Bi-polar bisexual

[bigpanda]

Does anyone have some insight into manic depression among bisexuals? It seems to me, a closet case to be sure, that there could be a different approach that I could be taking toward my mental health upkeep.
Citations would be wonderful!

[Sex in Words]

Hi,
This is indeed a topic near and dear to my heart (having been diagnosed bipolar last fall and being, well, completely bisexual forever), and something I am researching heavily right now. Unfortunately, I'm not been coming up with much.
Here are a couple of the things I've found:

http://www.bi.org.au/community/activate/mentalhealth.htm http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb02/newdata.html

I'm very interested in discussing this with you further. If not in forums, mail me directly.
jon

[Brian]

Hi bigpanda,

Two other links for you that might help:
1. http://www.bi-men-therapy.com/pages/1/index.htm - this fellow just moved his practice to the L.A. area (from somewhere in the midwest - but I can't remember where), but I know he is active in the online realm, and he has written a few articles over the years on bisexual psychological health (I just can't find any of them now, go figure)
2. And Dr. Fritz Klein of http://www.bisexual.org has been a practicing psychiatrist with a special interest in bisexuality for more than 25 years now(!), so he may be able to cite some articles on the topic that he has written or editted over the years (he is also the longtime editor of the Journal of Bisexuality, which is an academic journal: http://www.haworthpressinc.com/web/JB/).

Contact with either of those two men, would yield helpful information I suspect.

[Sex in Words]

Thanks for these Drew!

[darkangel]

Here are a few more that may be of interest:

http://www.namiscc.org/News/2002/McManVol4-18.htm
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2005.00326.x/abs/
http://bipolar.about.com/cs/stigma/a/lily_labels.htm

good luck!

[bigpanda]

What are people doing about their bi-polar disorder and how does it affect their self identity?
By the way, thanks everyone for the links.

[leizy]

As a bi shrink, I'll caution you to build up your ego a bit, before going into the literature on bipolar and sexuality. For the most part, it's likely to be pretty pathological, oriented towards the negative. Most clinicians will view bisexuality expressed in a bipolar as a symptom of promiscuity, common in manic phases, or as a deep-seated problem with gender, identity, relationships and boundaries.

On the other hand, many historical artists are thought to have been bipolar, producing much of their body of work during manic phases, and there is a clear link between bipolar disorder and creativity. Is creativity linked to bisexuality? Could be, could make sense...

cheers. d