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.

Counting down . . . .

It is after 7 pm on June 30 so we will be announcing the winner in a few hours time. There were so many excellent entries - I cannot wait until we grow to the point where we can afford to give multiple awards. Choosing just one has been very hard, and I so appreciate the dedication and efforts of the judging panel.

Now seems like a good time to remind folks that there some other scholarships out there for consumers of mental health services. For example, Eli Lily have been offering one for over 10 years. The goal of the Lilly Reintegration Scholarship is to help people with conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar get the educational and vocational skills necessary to reintegrate into society, especially through rewarding education and employment.

NAMI also post some info on their website, including good advice about how to apply for ANY scholarship - not just focus on ones for bipolar disorder.

The 2009 Bipolar Lives Scholarship

In 2008 I created a new page for my Bipolar Lives website about scholarships for people have bipolar disorder. Guess what? I couldn't find any! Well, actually I did find a couple, but not very many, and so the Bipolar Lives Scholarship was born.

To me this seemed like an important way to try and support the bipolar community. Many people with bipolar fall victim to what is called "downward drift" - a systemic pattern of under achieving, despite being gifted. I hope that by providing a cash award I can encourage people with bipolar diosorder to persist with higher education.

Another benefit is that the award encourages reflection, research and creativity. It is awarded solely on merit to the applicant who most eloquently conveys information about bipolar disorder (actually I prefer the term "manic depression") to the general public.

Some drug companies (yep - big pharma is not entirely evil) offer scholarships.

Also, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) list some on their website. However, NAMI's main advice is to contact folks like Fastweb: Need money for college? Use FastWeb's free scholarship search to find information on more than 1.3 Million scholarships!

The first winner will be announced on July 1st 2009. The winning entry will be published here.

Also, the details of the 2010 Bipolar Lives Scholarship will be released. The good news is that the award is increasing from $500 cash in 2009 to $750 cash in 2010.

Stay tuned and check back on 7/1/09. Thanks for your support, Sarah