I know from personal experience that peace is the fertile soil in which happiness grows. To grow happiness, we need to create more peace within ourselves. In this episode, I am sharing with you these five tips that I wish I would have known on my first day of therapy to work on my own peace.

1. Get sober.

I believe that there are few things more important for mental wellness and stability than getting your substance abuse under control. I am not an addict or an alcoholic, but I am someone that abused a lot of substances in my day, drink a few times a year, and smoke pot for my depression. However, that doesn't mean that you should do these things, particularly if they disrupt and derail your life. They provide temporary peace in exchange for long-term harm and instability.

2. Radical Acceptance

The Stoic practice of Amor Fati led me to some significant gains in my mental wellness. Amor Fati means "love of fate", and used in practice it is "love your fate." We trade our peace for chaos when we cannot embrace the ugliness of what life delivers to us. Yes, terrible things happen to innocent people every day for absolutely no reason. No, you did not deserve whatever trauma or suffering befell you, but it's your to carry either way. The sooner you can accept it, the better off you'll be.

3. Embrace imperfection.

There's a popular saying that goes, "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good." Progress is done in small doses. Many people get hung up on their mental wellness or sobriety journey by focusing on the fact that it may not be perfect. A person may relapse and then beat themselves up for it, even though a relapse is a totally normal part of recovery. What matters most is what you do AFTER the relapse. You're not perfect. You're not going to be perfect. An imperfect good is better than an uncompleted perfect.

4. Address what you don't talk about.

Everyone carries pain and suffering. However, not everyone is able or willing to speak it outloud into the world. The problem is that trauma doesn't just disappear it. It affects you every day so long as you don't confront it and resolve it in ways you may not realize. That childhood trauma that you never talk about? That is, too. That's such an important time of development and the stress of an abusive or neglectful childhood can leave lasting wounds. These are the things that you need to talk to a therapist about most, because they are causing you more harm than you may realize.

5. Grieve the past.

Many people don't realize that grieving is an active process rather than just a feeling. Grief itself is a collection of emotions and experiences rather than just one emotion. It's a far more complicated thing than many people realize. You cannot heal grief and traumatic losses with pithy platitudes like "God has a plan!" and "Time heals all wounds!" Time absolutely does not heal all wounds. In fact, in some cases, it just makes the wounds more painful and harder to heal. If you are carrying a severe grief from the past, you need to address it with a grief counselor.

Don't forget to subscribe! https://www.bluntlybipolar.com/listen

1. [01:16] - Start Episode
2. [03:06] - 1. Get Sober
3. [06:20] - 2. Radical Acceptance
4. [12:11] - 3. Embrace Imperfection
5. [15:56] - 4. Address What You Don't Talk About
6. [24:35] - 5. Grieve the Past

• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) - Symptoms and causes - Mayo Clinic
• The Power of Early Intervention in Mental Health: A Pathway to Wellness and Recovery - Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute
• The Benefits Of Medical Detox: Safe Detox From Drugs and Alcohol
• Trauma and PTSD Early Intervention
• The prevalence and significance of substance use disorders in bipolar type I and II disorder - PMC

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I am not a mental health professional. I do not have any qualifications or certifications of any kind. I hope that by sharing my experiences, more mentally ill people will be empowered to step into the offices of clinicians to do the hard work that leads to mental wellness, peace, and happiness. Take everything I say with a grain of salt, as all I am is a mental patient with a microphone.

I've worked in digital marketing as a copywriter for over 18 years now, the first five of which I did a lot of shady and unethical work because of my mental state and low empathy. In the course of that work, I regularly helped questionable people sell happiness to unhappy people. The commercialization and commodification of happiness affects the way we perceive recovery from depression, trauma, and Bipolar Disorder.

The best unethical way to sell happiness is to hang it in the sky like a distant star, point at it, and say, "There it is! There's some happiness! I can sell you a ladder to reach it..." Except the ladder isn't tall enough. It's never tall enough, because then you can keep selling more ladders, products, beliefs, and make up reasons why they can't reach it. And so we spend our time always striving for the next shiny thing, the next promise of happiness.

As someone who's lived with depression and Bipolar Disorder for over 30 years, I know better than anyone the desperation of wanting to feel happy. Join me, and let me tell you the true secret to happiness, and help you recalibrate so maybe you can create some peace and happiness of your own.

Don't forget to subscribe! https://www.bluntlybipolar.com/listen

1. [01:19] The Secret to Happiness
2. [07:10] Happiness for Sale - Ethics
3. [16:35] The Appearance of Happiness
4. [18:05] Emotional Weather
5. [20:30] Euphoria is not Happiness
6. [25:20] Riding Euphoria is a bad idea
7. [26:25] The difference between euphoria and happiness
8. [28:43] The first step toward happiness
9. [32:48] Mindfulness and Gratitude
10. [34:22] Peace of mind

• List of suicide crisis lines - Wikipedia
• Understanding Complex Trauma and PTSD - Corner Canyon HC
• What causes personality disorders?
• Several Factors Linked to Premature Deaths in Bipolar Patients
• Bipolar disorder linked to 6-fold heightened risk of early death from external causes - BMJ Group
• Multi-Level Marketing Businesses and Pyramid Schemes | Consumer Advice

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bluntlybipolar

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@bluntlybipolar

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/bluntlybipolar.bsky.social

Email: [email protected]

I am not a mental health professional. I do not have any qualifications or certifications of any kind. I hope that by sharing my experiences, more mentally ill people will be empowered to step into the offices of clinicians to do the hard work that leads to mental wellness, peace, and happiness. Take everything I say with a grain of salt, as all I am is a mental patient with a microphone.

