Selected short reflections offer the experiences of a woman living with bipolar disorder.

In 2013, O’Malley, a trained psychotherapist who no longer practices, began a blog to help her deal with the illness of a family member. After she received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, her coping skills expanded to publicly sharing her thoughts, which she found therapeutic. Nearly a decade later, the blog remains active, and O’Malley has released this third edition of a collection of her posts. She presents selections that offer general information about herself, and address her roles as writer, mother, and mental health care advocate. She includes both poetry and short reflections on topics such as job hunting, medications (which, she stresses, are not a solution by themselves, and require careful adjustments), social media, spirituality, and boundary issues. She also documents her experiences with Social Security Disability Insurance eligibility reviews and lists problems evident in mental health care. She expresses her hopes that by sharing her story, her observations, her poems, and her raw free-writing, she will educate readers about bipolar disorder and may inspire those living with it to share their own stories. O’Malley openly shares some of the most difficult point in her life, when she struggled with obsessive and sometimes-violent thoughts. Although these passages are difficult to read, O’Malley’s writings are most striking for the strength they reveal; as she puts it: “I am not weak. I am vulnerable.” However, one may wonder why she simply republished this already available material instead of building on it—bringing in additional voices, for example, or using the blog entries to produce a more cohesive narrative of her experiences.

An earnest and informative collection of blog posts and poems.