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: Women

  • 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 Jewelry Making

    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.

  • 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 Being a Woman in the World

    Audre Lorde, a Black, lesbian, mother, activist, and poet, is reported to have said,

    “Once you start to speak, people will yell at you. They will interrupt you, put you down and suggest it’s personal. And the world won’t end. And the speaking will get easier and easier. And you will find you have fallen in love with your own vision, which you may never have realized you had… And at last you’ll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking.”

    When I am feeling as though my tongue has been cut out, I return to Audre because I think it is difficult to be a woman in the world. There is a perpetual sense of danger. I used to think it was my imagination but there is strong evidence for this.

    The hardest part of being a woman is the consistent sense that I am an imposter. I cannot remember when this began. Perhaps it has existed my entire life so there is no clear delineation. I am not alone in this feeling. I need to reassure myself of that fact. A friend once told me that she struggles with Imposter Syndrome as well. This internal doubt is compounded by the constant reminders of how unsafe the world can be for women.

    Often enough, I feel the need to double or triple check the facts. I doubt the veracity of my opinions. Sometimes it takes a fourth or fifth look before I trust that what I say is true.

    This doubt doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it lives alongside the reality that the safety of women is constantly under threat. The other day, I watched a documentary series where a woman, Samantha Josephson, thought that she was getting into the Uber she ordered. She was abducted and murdered by the male driver who had been circling around, observing her and noticing that she was waiting for a ride. Her parents began the “What’s My Name?” campaign that urges riders to verify the license plate and ask drivers “What’s my name?” before entering a vehicle.

    Throughout my life, I have heard countless stories about women who are abused. I am thinking about the missing and murdered Indigenous women, Malala Yousafzai, and Katie Piper. I am thinking about them and how Audre asked, “What’s the worst that could happen to me if I tell this truth?” She advanced the notion that it is necessary for us to speak, to tell our truths, to declare that we exist. She said that “our speaking out will permit other women to speak, until laws are changed and lives are saved and the world is altered forever.”