Lived Experience Forum

[BipolarPerth]

Hi all, 

What brought me here was a lack of support groups in my city for bipolar people to meet and chat about our experiences. I've searched the forums and couldn't find older posts with answers, so was hoping I could start here.

Other than a group called Even Keel, who try their best but get almost no turnouts, I can't find others. Online is fine and all but not the same. 

Thanks everyone

[Willy]

Hi @BipolarPerth 
Many years ago I was involved in physical support groups in Melbourne which were pretty good for a few years. We meet weekly and supported each other between meetings by phone. Then the government stepped in and got involved in "managing" these groups claiming that what we were doing was "too dangerous". These government managed groups quickly fizzled out. Most people quickly got jack of being treated like children.

These days just about everything seems to be online.

It seems to me that it would be good for a forum like this one to allow those of us who wanted to to make social contact and arrange to meet up somewhere for coffee say once a month or something similar and then use the online stuff to support each other and  keep in touch. Unfortunately  that is absolutely not allowed here under the guise of protecting people etc.

I just had a look in Meetup (www dot meetup dot com) for "Mental Health" in "Perth". The only thing I could see there was Even Keel and you are right, it doesn't seem to be very well supported. 

The physical groups that I was previously involved  with were not diagnosis specific although I would say that about 70% of the people who attended had either a bipolar or schizophrenia diagnosis. As you are probably aware bipolar and schizophrenia are generally regarded as very similar Both are psychotic problems.  For example I am diagnosed with schizophrenia but I certainly experience significant mood swings including periods of mania etc.

My thinking is that Even Keel  might do better if it wasn't diagnosis specific. Are you in a position to suggest this sort of thing to the organisers?

I am from the "modern school" of mental health that regards all diagnosis with a large grain of salt. Of course not everybody ( the "traditional school") agrees with that idea.
.
Another forum that might be worth your while having a look at is Schizophrenia Spectrum.  It operates from a Discord server.  You have to first set up an anonymous Discord account if you don't already have one and then you can access the forum which is called a server in Discord lingo. 

So while I am not familiar with anything other than Even Keel happening in Perth, I am happy to chat with you further about this. I think there is a need for the sort of thing that you are talking about. Please keep in mind that I am rather limited by what I am allowed to say on this forum.

Regards

Willy
 
 

[Historylover]

Just a quick response to your post, @BipolarPerth. It's alarmingly true that our needs are just not being met across the spectrums of distress. If you look to the bottom of the forum post page, you will see a list of discussion topics to click on. There is one for bipolar. Perhaps you will find more aligned spirits there. Sending you best wishes. 

[tyme]

Hi @BipolarPerth ,

Welcome to the forums. @Historylover  has made a good suggestion to use the tags at the bottom of the page.

Another may be connecting with Bipolar Australia, and asking about connections in Perth? I found that where I am, once I get one 'good' connection, I'm then linked to other amazing services. But it does take perseverance to find that first connection.

All the best, tyme