Hi Theresa,

This is a fabulous piece- thank you for being brave and sharing your story! I can relate to a lot of what you wrote; I have been hospitalized more times than I can count. (8? maybe?) I don’t live with bipolar disorder, but I do have severe depression, anxiety, and PTSD. Many of my hospitalizations happened when my medication needed adjustments, or when I was harming myself in order to deal with my mental illnesses (Drinking and using substances, eating disorder, etc.)

I manage a blog for a non-profit organization called Where I Stand, and we put out pieces daily from our advocates and bloggers who also suffer from mental illness. The goal is to educate others and erase the stigma that comes with managing a mental illness. We don’t have any bloggers currently who live with bipolar disorder, and I think its an important perspective that we need. If you’d ever like to become a blogger for us or even contribute a one-time guest submission we’d love to have you! The only requirements for bloggers are once a month blog posts about something they’ve been struggling with. Pretty simple. And you’re a great writer, too!

http://www.thisiswhereistand.org/

That’s our website if you want to check us out. Thanks and keep up the great work!!