The Balanced Mind Foundation Live Event Transcript

Did you miss our chat with Lizzie Simon? Read the transcript of this exciting and informative chat. The Balanced Mind Foundation will be hosting several more expert chats this Spring. Watch your email for more details. 

 Biography 

Lizzie Simon is the author of Detour: My Bipolar Road Trip in 4-D. Lizzie has appeared on CNN, Fox, NBC, NPR, the New York Post, The Saturday Evening Post, and Nylon Magazine. She has traveled the country to speak to wide-ranging audiences about mental health. Lizzie also co-produced the MTV documentary “True Life: I'm Bipolar”, and has written mental health pieces forTime, CosmoGirl, and bp Magazine. She is a founding member of the Leadership 21 Committee of the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law.                

 Nanci - The Balanced Mind Foundation   
I’d like to welcome our guest, Lizzie Simon.

Lizzie Simon   
Hi Everybody! 

Nanci - The Balanced Mind Foundation   
We're delighted to have you here today, Lizzie. Would you like to make any opening comments? 

Lizzie Simon
Just that I'm happy to be here! 

Nanci - The Balanced Mind Foundation   
Could you start out by talking a little about your book and what it meant to you to research and write it? 

Lizzie Simon
Sure. When I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder there weren't a lot of role models and there weren't books from the point of view of a young person with dreams who wants to know she'll be able to achieve her dreams, even after everything she's been through with bp. I knew if I just told the truth, my truth, that other people would relate and feel more comfortable with their truths. 

compassion   
Lizzie, My daughter, 15 was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in July. She entered an RTC (residential treatment center) a few weeks ago. The stabilization process seems to be taking a very long time. Any suggestions? 

Lizzie Simon 
Well it's hard for me to give advice, because I'm not an expert and I don't know your daughter. In general though, it's important to always encourage all of your daughter’s interests and passions and not focus too much on her diagnosis. Let the docs deal with the illness—and develop the young woman she's becoming.  

Nanci - The Balanced Mind Foundation   
Looking back on your experience, what things did your family (your parents in particular) do well, and what do you wish they would have done differently? 

Lizzie Simon 
My parents did many things right—they encouraged me to get right into the world and have never treated me like I have a disability. Sometimes I wish they had also been more patient when I was depressed. They were very impatient, like, "get over it already", and I wasn't always in control of it.  

I wish my doctor or someone could have supported my parents more during the tough times, that someone could have shared hope with them.  

Nanci - The Balanced Mind Foundation   
That brings up another question - was your family, or you individually, involved in therapy or was your treatment primarily medications? 

Lizzie Simon
I didn't get therapy until I was 25—because I had trust issues and before that I never really felt any therapists understood what I went through. But looking back, therapy was what really made a significant difference in my recovery, especially where relationships are concerned. My dad started seeking help for his own depression after my book came out—he gets depressed periodically. And my mom went to a massage therapist who she says really, really helped her relax and process her emotions. 

teddyone   
What calming techniques worked for you as a teenager? 

Lizzie Simon
As a teenager massive amounts of marijuana were my only calming techniques. Not recommended. I wish they taught calming techniques in schools! Now I have yoga and meditation and tea and long walks. I have a host of techniques that I didn't have then. 

Nanci - The Balanced Mind Foundation   
Do you attribute that to your increased willingness to learn or to professionals becoming more educated about bipolar disorder? 

Lizzie Simon
My increased willingness to learn and my wonderful therapist as well.  

teddyone   
Hi Lizzie. Thank you so much for being here. Did you ever feel like you were your illness- bipolar? Or did you always feel like it was only a part of you? 

Lizzie Simon
I have always felt it was only a part of me—I'm a very active person, engaged in the world and service and art projects and writing and none of my friends can really wrap their head around the idea that I have a mental illness—sometimes I wish they got it but I think it's very, very, very healthy to have so many other identities and have so many roles other than that of consumer or patient. 

I worry when I meet kids who rattle off their meds and their diagnoses and can't talk about anything else in their lives. 

sce   
Going back to your last comment, what made you decide not to continue to use marijuana - or to realize there are better/safer/legal techniques? How can a parent convince her teenager this is not a good approach? 

Lizzie Simon 
I stopped smoking pot gradually over the course of college—I really didn't "party" much at all my senior year of college and after. I had serious goals. I didn't like feeling high. Potheads bored me. I think for parents, and I don't have kid yet myself, but when I imagine parenting my future kids, I imagine just trying to encourage their passion and goals. Ultimately when you care about your goals you start taking better care of yourself just so that you can achieve them.  

elliotts6   
What do you tell a newly diagnosed 14-year-old, who is very cognizant of what BP is, and just wants to be "normal"? He feels angry and hopeless, and that his life is "over." He's always been very high-functioning, with a previous MI dx, but now just wants to give everything up. 

Lizzie Simon
Again, I would say, start pursuing his other interests. Is there a travel trip to research and plan together? Is there a class he'd like to take? I think BP can be so many things. There are people homeless because of it and then people living very fulfilling lives with it. I would tell him he has a hand in making it what he decides it will be. I would tell him no one is normal. That the best people are comfortable not being normal. That BP can just be a condition he has to be responsible for, but that's all. Then take him to the slums of India so he can meet people with problems they really can't escape. 

007
If you could give a one minute public relations message to teens and young people about how to successfully live with bipolar disorder, what would you say?

