Flipswitch

We’ve gotten some really good feedback on the teen round tables, and we’re happy to say that very soon we’ll be bringing you even more of them with a whole new group of people.  Again, one set will be from high school and one set will be from college.  It will be interesting to see how the new batch of round tables’ responses match up with the past round tables.

As well, we’ve updated our sound equipment, so the sound will be much better on our upcoming teen round tables.  We hope to roll it out for you in about a month.  In the meantime, we’ll be finishing up our last teen round table sets, finishing with a show on our overall impressions of the whole experience.  After that show, we’ll release both round tables in their relative entirety, with only minor edits for time.  So, you’ll get to hear the round tables uninterrupted, as well as some of the stuff that didn’t make it to air originally.  Good stuff!

We’re excited to be moving forward at Flipswitch and hope you are too.  Let us know what you’d like to hear or what you’d like us to cover.  We list to ALL of your suggestions.

Excitement!!!!!

The Flpswitch Team!

Chris, Ryan, Gopi, Emily

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On our show, we talk about a lot of things.  And more than one person has brought up this question: “Why should we listen to you people?  What makes you know so much?“  There’s a good answer to that and a not so good answer to that.

The good answer is that I have quite a few years of training in the psychological area and so know my stuff pretty darn well.  The other good answer is that our co-hosts all know what the stresses of high school and college are like first hand currently.  They don’t have to remember…they know.

The not so good answer is that it’s really hard to account for both the amazing amount of things that come up when someone is stricken with a mood disorder as well as the sheer momentum of a mood disorder.  By that, I mean it is easy to say things like “Get good sleep or it will eventually trigger a depression or a mania.”  But in the grips of a depression and especially in the grips of a mania, that sentence is just a string of words put together.  It becomes much like telling someone to get over their lifelong pet dog that was run over that day.  It just seems impossible if not absurd to suggest something so obvious and so, at the time, seemingly shallow.

Because of those things that are hard to account for with mood disorders, it’s often hard for us to convey a real taste of what true depression, true mania, true bipolar disorder, etc looks and feels like.  Worse, it’s sometimes hard for our co-hosts to think about because, indeed, they are a motivated bunch that, generally speaking, things are going pretty well for right now.  However, sometimes life clears all that away for you, and puts you face to face with the genuine souls that must deal with the stark realities of a mood disorder, the good, the bad, and the ugly of it all.

That’s exactly what happened with Claire.  We became aware of Claire after she asked permission to use part of one our videos in a movie she was putting together for Youtube.  After seeing her video, we knew we had to get her on our show, as her video was a perfect example of someone taking matters into their own hands to make things better for everyone.  In a word, it’s advocacy.

Upon meeting Claire, we were struck by the sometimes harrowing story of her depression:  thoughts of suicide, more than one long stint in a hospital, disruptions with school, interpersonal issues, etc.   Any one of the parts of her story would have been a lot for any of us to handle.

After hearing her story, one might well have expected Claire to be a reclusive and morbidly quiet person, almost crying when she had the energy.  But that wasn’t Claire at all.  She was quite different.  She was full of life.  Full of hope.  Full of desire to let us all in to her world in order to get the message out that things don’t have to be hidden, that there’s no shame in falling prey to a mood disorder as it happens a lot in this world.

And that is what passion for an idea can do for you.  It can give you the drive to think past the bad things that have befallen you in order for some greater purpose. In this instance, Claire’s passion was for bringing the specter of depression out of the stigmatizing dark world of “hide it at all costs” and making it something we could all talk about. Claire was/is trying to make the world better by making videos about mood disorders that shed light on the world.   And she’s got one golden rule going for her:  if you’re feeling something, it’s likely someone somewhere is also feeling the same thing.  Sharing your world with others really does help.

And that’s what really changed all of us at Flipswitch:  We got to see someone up close and personal that not only struggles and makes mistakes while dealing with depression, but also strives to overcome it and to be better.  Not to say that she always succeeds, but that she detests being depressed and the stigma that goes with it, aiming to fight it with every ounce of her being.  We got to see that fire.  It became quite real for us.  And we’re all better people for it.

