Bipolar Disorder - Jenn Hicks: Recent Episodes
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Last week I had a a rich conversation with Marie-Pier Pitre-D’Iorio, Registered Dietician and founder of The Balanced Practice (a team of health care providers who take an anti-diet and weight inclusive approach to support people in having a better relationship with food, their bodies & themselves).
Marie-Pier and I discussed what it means to move mindfully and how you can enjoy an approach to exercise that prioritizes pleasure over extreme workouts and pain. I shared parts of my own story discovering mindful movement through Nia and gave tips about starting to slowly come home to your body through mindful movement during recovery from an eating disorder.
You can listen to the podcast, or read a blog post about it here.
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Eating Disorders Awareness Week:February 1 to 7, 2023 Eating Disorders affect people of all genders, sexual orientations, ages, socioeconomic class, abilities, races, and ethnic backgrounds. That is why, from February 1st to 7th every year, Eating Disorder groups across Canada unite to commemorate Eating Disorder Awareness Week (EDAW) with a national week of action focused on educating the public about Eating Disorders.
It is a time to escalate awareness of the impact of Eating Disorders, the dangerous stereotypes and myths, and the supports available for people living with or affected by them. Learn more and lend your support by visiting the National Eating Disorders Information Centre (NEDIC) or Sheena’s Place.
The pain and silencing of anorexia & exercise addictionMy years of living with anorexia and an exercise addiction were hell. Mainly because of the shame of thinking I was responsible for my situation, and due to the emotional pain I was in. There were so many “well-meaning” professionals who discredited my experiences and added to my sense of guilt and self-judgement through words and actions of blame, anger and intolerance towards what was clearly a severe mental illness. It was extremely difficult for me to understand how I had gotten to this hell scape and for so many others in my life I was perceived as being “stubborn”. It was a deeply dark and lonely place. The significant lack of self-worth and overall confusion were intensely distressing and impossible to explain and led to some extremely harmful behaviours. All these years later I still feel my soul ache as I write these words. What was remarkable was that the emotional pain overrode the physical pain I was causing because of the exercise addiction. I was simply numb. Overall, I felt like a stranger to myself and that I had been dismissed by a system that was meant to help me.
Living in my body: on the dance floorFast forward to today. I’m a dancer. Dancing has been a major part of my healing and it’s in large part responsible for what helps me stay well.
Every time I dance, I tell my body “I will never abandon you again”. Not through words, but through the presence I offer it. I give my body that reassurance through the care and respect I show it by tuning in and listening to it. It’s easiest for me to do that when I’m dancing and practicing my connection to sensation, my body’s foundational language.
It wasn’t always that way, and it took a long time to get to this point. During my years living with adult onset anorexia and an exercise addiction I had essentially disowned my body. My body was simply a vehicle to carry my brain around in. I hadn’t been taught to tend to it or care for it and if anything, I had been taught to manipulate it (thanks, diet culture).
What I prioritized (and so did the world around me), was my intellect. Expressing emotions was a sign weakness in my books, something to be ashamed of. The only part of me that mattered was the part that could achieve high grades. It was in part due to the drive and determination to get those high grades that my physical health was compromised at the age of 19 when I was given a likely diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis. I put so much pressure on myself to achieve (thanks, capitalism) that I was not living a full or balanced life.
Jennifer Hicks, 2022
Eating disorders advocacyI have recently joined an Eating Disorders Collective whose mission it is to organize for improvements to what are primarily clinician-driven initiatives around eating disorder prevention, treatment and public perception. The people with lived/living experience with eating disorders need to have a voice!
When I presented with anorexia at the age of 30 I was an enigma. It was very difficult for professionals to know how to help given that I didn’t fit in a tidy diagnostic category. Add the exercise addiction to the anorexia, and I really stumped the therapists and doctors I saw. On top of that, I knew that western medicine would not be the only answer and so insisted on creating my own unconventional treatment plan. That was unusual and not acceptable – it was not felt that I could have a say in my own treatment. Yet I knew what was best for me but I was being encouraged to override that and accept cookie-cutter treatment.
All this to say that eating disorders are complicated. No two cases will be the same and there is so much more than meets the eye. My exercise addiction? It was in part fuelled by hypo-mania. It took forever to get a diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder which was key to addressing the excess energy and irrational thinking. If it had been considered early on, I would have been spared so much grief and suffering.
Lack of understanding of concurrent disorders, addictions and mental health conditions persists in the field of eating disorders today. Issues of childhood trauma and complex family dynamics along with peer pressure and weight stigma are not always considered or addressed. On top of that, the field of eating disorders (and medicine in general) is rife with fatphobia and racism which impact who receives treatment and what quality that treatment might be. Our colonial society considers eating disorders to be an individual problem removed from the society that created them and yet doesn’t treat them on an individual basis. These all lead to inadequate identification, treatment and public perception. And they strip people of their dignity and humanity.
For all these reasons and more, I am committed to speaking up and speaking out to support change and help others with eating disorders. I don’t want anyone to suffer at the hands of dysfunctional systems in the ways that I did.