Should I be open about my mental illness? It's a more complicated question than you may realize, filled with hidden pitfalls and considerations you may not have made.

Dennis Heil speaks bluntly about his choice to be open about his mental health journey, starting with his first active suicide attempt to the Bipolar depressive psychotic break that forced him to acknowledge how bad his mental health was. From there, he speaks about some of his experiences of living openly with high-functioning autism and Type 2 Bipolar Disorder with severe depression. Last, he transitions to five questions he thinks one should ask themselves before deciding to open up.

The reality of being open about one's mental illness is not how it can seem in recovery and activitism spaces. There's so much cheerleading about it as a way to combat stigma, but rarely do you hear anyone talk about the downsides of that. People may judge you and use it against you. If you post your story on social media, it's now in the public eye for potential employers to see. Not only that, but most people aren't all that understanding, so you have to get used to ignorance.

The Five Questions I would ask myself if it were Day 1, and I was considering doing it again. (Okay, it's more than five questions, and more like five groups of questions, but whatever.)

1. What purpose does it serve? Will this improve my mental wellness or add to my life?

There's no reason to expose a vulnerability to the world unless it serves some purpose for you. I chose this path for myself because my silence is what almost killed me, and it's killing so many other people like me. I hope that by talking about these difficult subjects in the way I do that other people like me will see a kindred spirit, and know they can be better, too.

2. Can I be okay with people not understanding me, or not wanting to understand?

Most people are not going to be all that understanding. If I had to guesstimate based on personal experience, I would say about 80% are neutral, 15% are understanding, and that last 5% are angry and afraid of Bipolar Disorder because of trauma done to them. Depending on how open you are, you may find yourself arguing or being questioned a lot. For example, I'm diagnosed with Type 2 Bipolar Disorder even though I've experienced psychosis and/or psychotic features. Why? Because the diagnostic criteria specifies that you need to experience psychosis in mania to fall under Type 1. I've never had a full-blown manic cycle, only hypomania. The times where I and my professionals could identify that I experienced psychosis were only in depression.

3. How will this affect my professional life?

Severe mental illness may limit your career options or have a negative affect on your professional life. For example, when I was younger, I wanted to get my CDL and go into longhaul trucking. The problem is that certain medications and illnesses can disqualify you from that, for fair reasons. I wouldn't want to be behind the wheel of a tractor-trailer when my brain disconnected from reality. That just sounds bad for everyone involved. Not to mention, you may run into the issue where you get passed up for promotions or miss out on job opportunities because why hire a person who could be unstable for weeks or months at a time when you could just... not do that?

4. Am I balanced at the moment?

I don't have an issue with people being open about their mental illness and journey. What I do take issue with is this blanket narrative that it's a good idea without any discussion of the downsides. You have vulnerable people, newly diagnosed, coming into advocacy and recovery spaces and hearing these messages, like "Speak your truth." And it does not consider that person's well-being. What if they're unstable and plaster it all over social media? What if they're in an abusive situation where it will be used against them? What if they have a job that would fire them for it?

5. Ask yourself - am I absolutely, positively, 100% certain that I need to speak my truth and change the world!? Am I feeling bold, empowered, and fearless!?

Bipolar escalation (mania or hypomania) often causes us to feel and think in absolutes. You can see this a lot in the community, like when a person with Bipolar Disorder has a revolutionary business idea that absolutely cannot fail! And all they need is the appropriate funds to get it going! You rarely see things like doubt and uncertainty. Similarly, when you're considering this question, you should feel anxious, nervous, and even a little afraid to reveal something that sensitive to other people. If you don't, and you absolutely believe that you're going to change the world, you're probably unwell or unstable, and you should absolutely NOT do it. The advice I would give myself is to make sure that I was stable at least 3-6 months before deciding anything.

Don't forget to subscribe! https://www.bluntlybipolar.com/listen

• [01:18] First Psychotic Break and Suicide Attempt
• [14:30] Context of Autism and Masking
• [17:45] Second Psychotic Break and Seeking Help
• [30:20] Should I be open about my mental illness?
• [38:56] Q1: What purpose does it serve?
• [40:01] Q2: Can I be okay with ignorance?
• [41:01] Q3: Will this affect my professional life?
• [42:17] Q4: Am I balanced at the moment?
• [45:08] Q5: No, really. Am I balanced right now?
• [47:06] Informal Tip: Dealing with Confrontation

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bluntlybipolar

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@bluntlybipolar

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/bluntlybipolar.bsky.social

Email: [email protected]

I am not a mental health professional. I do not have any qualifications or certifications of any kind. I hope that by sharing my experiences, more mentally ill people will be empowered to step into the offices of clinicians to do the hard work that leads to mental wellness, peace, and happiness. Take everything I say with a grain of salt, as all I am is a mental patient with a microphone.

Hey. What's up, y'all? My name is Dennis Heil, and I am diagnosed with Type 2 Bipolar Disorder with severe depression, and High-Functioning Autism.

I've been living with Bipolar Disorder for over 30 years, fifteen of which I spent undiagnosed. In 2009, I experienced a depressive psychotic break that led to my diagnosis of Type 2 Bipolar Disorder. I would be diagnosed with autism a few years later.

In my podcast, Bluntly Bipolar, I'm going to share with you my experiences and the hard lessons I've learned trying to find some peace and happiness in my life. I hope that by sharing my experiences, others can avoid learning these lessons the hard way.

I am not a mental health professional. I have no qualifications or certifications. All I am is a mental patient with a microphone. You can find Bluntly Bipolar at bluntlybipolar.com, or about any podcast distribution service. Expect new episodes on the first and third Thursday of every month.

Listener discretion is advised for heavy topics related to mental health, including suicide, self-harm, and more.