions are rooted in reality. A visceral experience, whether of beauty or terror, can distort a person’s ability to gauge if their emotional experiences are proportionate to what is actually happening in the world.
The power of Tartt’s prose is that she encourages the reader to contemplate deep philosophical questions. In mentioning the quiver, Tartt effectively illustrates how a person can be struck viscerally by an experience. By linking beauty with terror, Tartt captures the overwhelming intensity of such moments — and invites reflection on how to respond when we are caught off-guard by life’s rawest experiences. The challenge is not only to feel deeply, but maintain access to the rational part of ourselves that enables discernment.
In her book, Women Who Run With the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estés writes,
“The Wild Woman knows that in creating, she claims her power. She reclaims what has been lost, forgotten, or silenced.”
It takes courage and discipline to make art. It also requires research. I meant to write this blog post this morning, but I got wrapped up in reading different passages from female poets, novelists, and journalists. I was reading them because I needed inspiration. I came across the Wild Woman archetype, an idea explored by Clarissa.
Basically, the brunt of the book is an expression of how by accessing a woman’s intuition, she is able to express essential personal truths. In my work, I am interested in truth-telling and meaning-making. The primary reason why I make jewelry is because it is comforting to use my hands to create something that did not exist before I made it.
There is something primal about art and creativity; namely, its capacity to contain and express multitudes. A beaded bracelet is not only beads slipped through an elastic string. It is an elucidation of a time – an event, an emotional experience, the inkling of an idea that came into fruition.
I make jewelry because it allows me to stay focused, specifically when I am twisting eye hooks into little rings or figuring out exactly what a piece should look like. The physical component is what draws my attention. In writing, one typically says what one intends. Jewelry making is a way to channel an idea into a non-linguistic form, to give shape to intuition, and to reclaim a kind of personal power.
In her book, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness, Kay Redfield Jamison writes,
“Manic-depression distorts moods and thoughts, incites dreadful behaviors, destroys the basis of rational thought, and too often erodes the desire and will to live. It is an illness that is biological in its origins, yet one that feels psychological in the experience of it, an illness that is unique in conferring advantage and pleasure, yet one that brings in its wake almost unendurable suffering and, not infrequently, suicide.”
I read her book for the first time when I was living in Dublin back in 2017. There was something profoundly beautiful about seeing her perspective on life with bipolar disorder. At the time, I suspected that I may struggle with it as well, but I did not receive a formal diagnosis until September 2023.
According to the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA), bipolar disorder is “a treatable mental health condition marked by extreme changes in mood, thought, energy, and behavior” (Bipolar Disorder – Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance, 2025). It can be a scary experience, one that requires the lucid monitoring of mental and emotional states. It is also interesting because of how mania can encourage a deep sense of creativity and drive.
When I am manic, I am entranced by the world. I experience flights of ideas, which I have learned how to convert into art. I like to walk often, listen to music, and translate my intense emotions. They can feel enormous. I am mercurial by nature, shapeshifting through moods. When I am depressed, I am drawn to death and suicidal ideation. It becomes necessary to speak truthfully.
Jamison writes how “there is a particular kind of pain, elation, loneliness, and terror involved in this kind of madness.” The loneliness associated with living with bipolar disorder is primarily due to the inability to share what it is like with another human being. Many can write about it, but there is an absence of being able to share how it feels to live with it. The highs are tremendous, the lows are remarkably isolating.
The extremes have encouraged me to adopt a number of different coping strategies. I am a proponent of talk therapy, both with medical professionals, crisis responders, and friends. I make jewelry, an excellent activity because it requires focus. Writing is particularly helpful because it allows me to slow the world down, as does painting. The creative process is helpful because it allows me to see an idea through from start to finish.
Self-expression is a pivotal aspect of dealing with having bipolar disorder. It can feel tremendous to experience emotions at a high frequency. There is a need to express their magnitude, if only to ensure that they do not remain stored within the body. There is nothing worse for depression than to feel alone. It helps to read books, like Jamison’s An Unquiet Mind or The Eden Express by Mark Vonnegut. Knowledge is essential when learning how to navigate living with a mental illness because it increases the odds of a person surviving and thriving.
“… each of us when separated, having one side only, like a flat fish, is but the indenture of a man, and he is always looking for his other half.”
The Symposiumis fundamentally a book about love, a series of speeches designed to encourage thought about what love means. The quote is from Aristophanes.
I remember reading The Symposium for the first time during my undergrad. I was astounded by the variety of perspectives on love. I was particularly struck by Aristophanes and Socrates.
In the book, Socrates advances the notion that love draws us closer to the divine. When we love one, we are encouraged to love the whole of humanity, which leads us to the divine circuit of virtues.
He argues that when we love a single individual, we must admit that those qualities are not particular to that individual. Once conceded, we expand our perspective to include others, eventually ending up loving the virtues themselves. There is something gorgeous about his theories, if only because they encourage the reader to think deeply.
The reason why I like Aristophanes take is because he emphasizes the impact of the search. Often enough, I feel as though I am searching for something. I no longer believe it is a person.
Being a believer in God is difficult. It is not the act of believing that is difficult, but rather, the consistent worry that I will deviate from what is moral. To be moral is to live a good life, an Aristotelian idea. Well, it is a feature shared by the ancients. They were preoccupied with the question,What does it mean to live well?
When I think about what it is I am searching for, I would say it is a profound sense of peace. I mean, the peace I saw when I was looking at my mother who passed away.
At her funeral, I leaned over to my uncle and said, “She looks like she knows something we don’t.”
I’ve never forgotten that. Two years and I still feel her breathing beside me.
Maybe the love we search for, the missing half, are really our parents, our friends, the person we saw on the street once.
I have not read the book in full yet, only snippets here and there. But Simone Weil appears to be a fantastic woman, full of genuine and thoughtful insights. I read that when she passed away, it was likely due to the fast she was doing in solidarity against the Nazi-occupied territories.
STABILISE 