How can you be a good friend when your friend lives with mental illness? We all want to be there for our friends, but it can be hard to know what to do when your friend lives with mental illness, especially if you live far apart. Transatlantic best friends Martin Baker and Fran Houston share what they've learned about growing a supportive, mutually rewarding friendship between a "well one" and an "ill one." Revised and updated, High Tide, Low Tide: The Caring Friend's Guide to Bipolar Disorder offers no-nonsense advice from the caring friend's point of view, original approaches and practical tips, illustrated with real-life conversations and examples. No one is too far away to be cared for or to care Support your friend and celebrate each other, whether you live on the same street or oceans apart. Learn the key skills and attitudes you need for a successful caring friendship, and strategies to support your friend through episodes of mania, depression, and suicidal thinking, whilst also taking care of yourself.

How Can You Be a Good Friend, When Your Friend Lives with Mental Illness? We all want to be there for our friends, but when your friend lives with mental illness it can be hard to know what to do, especially if you live far apart. Transatlantic best friends Martin Baker and Fran Houston share what they've learned about growing a supportive, mutually rewarding friendship between a "well one" and an "ill one." "High Tide, Low Tide: The Caring Friend's Guide to Bipolar Disorder" offers no-nonsense advice from the caring friend's point of view, original approaches and practical tips, illustrated with real-life conversations and examples. No One Is Too Far Away to Be Cared for, or to Care Support your friend and celebrate each other, whether you live on the same street or oceans apart. Learn the key skills and attitudes you need for a successful caring friendship, and strategies to support your friend through episodes of mania, depression, and suicidal thinking, whilst also taking care of yourself.

How can you be a good friend when your friend lives with mental illness? We all want to be there for our friends, but it can be hard to know what to do when your friend lives with mental illness, especially if you live far apart. Transatlantic best friends Martin Baker and Fran Houston share what they've learned about growing a supportive, mutually rewarding friendship between a "well one" and an "ill one." Revised and updated, High Tide, Low Tide: The Caring Friend's Guide to Bipolar Disorder offers no-nonsense advice from the caring friend's point of view, original approaches and practical tips, illustrated with real-life conversations and examples. No one is too far away to be cared for or to care Support your friend and celebrate each other, whether you live on the same street or oceans apart. Learn the key skills and attitudes you need for a successful caring friendship, and strategies to support your friend through episodes of mania, depression, and suicidal thinking, whilst also taking care of yourself.

In 1987, Judy Eron married a brilliant man. Her husband, Jim, was bipolar but remained stable until a vacation the couple took in June 1996, when he forgot to bring his prescribed lithium and quickly launched into a year-long manic phase. His mania culminated, inevitably, in severe depression that led to his suicide in October 1997. During those confusing and frightening months, Jim became a stranger to Judy. Even she, a mental health counselor, and he, a psychologist, could not prevent Jim's downward spiral, although as she now knows, there were many "wrong" choices that Judy could have avoided making. During Jim's prolonged manic phase, Judy was unable to find any literature focused on the manic element of bipolar disorder. After his death, she set out to write the kind of book she had sought. What Goes Up... is more than just Judy's story of loving and living with someone in the manic phase. Drawing on her experience as a mental health counselor, Eron offers advice and coping strategies for readers with loved ones or friends who also suffer from this illness. She provides advice on what they should expect from someone in the midst of a manic episode, how to engage with that person, how to get help for that person, and how to maintain their own sanity and strength in the face of such unpredictable and intense behavior. Book jacket.

*Soon to be an HBO limited series* "Glorious...one of the best memoirs I've read in years...a tragicomic gem about family, class, race, justice, and the spectacular weirdness of Wichita. [McDermott] can move from barely controlled hilarity to the brink of rage to aching tenderness in a single breath."--Marya Hornbacher, New York Times Book Review Zack McDermott, a 26-year-old Brooklyn public defender, woke up one morning convinced he was being filmed, Truman Show-style, as part of an audition for a TV pilot. Every passerby was an actor; every car would magically stop for him; everything he saw was a cue from "The Producer" to help inspire the performance of a lifetime. After a manic spree around Manhattan, Zack, who is bipolar, was arrested on a subway platform and admitted to Bellevue Hospital. So begins the story of Zack's freefall into psychosis and his desperate, poignant, often hilarious struggle to claw his way back to sanity. It's a journey that will take him from New York City back to his Kansas roots and to the one person who might be able to save him, his tough, big-hearted Midwestern mother, nicknamed the Bird, whose fierce and steadfast love is the light in Zack's dark world. Before his odyssey is over, Zack will be tackled by guards in mental wards, run naked through cornfields, receive secret messages from the TV, befriend a former Navy Seal and his talking stuffed monkey, and see the Virgin Mary in the whorls of his own back hair. But with the Bird's help, he just might have a shot at pulling through, starting over, and maybe even meeting a partner who can love him back, bipolar and all. Introducing an electrifying new voice, GORILLA AND THE BIRD is a raw and unforgettable account of a young man's unraveling and the relationship that saves him.

More than 30 years ago, Ronald R. Fieve, MD, gained national recognition for his pioneering treatment of what was then known as “manic-depression.” Since then, he has focused on patients with mild bipolarity, also known as Bipolar II. With the right treatment, these patients can turn their illness into an asset. In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Fieve presents a highly successful program that allows Bipolar II patients to harness the creativity and energy of their hypomanic “highs” while minimizing the potentially devastating “lows” of depression. Now with a new foreword explaining the most up-to-date research on the bipolar spectrum, Bipolar Breakthrough includes: -six stay-well strategies for anyone suffering from Bipolar II -the latest information on cutting-edge medications with fewer side effects -a special section on the complications of a bipolar diagnosis for pregnant women, children, and the elderly With results supported by thousands of patient histories, Dr. Fieve’s Bipolar Breakthrough is a landmark work that will help the millions of Bipolar II sufferers live better lives.

Advice on Helping Your Loved Ones, from the medical director of the country's largest state mental health system and the mental health editor of The Huffington Post More than fifty million people a year are diagnosed with some form of mental illness. It spares no sex, race, age, ethnicity, or income level. And left untreated, mental disorders can devastate our families and communities. Family members and friends are often the first to realize when someone has a problem, but it is hard to know how to help or where to turn. Our mental health “system” can feel like a bewildering and frustrating maze. How can you tell that someone has a mental illness? What are the first and best steps for you to take? Where do you go to find the right care? The Family Guide to Mental Health Care is the first comprehensive print resource for the millions of people who have loved ones suffering from some kind of mental illness. In this book, families can find the answers to their most urgent questions. What medications are helpful and are some as dangerous as I think? Is there a way to navigate privacy laws so I can discuss my adult daughter’s treatment with her doctor? Is my teenager experiencing typical adolescent distress or an illness? From understanding depression, bipolar illness and anxiety to eating and traumatic disorders, schizophrenia, and much more, readers will learn what to do and how to help. Real-life scenarios and authoritative information are written in a compassionate, reader-friendly way, including checklists to bring to a doctor’s appointment so you can ask the right questions. For readers who fear they will never see the light at the end of the tunnel, this book gives hope and a path forward. As one of the nation’s leading voices on quality care in mental health, Dr. Lloyd Sederer has played a singular role in advancing services for those with mental illness. Now, the wealth of his expertise and clear guidance is at your disposal. From the first signs of a problem to sorting through the variety of treatment options, you and your family will be able to walk into a doctor’s office know what to do and what to ask.