Gum on My Shoe

This article is excerpted from chapter 1, “The Caring Friendship: Key Skills and Attitudes,” of our book High Tide, Low Tide: The Caring Friend’s Guide to Bipolar Disorder . Photo by nonresident on Unsplash. No matter who we are, we all assume various roles in our relationships with others. At different times, Fran and I have used a variety of labels to clarify our respective roles. These include friend, best friend, listener, confidant, teacher, balancer, haven, gate-keeper, and advocate. The three most fundamental are listener, balancer, and haven. Being a Good Listener Being a good listener is a very specific skill; knowing a person well and caring about them does not necessarily make the role easier. Four key points help me focus on what is important. Don’t interrupt. Remember it’s their story, not yours. Save your judgments for later. Don’t try to fix everything. Don’t Interrupt It is hard to listen to someone in distress—especially a friend or loved one—witho...

By Janet Coburn In 1995, Dr. Gary Chapman published his popular relationship book, The Five Love Languages . In it he proposed that there are different ways – or “languages” – that people use to communicate their love. Problems happen when one partner doesn’t speak the same language as the other; for example, when one gives the other literal gifts while the other yearns for time together. I’ve been thinking quite a bit about love and bipolar disorder lately and it occurred to me that the five love languages could be a helpful lens for looking at relationships. In particular, they might help a person realize what the other one needs when experiencing symptoms of the disorder. Here are the five love languages and how they might be helpful if you are in a relationship with someone who has bipolar disorder. Words of affirmation. I’m not talking here about the kinds of affirmation we are supposed to look in the mirror and give ourselves. I mean words of affirmation that come from outs...

“If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.” (Laura Ingalls Wilder) Covid-19 has curtailed many of the activities that brought meaning to our lives. However, for many of us it has provided an opportunity to engage more with our immediate surroundings. Wherever we live and no matter our personal circumstances we can all invite the natural world into our lives. Garden Visitors Working from home has given me the chance to observe the wildlife in our garden more than ever before. Several times a day I step away from my laptop and take a stroll around the estate — aka our small overgrown garden. We keep a variety of feeders stocked with sunflower seeds, peanuts, fat treats, and mealworms and have been blessed by visits from a wide range of species including blue tit, great tit, goldfinch, greenfinch, chaffinch, bullfinch, blackbird, robin, wood pigeon, starling, house sparrow, wren, lesser spotted woodpecker, and magpie. The feeders have also attracted a grey sq...

I don’t believe that if you do good, good things will happen. Everything is completely accidental and random. Sometimes bad things happen to very good people and sometimes good things happen to bad people. But at least if you try to do good things, then you’re spending your time doing something worthwhile. — Helen Mirren I recently came across the following two related statements on social media: “Bad things don’t happen to good people.” “Nice things happen to nice people.” They struck me as unhealthy at best; at worst stigmatising and judgemental. It was particularly disturbing because they were posted by someone who claims to be a mental health advocate dedicated to combating stigma. Their author aside, what’s my issue with these statements? At first glance they seem innocuous enough: comforting platitudes of the sort we’ve probably all uttered at some point in our lives. But that’s the point. Such “innocuous” remarks, masquerading as positivity, seep into our coll...

Last week I joined motivational speaker and mental health trainer Amy Gamble on her Speak Up 4 Mental Health podcast. We talked about my friendship with Fran, our book High Tide, Low Tide: The Caring Friend’s Guide to Bipolar Disorder , and a number of other mental health topics. You can watch the interview here . Amy’s podcasts are also shown on West Liberty University Television (WLU-TV 14). Amy and I first connected in 2017 and she guested on our blog shortly afterwards. Her interviews normally go out live at 11:30 am EST (4:30 pm here in the UK) but she kindly agreed to a time more convenient for me (6 pm EST, my 11 pm). We connected on Zoom twenty minutes ahead of time to check everything was working. We’d never spoken before but Amy immediately put me at my ease as we discussed how the interview would go. There was a short pause as she connected us to her Facebook group — then we were live! After introducing me to the audience Amy invited me to share how Fran and...

Check out our top posts for the past month. Posts are listed by the number of page views they attracted during the month, most popular first. Exploring Bipolar Disorder and the Sister Diagnosis of Schizoaffective Disorder. Is My Friend or Sibling Underdiagnosed? Official Traveler's Company Notebooks, Inserts and Accessories How to Write the Best Acknowledgement Page for Your Book 17 Online Suicide Awareness Courses and Podcasts When Blogging Is Hard and What to Do About It How to Take Care of Yourself When Your Friend is Suicidal An Open Letter to My Bipolar Best Friend Our Top Posts of the Month (May 2020) It's Sunday and I'm Not Doing Very Well How Do You Put Up With Me? Our most visited pages were: Contact Us Resources About Us Our books News and Appearances Testimonials  

“Friend, how did we come here down such different roads?” (Martin Baker) I’ve always delighted in the differences between people. The gaps in thinking, experience, and outlook offer enormous potential for growth, learning, and understanding. They are where the magic happens. This isn’t always easy, of course. No matter how much we care, significant differences in attitudes and opinion can get in the way of communicating effectively. It takes patience and commitment on both sides to handle difference creatively but I believe it’s possible if both parties are open to doing so. Difference manifests in many areas of our lives. The following differences (and more) may be present in any given relationship. Differences in age, gender, and sexual orientation; nationality, race, and culture; marital status; wellness and illness; financial and material security; education, skills, and abilities; life experience; worldview, political and religious beliefs; employment status and history. ...