In my next blogpost, I’ll talk a little bit about the actual video itself that became our centerpiece for the advocacy show and the things Claire did to make it and help get people talking about the all too often hidden problems of depression and bipolar disorder.  If you’d like to check out her video, it’s broken into three parts on youtube.  Just go to http://www.youtube.com/depressionfree.

Until next time, find your own way to bring light to the darkness.

Chris

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What’s up, all?

Another week has passed and I am one week closer to finals, and one year closer to graduating college. It seems like it hasn’t taken any time at all to get to this point in my life, yet when I look back on it I see almost 16 years of school done. It’s a scary thought, for all 16 of those years I knew exactly what my future plans would entail. Starting with elementary school and following the course laid out by others to college, so I would be qualified to function in the real world, but what happens after this?

I am currently faced with more options than I have ever been in the past. I am planning on going to medical school, but if that falls through I could still go to graduate school. If I feel like it I could try and wait a year on the sidelines and find a job to clear my head and get a better understanding of what might be best. In the end though, I feel like I don’t have enough information, haven’t been able to weigh the pros and cons about what will work for me, and thus I am facing a situation I am under-prepared for.

For this situation, all I can do is be as prepared as I can be. Get most of the important information and go from there. It is not the most ideal place or situation to be in, but it’s reality and it must be dealt with and a decision must be made. As long as I am true to myself and do the best I can, I am confident that most everything will take care of itself.

Sometimes in life you are dealt a poor hand, whether its brought on by you or chance, and the best you can do is face the situation. It will take a lot of courage, but face the situation and do the best you can.

Until I type again, Ryan

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On this show, we talk more about advocacy.  You can change the world, whether you realize it or not.  It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.  The wall of stigma comes down through tiny cracks put in it by individuals just like you.  To drive home that point, we talk to a teen that produces videos about depression and bipolar disorder for Youtube, Claire.  You can find Claire’s excellent series of videos on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/user/depressionfree.  Claire deals with her own mood disorders issues and is fed up with all the stigma surrounding the issue, so she did something about it.  She develops videos and has engaged her school with the idea of bringing a seminar on the topic to the student body.  Regardless of whether that part of it occurs or not, Claire has shown that, having few resources, one can still be a force for positive change in the world.  Listen and think up ways you too can advocate for raising awareness about mood disorders!

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On this Episode, we veer off markedly from our usual format to bring you a dvd commentary. If you’re not familiar with dvd commentaries, they are audio tracks that you listen to that comment on the movie/show while you’re watching it. So, we’ll tell you when to cue things up to listen to podcast at the same time as the video. We watched the episode online at the CW site at http://www.cwtv.com/cw-video/90210.

1)Click the “Off the Rails” episode in the full episode section of the site.

2)When the show comes on, hit pause, and then hit resume when you hear Emily hit the play button.

The online episode has 30 second commercials every now and then. If you watch the episode on dvd or on rebroadcast on air, you’ll have to pause the podcast for around 2 minutes and make sure we’re talking about what’s currently on-screen.

Throughout the commentary, we’ll talk about the situation of Silver, who is later discovered to be bipolar, and we’ll comment on the accuracy of the portrayal. Also, we’ll be mentioning the often typical things that can happen with bipolar disorder that may or may not be addressed on the show. And, of course, we’ll just be having a lot of fun.

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Tomorrow, we’ll be releasing a new podcast that does something a little different: a dvd commentary. What is a dvd commentary, you ask? A dvd commentary, for those of you not in the know, is an audio track often found on dvd’s that plays talking from the directors or actors of said movie or show. We’ll be doing the same thing, except this time, we’ll be doing a commentary track for the recent episode “Off the Rails” on 90210, the episode in which it is revealed that Silver is dealing with bipolar disorder.

In our commentary, we’ll talk about what the show got right about bipolar disorder, what it didn’t get so right, and some associated topics that someone like Silver might have to deal with regardless of whether or not it occurred on the show. Gopi and Emily will join Chris for the track.

