Announcing the 2009 Winner!

The inaugural Bipolar Lives Scholarship is going to NH, a social work student in Wisconsin, who wrote a gripping account of turning to ECT for treatment when medication failed.

This was a wonderful entry describing personal experiences of electroshock therapy from a young person whose mania and depression did not respond satisfactorily to medications. The essay combines personal experience, facts about bipolar treatments, and a positive outlook in a manner that the whole judging panel found fresh and compelling. The winner was mailed their check today and we are publishing the winning entry, minus any identifying information. A problem with some of the very few scholarships available for consumers of mental health services is lack of privacy, and the associated stigma. We decided that we would not publish full names or require applicants to supply a lot of personal medical details. We try to minimize publicity for the recipient, while still honoring their achievement.

The winner has found the experience affirming and encouraging:

"This scholarship is much more than financial support. Like many people with bipolar disorder, I know how what it means to feel unwanted and worthless. Being the recipient of the Bipolar Lives Scholarship makes me feel validated.It makes me want to believe in myself and believe that anyone with bipolar can rise above the pain and accomplish the things that may seem impossible. The most important lesson I learned when I heard that I got this scholarship is that I am not alone. We, mental health service consumers, are not alone in our suffering, and there are people out there who want to help. You just need to ask."

The next Bipolar Lives Scholarship round is already underway, with two major changes:

1. The prize money has been increased from $599 to $750, and

2. Submissions must be in the form of a Squidoo Lens or an original Internet article.

Why the change?

There were many excellent submissions for the 2009 prize, but it was difficult to share these fascinating, informative, and moving insights into bipolar disorder with a wide audience, as most of them were in essay form. We have set up this blog in order to publish them, but most entries are not really suited to the blog format.

Using Squidoo Lenses and online articles will ensure all entries get shared on the Internet immediately, and will allow for more creative and flexible forms of expression.