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You Can't Have Everything: Decluttering for Mental Health and Wellbeing

You can’t have everything. Where would you put it? — Steven Wright This blog post was inspired by a letter from my friend Maya who lives in Cornwall. She described the aftermath of Storm Goretti which had brought extensive damage to the region. “Weather wise,” she said, “we’re still being rattled around by the wind: things blown all over the place; bins and recycling bags going for walkabout (or blowabouts), scattering litter that people seem not to care two hoots about where it ends up.” She then introduced a term I’d never encountered before. “Ever heard of ‘plogging’ by the way? I hadn’t! It’s the act of picking up litter while jogging!” It turns out plogging originated in Sweden around 2016. The word is a portmanteau of “jogging” and the Swedish phrase plocka upp (pick up). It sounds fun but I can’t imagine myself jogging. That’s not to say that litter collecting is the preserve of the fit and healthy. As if to prove the point Maya included a photo of Orinoco from the t...
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Our Top Posts of the Month (March 2026)

Check out our top blog posts for the past month. Posts are listed by the number of page views they attracted during the month, most popular first.
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When You Give Me That Look: Thoughts on Mental Health and Humour for April Fools' Day

It’s a joke. When you give me that look, it’s a joke . — Krusty the Clown, The Simpsons This post goes up on April 1. April Fools’ Day . A day known around the world for practical jokes, hoaxes, and pranks. One of the most famous is the Spaghetti Tree Hoax of 1957 in which the BBC showed a film in their Panorama current affairs series that purported to show Swiss farmers harvesting freshly-grown spaghetti. It’s my third least favourite day of the year, after Halloween and November 5 (Bonfire Night here in the UK). I hate the chaotic uncertainty, the overturning of trust, and the sly nastiness of many of the pranks. I’m nevertheless expected to find them amusing or risk reproval for lacking a sense of fun. In the fourteenth episode of the fourteenth season of The Simpsons (“Mr Spritz Goes to Washington”) Krusty the Clown stuns the Simpsons family by claiming “For a thousand [dollars] I can have someone whacked.” Responding to their astonished silence he declares , “It’s a j...
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Free Books for World Bipolar Day

To mark this year’s World Bipolar Day (March 30) Fran and I are offering our books for FREE on Kindle for five days between Sunday March 29 and Thursday April 2, inclusive. In High Tide, Low Tide: The Caring Friend’s Guide to Bipolar Disorder we share what we’ve learned about growing a supportive, mutually rewarding friendship between a “well one” and an “ill one.” With no-nonsense advice from the caring friend’s point of view, original approaches and practical tips, illustrated with real-life conversations and examples. Buy it here . Friendship is a beautiful part of life and an important component of long-term wellness. No One Is Too Far Away: Notes from a Transatlantic Friendship is a collection of articles from our blog which shows that mental illness needn’t be a barrier to meaningful connection; indeed it can be the glue that holds people together. Buy it here . Once the free offer is over the prices will go back to normal. World Bipolar Day is celebrated e...
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What Does "Bipolar Strong" Mean to Me as a Friend and Ally? A Few Thoughts for World Bipolar Day

World Bipolar Day is celebrated each year on March 30, the birthday of painter Vincent Van Gogh who is thought to have lived with a bipolar condition. To mark the occasion our books will be available to download free from March 29 through April 2. Details will be posted here on our blog on March 28. Check back, follow our social media, or subscribe to our blog so you don’t miss out. The theme for World Bipolar Day 2026 is Bipolar Strong. I want to take the opportunity to explore what those words means to me as a friend and ally. I have no first-hand experience of living with a mental health condition. Everything I know about mental illness in general and bipolar disorder in particular is second-hand. It’s based on books I’ve read and courses I’ve taken, including Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) and Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST). Most of all it’s based on what I’ve learned from friends who know only too well what it means to live with illness. I would never ...
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Inside Out: The Things You Can See and the Things You Can't

TW: Mention of overdose, self-harm, and suicidal thinking
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An Excerpt From the Novel "Bipolar Dreamer" by Charity Megan Riley

By Charity Megan Riley The following is taken from the introduction to my 2025 novel Bipolar Dreamer . In the late 1990s, many young women wanted to be Felicity Porter, a character on a TV show called Felicity , which aired from fall 1998 until spring 2002. The pilot episode reveals a socially awkward, intelligent girl named Felicity, in Palo Alto, California, asking her high school crush, Ben, to sign her yearbook. He writes a note saying that although he never got to know her, he always wondered what she was about and he admired her. After she reads his message, she changes her college plans. The main character in Bipolar Dreamer , Phoebe, is part Felicity — the hopeless romantic part — but she is mostly me. Like me, she is a big fan of the show Felicity and dreams to have the life of the star character — to be on her own, far away from home, and to be doted on by several young men. She is smart but suffers from problems she can’t clearly define. Phoebe’s stressors are main...
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