A quick word on how to use this particular dvd commentary track. 1st cue up our podcast commentary. 2nd, cue up the episode of 90210 “Off the Rails” (we watched the episode directly on the CW website online). We have a little bit of an intro before we get into the show, so listen to the podast and when Emily clicks play on the episode, you do to. We also notify you when there’s a commercial break. Online, breaks are usually 30 seconds long, whereas on television, they’re typically 2 minutes long. If you watch the episode online, you should be able to follow along without any maneuvering. If you watch a rerun of the episode on the air or on a dvd collection (or even a vcr taped copy!), you’ll likely have to stop the podcast when we mention what’s on screen in the show and the commercials on your tv haven’t aired yet.

This commentary is something fun and new we’re trying and we hope you all will enjoy it. Look for it tomorrow.

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Hey guys and gals!

Life has been getting pretty hectic lately, considering the school year is starting to wind down and I have finals coming up. With all this extra work to do I have stopped working out, which makes me feel a little guilty, but it frees up much needed time. Not only has exercising gone completely out of the window (hopefully I can get back on it in a week or so), but being a college student my diet isn’t all that healthy either. Like all of you, McDonald’s calls my name pretty frequently and homemade meals consist of Mac’N Cheese, maybe a can of vegetables, and a hot dog. I don’t usually pay too much attention to my diet, but once again my Neuroscience Seminar opened my eyes.

It was this Tuesday when I got to hear another speaker from Loyola’s medical school. Her presentation was on Parkinson’s disease (a neurological disease where individuals loose their ability to move freely, sometimes lose memory function, and they shake a lot…if you want to know more just type it in Google. It is pretty fascinating, and you may know Michael J. Fox has this disease.). What she mainly focused on was treatment of the disease and how right now there really is no known cure; they can only treat the symptoms. Her research has found, though, very convincing evidence that diet can play a huge role in preventing and even possibly treating the disease. She has found that blueberries have a significant impact in keeping the brain healthy.

I don’t know about you, but this made me a little scared. Fruits aren’t something I come across daily, especially blueberries. But don’t fret too much about it, the point I want to make concerns you and me. Bipolar Disorder is also an illness that effects the brain of the individual living with the disorder, and while neurons aren’t necessarily being attacked they still need to be taken care of. There are specific nutrients (the good stuff in food, like vitamins and minerals) that brain cells need to function properly. Thus, it would make sense to eat healthy and take care of your brain.

Now just to throw out a disclaimer, I am not suggesting blueberries, and eating healthy, is going to 100% protect you from brain illness or cure you. All I am suggesting is that both you and I need to take care of our bodies and our brains, and eating healthy is a very important part of helping them stay healthy. By eating healthy, you give the brain all the nutrients it needs to run as close to normal as it can!

Until next time! Ryan

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Hey everyone!

It’s Emily here. The past few days have been pretty hectic because I’ve been getting back into the swing of things with school.

I actually find myself being more productive lately; I don’t know if that’s because I’ve been following my schedules that I’ve been making or if I’m just excited to get out of school. Whatever it is, it’s good to be not procrastinating as much. And since I haven’t been procrastinating as much as before, I can fit more things into my schedule, like exercise. This has been something I’ve really been happy with because exercising really does make me feel better and more relaxed in general. Like Gopi mentioned before, I also think exercising is an exceptional way of relieving stress. I know, at first it may seem to do quite the opposite and all it will make you feel is tired, but after awhile you get used to it and actually start enjoying moving around!

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Hey you guys,

How’s everyone doing? I don’t know about you, but this week for me went by super fast and now I am just really looking forward to graduation.

I have some bad news, I have not tried that distress tip that I gave—you know the one about meditating. It’s fortunate that I didn’t feel the need for it because I haven’t been feeling stressed out, however I’m sorry because I don’t have news for you guys about whether or not it works…yet!

