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).

Tag: stabilise

  • On the Visceral

    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.

    Source: Merriam-Webster

  • On Bipolar Disorder

    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.

    Source: Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance – Bipolar Disorder

  • On Love

    In his book, The Symposium, Plato writes,

    “… 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 Symposium is 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.

  • On Art

    In her book, On Photography, Susan Sontag writes,

    “All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt. Photography is the inventory of mortality. It preserves the look of things, the way they have changed, the way they will never change again.”

    Note: Memento mori is Latin for, “Remember you will die.”

    It is a Stoic tradition to contemplate death, to keep it close long enough to feel its inevitability. Art is one of those activities where the artist is required to suspend judgment of their work long enough to create. It is in the act of creating that a person can evaluate how they feel about a subject. Often times, the subject is an emotional experience.

    Sontag makes an interesting point when she refers to how photographs are a testament to “time’s relentless melt.” When I create art, I do it because I am trying to understand a subject like death, as well as capture time. Maybe capture is the wrong word. Maybe what I mean is that I am trying to declare that a moment existed. Life is fleeting.

    Currently, I am learning how to make videos for Stabilise’s Instagram and TikTok. The process is long. The process is teaching me how to be patient and how to step outside of my shell. It is also teaching me how to use video editing software and purchase music again, a novel act in the face of music streaming platforms. In order to use iTunes in iMovie, you need to purchase the songs. I am incorporating clips that move me, both my own and others. I am also learning how to not take algorithms personally.

    The creative process for social media is unique. When I make tactile art, specifically memory boxes or abstract pieces on canvas, I am able to feel the materials I am using. I see the paint on my hands and sweaters. There is physical evidence that I have done something in the world. Virtual art in the form of videos, reels, stories, or posts are different. They feel as though they do not really exist until I open my phone, a digital version of Schrodinger’s Cat.

    Art seems to be the “inventory of mortality” that Sontag describes. Whether it’s virtual or tactile, it serves as a commentary on what it means to be a human being in the world. Even the simplest Instagram post is a declaration of existence. It is as though people are saying, “Hello, world! This is me.” I think that is why it can hurt when companies like Meta threaten the integrity of its everyday users who do not have a strong following. I remember when Instagram first began: hashtags worked and the posts appeared chronologically.

    The truth is what it has often been: money changes people. The bigger the corporation, the more profit-driven they become. It is also about the sheer magnitude of posts and people that occupy social media platforms. I digress. This began as a post about art and I ended up writing about social media. Perhaps this is because I think social media is an art form in and of itself.

    To willfully engage with the world is a substantial act. It is a footprint in the sand, a marker of location, a finger on the trigger of a camera.

  • The Introduction

    Welcome to Stabilise.

    Stabilise is a human-led virtual project designed to emphasize the importance of meaning-making. It is about sharing different philosophical and psychological ideas with the hope of emphasizing how theoretical frameworks can provide clarity for emotional experiences.

    In our time together, I intend to write about what it means to be a human being in the world. I will write about nostalgia, how a single whiff of perfume can inspire a memory or a series of memories. I will discuss Emmanuel Levinas and his concept of the face-to-face encounter. I will explore intense topics, like death and how it feels to lose a parent. When doing all of these things, I will attempt to navigate through them with a philosophical lens.

    Ultimately, it is my goal to illustrate how philosophy and writing about ideas and emotions can strengthen one’s constitution long enough to stabilise.