I was asked to write a few lines for a Slovene daily newspaper last week, so I thought I could expand on this subject in my blog. Those who have read my self help book about my experience with mental illness already know the sequence that worked for me: 1. Accept the fact that you have bipolar disorder (or any other mental illness). 2. Find a psychiatrist that you feel you can build a good doctor-patient-relationship with and listen to him/her. 3. Separate your mental illness symptoms from your personality traits. 4. Leave the bio-chemical aspect of your illness to your psychiatrist and the prescribed...

I remember being taught how to do Progressive Muscle Relaxation, while I was hospitalized in a psychiatric clinic. All the time I had a very strong feeling that I already know how to do it. I thought: »Oh no, it’s the déjà vu again.« But it was not. I later looked into a book about yoga and the guidelines for the ending relaxation after a set of yoga exercises were very similar to the guidelines for Progressive Muscle Relaxation at the clinic. It was the book, where I had learned yoga exercises from long before that hospitalization. As Wikipedia states: »Mindfulness practice, inherited from...

A few weeks ago I was at a psychiatric clinic again. Luckily not admitted to a locked ward. No, I am joking. I was not there as a psychiatric patient with schizoaffective disorder this time. I was there as a book author. I handed over a copy of my new book to Professor Rok Tavčar, MD, PhD, Psychiatrist, Head of the Rehabilitation Department, Psychiatric Clinic of Ljubljana. I wished to thank him for having peer-reviewed my manuscript and for having written a testimonial for my book. Professor Tavčar was the last psychiatrist I visited in order to thank them for having helped me with the book. But he...

I see many people who have mental illness fall into a classical trap, of which I was no exception. It is the dilemma: “Should I seek the help of classical Western psychiatry or try alternative medicine approaches instead?” I first tried positive affirmations like “I love and approve of myself,” in 2004, when I was so depressed and felt so defeated that I thought: “I cannot fall any deeper, so why not try the positive affirmations from books by Louise Hay next to taking the medication prescribed by my psychiatrist?” The sentences said out loud in front of a mirror only started working after...

When I started writing the book about balancing bipolar disorder in me, I automatically wrote in a humorous fashion. Later, after having written the first chapters of ‘Balancing the Beast. A Bright View of Schizoaffective Disorder ― Bipolar or Manic-Depressive Type’, I got many “messages” telling me that I had chosen the right style of writing. The “messages” came in the form of coincidence: – While researching books written by mental health consumers, I found out that most of them were written in a serious way. Thus there might be a greater need for humorous books. – My...