So I was talking to Chris this past week about how I’m ready to finish the semester and just graduate. I have about 3 weeks left and it is so hard for me to focus, sometimes I just want to sit and do absolutely nothing. And he asked me: “Well what keeps you motivated?” Honestly, I don’t have a cookie cut answer; I know that I have to finish off the semester strong because in the end I will get graded on my performance on finals and presentations. Ultimately I keep telling myself “it’s almost over and just hang in there.” Think about the benefits in the long run, and you will realize that even though there are a few weeks left, they do matter.

Staying motivated or even getting that initial motivation to do something can be kind of difficult. Usually for me, it’s the initial motivation that boggles me. Now tell me, how do you guys usually approach a situation like this? Do you simply do what I do, tell yourself that no matter what, the job needs to get done? I’m curious because who knows, maybe one of you guys may have come up with something that is more effective.

I look forward to hearing back from you guys. Enjoy your weekends because I think it’s supposed to be nice and sunny…finally!

Gopi

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Alright, when I sit down and feel like writing to you guys I find myself coming up with ideas, thinking about them, then deciding they aren’t good enough or won’t make sense. Other times, my colleagues beat me to the punch, or I find I don’t really know what I want to say about something, just that it’s bothering me. So, this sets up well for me to talk about frustration, and I will let it take off from here.

Getting frustrated sucks, even if it is something as simple as me not being able to express myself through this blog. Lately, it has caused me to not even want to think about what I might want to write, which hasn’t helped me solve the problem of getting an idea across to you guys. The experience though has given me something to write about. When I am first confronted with frustration I resolve myself to persevere, so in this case I thought harder and harder about what I could write about. Every idea though seemed too high minded or altruistic, and after about 3 days of thinking about what to write I finally decided I would come back to it later. I figured I would let myself think about it without having to write about it right away, but the frustration kept mounting and eventually I found myself hesitant to even sit at the computer to try and type.

I am sure you have all faced more intense frustration than this example (I know I have), but you can look at simple examples in your own life and find patterns to how you react to certain situations. In this case, I found out that after butting my head up against a problem and not being able to solve it, I became unwilling to want to deal with it anymore. How does this help me? Right now, I’m not sure, but I am able to predict before hand when I might become overly frustrated now. Knowing this I might be able to take myself out of the situation before the frustration completely gets to me that way I can come back to the problem sooner and less discouraged.

I don’t know what you will take from this, or if it even made sense, but at the least maybe the next time you get frustrated or angry you can look back on the experience and learn something from it. Analyze it a little bit, find some lesson and don’t just chalk it up to chance. Like triggering mania or depression, there are triggers to becoming angry, frustrated and irritable. Sometimes you can’t help it, but there are some situations you can take yourself out of before you have to experience these emotions.

I know my example seemed trivial, but think about Newton and his discovery of gravity…it all came about because an apple fell on his head!

Until we convene again! Ryan

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In this episode, we talk about the bare basics of bipolar disorder. We cover mania, depression, risk factors, and more. We’ll talk about what bipolar disorder is, what to look for, and what to be on guard against in a struggle to combat the disorder

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Hey everyone,

It’s Emily here. I haven’t really been up to much lately–mostly, I’ve just been trying to get back into the swing of things with school since break ended this week. Teachers have been giving us no mercy, despite the fact that we’re seniors, but life isn’t fair.

What’s really been bothering me lately (well, mostly just today) is the fact that I have trouble telling people when enough is enough in regards to academics. I’m sure you know the situation. A teacher assigns a project and then assigns you to a group. And of course, you are the one stuck doing the entire project yourself. This has happened to me twice in one class already and I am really sick of it. It may be my fault because I am generally the only person in the group who cares about the grade and therefore doesn’t trust anyone, but usually my group takes advantage of me so I will do the entire thing myself.

So my advice to myself and everyone else is…don’t be afraid to tell people no. One of the worst things that happens is getting taken advantage of, whether this is in a big way or small. Getting taken advantage of always puts me in a bad mood and then this causes problems between me and my friends because I would end up taking it out on them. Always do what you’re comfortable with–and this is something I have to work on too. I guess there is just something about some of us…we have this certain need to please everyone else even if it affects negatively.