Lizzie Simon
So hard to reduce a lifetime of ideas about a condition that takes a lifetime to understand to one minute of advice. But ultimately, in life, you are responsible for your own liberty. Learn how to best take care of yourself, then get over yourself, and get to work making the world a better place! 

sce   
When our son was in middle school/high school, life was more "normal" in terms of expectations etc. Now that he is 19 and flunked out of college, he seems so lost. Can you suggest any specific ideas/role models/ways to help young adults with BP get and stay motivated? 

Lizzie Simon  
It’s hard when they are out of the structure and community of college. Again, if you can get him on track with something he believes in, helping others, or art, or some kind of expertise, he'll be much better off. He has to get motivated. He has to find some kind of passion or curiosity. You can only encourage it. Maybe try and get him talking about what an ideal version of his life might be? 

Nanci - The Balanced Mind Foundation   
Education issues are a big part of what many of our parents contend with. Did you find that you needed any accommodations in college because of your disorder? Or, in hindsight are there things that would have been beneficial to assist you, particularly in periods of instability? 

Lizzie Simon
Parents with college or high school age kids should check out a project I worked on with the Leadership 21 Committee at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. It's a book called Know Your Rights and it addresses everything college age kids need to know who have mental illness. It is available onhttp://www.bazelon.org/.  

Nanci - The Balanced Mind Foundation   
You've been very active in Bazelon, are there any points you can share with us about the types of issues that you've advocated for or seen students having to tackle in terms of their rights? 

Lizzie Simon
Well yeah, kids should check in with the disability office when they get to school, whether they are doing well or not, just to make the introduction and find out what the deal is if they ever get sick. Knowing this probably prevents a whole lot of stress. 

Nanci - The Balanced Mind Foundation   
Does that in and of itself insure that their rights will be explained and met? Are some colleges and universities more prepared and willing to be supportive? At the elementary and secondary school level there is a huge amount of disparity. 

Lizzie Simon
Yes, there is a huge amount of disparity, but colleges more and more are providing resources, not so much out of the goodness of their hearts but to cover their butts so they don't get sued. 

sce   
Thank you for your comments. You seem so together and your advice seems pertinent to all teens/young adults. If you are willing to be more specific about a time when you were less in control, how did you know when things were spinning out of control and convince yourself that you needed to get yourself back on track? 

Lizzie Simon
That happens still—what is important is for kids to start to understand how it feels in their head and body at every stage: relaxed, mildly stressed, very stressed, out of control, and to start practicing recognizing when it's out of the realm of mildly stressed, and practicing steps to get back. They have to develop this internal register—it can't be their parents or doctors telling them. And I think teens don't even have the neurological development that makes this possible, so it may take a while before they really get it. 

It helps to remember what works. For me, staying home, cooking, blowing off all appointments, exercise, therapy, meditation—these will bring me back. In high school and college I didn't know when things were out of control. Sometimes I knew. Sometimes I didn't. In my twenties I was more interested and invested in feeling good and balanced. 

Nanci - The Balanced Mind Foundation   
So, in those volatile teen years, are there ways for parents to gently help our kids recognize that they are a) cycling or losing stability and b) suggest they use their coping techniques for riding through the wave? Or, do we assume that meds need to be adjusted? 

Lizzie Simon 
Raising a teenager must be SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO hard. You all are scaring me a bit. I have no idea how I'll handle these issues! 

Nanci - The Balanced Mind Foundation   
Sorry, didn't mean to scare you! 

Lizzie Simon
I don't know the answer to Nanci 

Nanci - The Balanced Mind Foundation   
That's ok, I appreciate your honesty! 

Lizzie Simon 
I struggled with romantic relationships and basically dated a string of drug addicts until I was 29-—ugh—It will break my heart if my own kids do this. And I will want to strangle them. But everything is easier now that I have lousy relationship patterns out of my system. Took a long time for me! 

Nanci - The Balanced Mind Foundation   
I'd like to ask a question on behalf of a young lady who was in here shortly before this chat started but had to leave to go to work. She is in her early 20's and has the BP diagnosis. She was seeking support from others with BP. Has peer to peer support played a role in your life, Lizzie, or have you relied more on your therapist and your friends? 

Lizzie Simon
I have a couple of friends who have dealt with this first hand, and they are best people I can talk to when I'm really struggling, because of the compassion they know how to give from first hand experience.  

007   
What advice do you have for a young adult just coming to terms with accepting their mood disorder, yet unwilling to call it Bipolar, and handling the stress that comes with trying to reconnect with college, work, family. As her mom I'm also grappling with how to advise her on her good thought about quitting smoking yet knowing that the nicotine has probably been medicating her as well. 

Lizzie Simon
Well...I don't think it matters what you call it as long as you are taking care of yourself. My advice to her is just to keep taking care of herself, get support, and keep focused on her goals. And to quit smoking, but that is hard to do, and she'll have to take it on when she’s ready. 

My last bit of advice is just that I hope you all get the support and encouragement that I know my own parents needed, and that you remember how important it is to take care of yourselves even though it's your kid with the diagnosis. 

Nanci The Balanced Mind Foundation
Lizzie, thank you so much for sharing your time and experiences with us. Your candor and insight are so helpful in giving us a window into what our kids are facing. And, your advice on wellness and how to be supportive and encouraging is reassuring and much appreciated. 

Lizzie Simon
Thank you!