Bipolar Disorder Awareness: How to Advocate for Yourself and Others

By Allison Strong







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Interested in becoming a mental health advocate? There are many opportunities such as Mental Illness Awareness Week to join the movement!



I like to be involved with the Depression Bipolar Support Alliance (who I just found), Mental Health America, the International Bipolar Foundation (IBPF), and National Alliance on Mental Illness. I sure don’t want to leave any one of these groups out, but on the subject of advocacy, I used to be a bullheaded aggressor, totally self-focused on my own caped crusade, and that is easy to do, because bipolar disorder affects everyone differently and it affects us in a variety of different ways!

Bipolar affects our health, our family, our jobs, and our creativity, so it’s easy to get distracted. Nowadays, I think advocacy is best accomplished if we all stay on the same page and focus on the events and issues that are going on and initiatives right before our elected officials.

Example: Mental Health Parity. This means that a person with bipolar disorder has the same health insurance coverage and benefits as a person with heart disease. We’ve made a lot of progress, and we’re going to get there.

Also there are events, like NAMI Walks—National Alliance on Mental Illness walks which happen throughout the year. There’s World Bipolar Day, which falls reliably on March 30th, and Mental Illness Awareness Week, during the first Week of October. These are all coming up ….at a hashtag near you.

I’m Allison Strong and if you’d like to chat, keyboard your comments in the white box below.

On behalf of bp Magazine’s online community, bphope.com Vlog, I’ll see next time around! Ciao!