Hope this wasn’t that much of a downer! Have a good week!

–Emily

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Hey everyone,

I hope all of you guys had a great spring break and got to unwind a little. My spring break definitely helped me relieve some stress and unwind a bit, I was in Costa Rica for a while and it’s definitely a serene place.

I was kind of in a jam this week, because I really didn’t know what would be a good topic to discuss; so I decided to Google “how to relieve stress.” I discovered that most sites just give you a list of steps you should follow. For example:

1. take a deep breath because this is your immediate defense against stress, 2. communicate- talk to anyone whether it’s family or a friend, 3. laugh to rediscover your sense of humor, 4.get fit– my personal favorite, 5. be organized because stress arises from being overwhelmed, 6. soothe the senses by lighting a candle or playing soothing music, and 7. do nothing- take a break and just mediate.

What do all of these really mean? Well, we have discussed some of these stress relievers on Flipswitch such as 2, 4, and 5. I am a firm believer in communicating with others because expressing yourself helps you realize what’s wrong and it helps relieve some burden that you have. As I previously mentioned on a blog, that communicating for me took some learning; so start practicing! As for the other ones, I think that 1 is more of a short term and “in the moment” stress reliever. Number 3 is also one of my favorite ones, because I myself have realized that laughing helps me feel less overwhelmed whenever I’m feeling a little stressed. Another one I usually do without realizing it is number 6; I play my favorite music and just dance it out. I have never tried number 7, but since I am throwing this idea out to you guys I will do an experiment. The next time I am feeling a little stressed I am going to mediate and I will keep you all posted.

Now here’s what some of you guys can do for me, try a couple of these out and let me know what you think, please!

Once again, I hope everyone enjoyed their spring break and hopefully we get some 60 degree weather. Take care and please let me know what you guys think.

Gopi

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I come from a tradition of skeptics; a general family of people whose favorite phrase is “Nuh uh!” It’s not unusual for me to turn an idea from every different angle before finally accepting whatever position I take. Some people find it to be one of my most endearing qualities. Some people want to kick me really hard because of it.

But dealing in the sometimes controversial area of mood disorders and mental disorders in general, I’ve run into a whole lot of people that have taken my old skepticism about things and amped it up about 10 notches. Mood disorders in teens? “Nahhhh, doesn’t exist. Teens are just spoiled and therapists are looking to make money.” Bipolar disorder? “Nahhh. It exists, but is usually confined to an extremely small population in psych hospitals, much smaller than we’re led to believe anyway.” Medications? “Nahhhh, simple mind control by _____ (choose your boogeyman: government, medical industry, psychiatric industry, monkeys with tasers, etc.), trying to keep us all in line.”

And those are just the most obvious things. Some people will simply deny anything outside their own field of vision, even questioning the existence of things they can clearly see (could be an illusion. It’s philosophically called solipsism). After dealing with enough of these people, I now understand why some of my friends want to kick me from time to time.

I don’t bring this skepticism up to talk down about skeptics; rather, I realize that in life, there are so many constant naysayers on virtually every possible thing you can think of, that it becomes hard to know who to believe or what to do. I mean, every possible road you choose is possibly false according to a zillion people, right? And I’m a full grown adult that is control of more of his life than the average person in high school or even college. I can’t imagine the confusion that must be swirling around out there.

Skepticism is healthy, and the critics of life and the area of mood disorders more specifically, are a welcome benefit in helping us understand what we’re getting right and what we’re missing. But the question, after all is said and done is, “What do I do?” or “What do I believe?” That’s not an easy question to answer.

I can tell you, that after living on this rock for a while and after studying psych for many years there are some things that do seem to be true, regardless of how much criticism seems to come your way. These things related directly to what we talk about on Flipswitch.

1. The earlier you take charge of your health, both physically and mentally, the better off you’ll be. This means not backing down, cutting corners, or hiding from your problems. Eat all you want and whatever you want, there’s no way you’re going to fool the weight scale. Keep boozing it up all you want, but sooner or later, it’s going to take a toll on your life. Totally ignore getting good sleep, the research consistently finds that you’re putting yourself at risk for slipping into a depression or triggering a mania if you’re afflicted with bipolar disorder.

