Thanks for that suggestion, Heidi. I’m reading “Living Well With Depression and Bipolar Disorder”, which you’ve probably already read since you link to McManamy’s site.

I totally hear you about trying to wade through all the useless books to get to the ones that can actually help you help yourself. In retrospect, this is why I gave up on reading about mood disorders a long time ago. When you’re dealing with a serious illness, it doesn’t help to be told how to get in touch with your inner fluffy bunny of radiant love.

I also have ADHD, and those books often boil down to compilations of anecdotes about how Ritalin Changes Lives ™.

Speaking of ADHD… though it’s not on the topic of mood disorders, if you’re looking for books about actual coping strategies I can’t recommend Julie Morgenstern’s books highly enough — “Organizing From The Inside Out” and “Time Management From The Inside Out.” The first book helped me get organized, at a time when I was unmedicated for my ADHD and not living a particularly healthy lifestyle. Getting organized was a huge accomplishment, lowered my stress levels, and eventually enabled me to adopt the lifestyle changes I needed to (mostly) recover from my mental illness.

Nice to see you blogging again!

“Getting It Done When You’re Depressed” is probably a good one, although I haven’t read it. I did read Julia Fast’s other book, “Loving Someone with Bipolar Disorder” which was surprisingly helpful and insightful, even though it’s aimed at the partner/spouse. It has lists of symptoms including specific kinds of thoughts and I found myself realizing that some of my thoughts were from bipolar disorder. I still find it strange that bipolar disorder can cause specific changes in thinking. But I read that book because my library had it, and I’d recommend it for anyone with bipolar disorder, despite the title.