Thanks to Chloë Grande (a Canadian mental health blogger, writer and speaker) for inspiring this post with her informative and personal piece which you can read here.
Eating Disorders affect people of all genders, sexual orientations, ages, socioeconomic class, abilities, races, and ethnic backgrounds. That is why, from February 1st to 7th every year, Eating Disorder groups across Canada unite to commemorate Eating Disorder Awareness Week (EDAW) with a national week of action focused on educating the public about Eating Disorders.
It is a time to escalate awareness of the impact of Eating Disorders, the dangerous stereotypes and myths, and the supports available for people living with or affected by them. Learn more and lend your support by visiting the National Eating Disorders Information Centre (NEDIC) or Sheena’s Place.
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On Sat Apr 30, 2022 members of our Nia community participated in a fundraising workshop to support Zhizneljub (Lifelover), a Community Center located in Kiev, Ukraine. Together, and with generous donations from our community, we raised $620 for them! Since the war, Center Lifelover has been helping the cities most vulnerable people (elders and isolated…
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I'm not shy about my past. After coming out the other side of a major mental health crisis I knew I needed to share my story. I speak openly quite often about my history of an exercise addiction and anorexia. I view the fact that I have bipolar disorder as one of my assets, not something that brings me down.
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A new piece of work is in the world on a topic that is very near and dear to my heart, and it’s one that shares my story! Katherine Schreiber and Heather A. Hasuenblas teamed up to write “The Truth About Exercise Addiction: Understanding the Dark Side of Thinspiration” While my story about exercise addiction (yes, it’s a…
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"Jennifer Hicks invites us into her world as a healthcare professional who herself is struggling with other professionals as she asks for compassion and support while living with bipolar disorder"
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Today was Bell Let’s Talk day – where Bell donated 5¢ to mental health initiatives for every: Text message sent Mobile and long distance call made Tweet using #BellLetsTalk Facebook share of our Bell Let’s Talk image (*for Bell subscribers) Awesome, right? Today started out with me tweeting and re-tweeting lots of stuff with the hashtag…
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And so with a special kind of honour, I present our gift to Debbie Rosas, co-creator of Nia. She is responsible for SO MUCH GOODNESS in this world!
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It’s been some time since I’ve written about my mood. I guess that’s mostly because it’s been fairly stable for awhile. Up even, at times. For the last several weeks* I’ve felt dread deep in the pit of my stomach. It’s a black, empty, never-ending universe of nothingness. It affects my ability to smile.…
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I love sharing my story and offering ideas about taking control of one’s own mental health. So, on December 26 when I receive an email and a voice mail inviting me to be a guest on a radio show, I was overjoyed! My first time ever on the radio! I was being asked to discuss…
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Throughout the fall, I have been involved in a documentary project about addiction (I realize that sounds like the beginning of the TV program “Intervention”, but it’s true). In my late 20s/early 30s, I was addicted to exercise. In preparing to share my story, I came across this piece of writing which I now realize…
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Today I am feeling lonely. And yet I am not alone. I’ve been around people all day. Funny how that is. At first, I was tempted to label what I’m feeling as “depression”. Cause, hey, a girl with Bipolar Disorder does indeed get depressed. But then, I thought, “Hey Jennifer, let’s really, really think…
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(this post is SO not going where you might think it is from the title…)
It is often that I say, “thank you, whomever is responsible, for the fact that I am living in this day and age“. When I think about my dad, living with (and succumbing to) mental health struggles back in the early 1970s, I am extremely thankful.
Because, unlike him, I have been able to live with Bipolar Disorder. I am able to speak openly about having a mental health issue, get the help I need and do what I need to do. Without shame, I can tell others about this and (most often) be met with the same reaction I would get if I mentioned having diabetes. Fortunately, that’s been my experience.
Ok, stay with me, reader. I know by now you’re salivating about the vaginas. Cause who doesn’t like a good cupcake?
(Had to remove the photo for copyright reasons. Basically it was a tray of cupcakes and the icing was made to look like vulvas. All kinds of different vulvas.)
So before we get all sweet (and vagina-y), I want to say this: I feel exceedingly fortunate. Because I am here, in Canada, in 2012. I am not living in a society where I need to be on the defensive (most of the time) for bringing my whole self to the fore.
Which is why I can just post vagina cupcakes on my blog.
Just like that.
I have absolutely zero concern about anyone coming across this picture. A potential client? No problem. A potential student? Not a big deal.
I’ve never hidden the fact that I have Bipolar Disorder, nor do I feel the need to conceal the fact that I find this picture just priceless.
Oh, and while I’m busy not feeling shame about the bits that make me me, let me tell you one more thing. I also…wait for it… have a vagina!
It makes me exceedingly happy to be able to draw this parallel and feel not one iota of discomfort or shame. I am grateful.
(Cute aside: while I was writing this post over a pint, a darling older gentleman wearing his legion pins on his cap said, “How is the novel coming along?”. When I explained what I was actually working on, he insisted that I share that the 3rd cupcake from the right in the second row looks like a Blue Point Oyster from Boston!).
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