2. Being informed is always more helpful than not being informed. I’ve never run into or heard of anyone else running into information that wasn’t more helpful than not knowing the information. Sometimes painful information can hurt like finding out you’ve got diabetes, but not knowing and doing things that push that diabetes into even worse condition is a whole lot scarier. Never be afraid to learn as much as you can about your own health and the world in general.

3. Doctors are not infallible, but more often than not, they’ve got a point you should consider. I’m not saying everything that doctors say is right; rather, I’m saying that I’ve seen quite a few people that have gone from doctor to doctor only to complain that the doctors don’t know what they’re talking about. These people get hung up on the technicalities. A person I once met that had seen tons of doctors about his alcoholism comes to mind. He would complain that one doctor told him he had family issues which is why he drank, while another told him he simply had social anxiety which caused him to drink which was a problem, and yet another said he was drinking to combat loneliness and that it was a problem. He nitpicked and never faced up to the fact that, somewhere in there, they were all sort of saying very similar things. You’ve got issues, and to deal with them, you’re drinking and your drinking is causing a problem. Sure, be skeptical of doctors and their pronouncements, but maybe try to listen to them too.

4. Everything is related to everything else. This was what our first show was about. It is the defining feature in my mind about what wellness is. Sleeping too late? That’s causing you to be tired. Being too tired leads you to be cranky. Being cranky leads others to think you’re kind of mean. Other people thinking this leads to you having strained friendships at school. Strained relationships at school make you feel bad about yourself. Feeling bad about yourself makes you unable to focus fully on school work, your grades suffer, your parents get upset, so you get upset, so you got to bed late and sleep late and are cranky and on and on. And that’s just a direct line. There are not so obvious connections from one part of your life to every other. Perhaps that “you just don’t like to read” comes from the fact that you identify books with the fact that you did poorly in school which caused stress which led you to sleep late and become cranky etc etc etc. It’s ALL related. ALWAYS. Anyone that says different hasn’t searched enough.

There are more immutable truths in this world and any skeptic would be hard pressed to take issue with at least 3 out of 4 of those. And those are HUGE. So take charge of your health as soon as possible NO MATTER WHAT ANYONE TELLS YOU OTHERWISE. Wait…..you’re not being skeptical are you?!

Doh!, Chris

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Hey everyone, it’s Ryan!

I feel like it has been a while since I have posted something up here, but it’s only been about a week or two. Anyway, I was in my Neuroscience Seminar class (where different speakers from biology and medical departments come to discuss their research), and we had a very interesting topic brought up about pain and the different nerves and cells that are involved with certain pathways.

So not to get to deep into it, but the researcher discussed why we feel pain (physical) and how we can manage it with certain drugs and how those certain drugs act. Well, as he was going through specific drugs, like morphine, vicodine and what not, he showed a very interesting chart. The chart had the different drugs plotted on them and the two axis’s had been labeled with the severity of pain (low to high) and side effects (mild to harsh). After he showed this, he also commented on how morphine and other strong painkillers don’t really prevent the pain’s effects, but act on the brain so as the person doesn’t care and is in a certain “utopia.”

Anyway, this got me thinking about the individuals who struggle with Bipolar disorder and how their medications work. Mainly, I was thinking about how painkillers give the patient a certain type of feeling that often relates to them feeling “out of it” or not really apart of what’s going on. I have also heard similar complaints from a lot of individuals who use psychotropic drugs. That they do not feel like themselves, or that they are somehow detached from life.

You may think I am going to preach on how that doesn’t matter and you need to listen to your doctor and remain on your medication (which is still strongly encouraged), but I would much rather give the floor over to you guys to help educate me. I am curious to understand what/how you might be feeling with regards to being on medication. Does it make you feel detached? Are there side effects that make you really angry? Or perhaps it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. Either way, I want to know, so leave your responses here.

Peace,

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