A Firm Place To Stand: Finding Meaning in a Life with Bipolar Disorder [Paperback]

Marja Bergen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 23, 2008

Marja Bergen describes how she found meaning in a life with bipolar disorder. In her sincere and candid style, she reflects on her forty-two years with the illness and shows how God can turn weakness into strength. This book is a must-read for Christians who struggle with mental health challenges and the faith communities who minister to them.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Marja Bergen has been helping people who suffer from mood disorders since 1999, when her first book, Riding the Roller Coaster, was published. She has counselled and supported both individuals and groups, devoting herself to reducing the stigma attached to mental illness and helping Christians learn how to be supportive. She established the growing Christian support group called "Living Room."

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION: I have a burning desire to tell you my story. I long to tell you what I have learned from living with bipolar disorder for four decades. I want to help others understand what it's like to have severe mental health difficulties. I want to help you, and all those who read my story, to learn from the hardships - and the joys - I have known.

When I finished my first book, Riding the Roller Coaster, I thought I had said all I needed to say. But many things convinced me I needed to write another book, one that would testify to how God has helped me since I began searching eighteen years ago. I wrote my first book for a secular audience. This volume is for a Christian audience, for those who are struggling and for those who want to be supportive.

I've learned not to be ashamed of having bipolar disease. I feel good about who I am and don't consider myself much different from the average person, in spite of my strong moods and what they do to me at times. I know my occasional difficulties are not my fault.

Medical professionals are becoming aware of the many ways a healthy spiritual life can contribute to mental well-being. Our faith can help us cope with illness of any sort. Having lived with bipolar disorder first as a non-believer and then as a follower of Christ, I know this to be true.

Many people need medication to keep their brains physically stable. I am one of those people. But it's my trust in a loving God that gives me a hope I can't do without. My church is a lifeline for me. I don't know what I would do without my friends there. They support me and pray for me when I'm going through rough times, times when I sometimes need to be reminded that God is still there.

When I told a friend recently that I like to be open about my battles with bipolar disorder - that I don't like to keep them secret - she said she found that unusual. She was really thinking it was weird. Yet I believe that to hide such things, or to be embarrassed about them, only serves to keep the stigma which is attached to mental illness alive. I decided many years ago that the only way to eradicate that stigma is to speak freely about it, as people do about other disorders.

I've come a long way. As a young girl I was shy and withdrawn, afraid to say much in school. Now I speak out on mental health issues. Some even call me an activist. Today I'm bubbling over with a lifetime of thoughts and experiences I want to tell you about.

Bipolar disorder (also called manic depression) is a difficult diagnosis to accept, but a rich and productive life is possible, much more so today than in the past. If you have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I hope this book will encourage you, with the help of God, to find a better life for yourself.

Product Details

• Paperback: 232 pages
• Publisher: Word Alive Press (June 23, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1897373457
• ISBN-13: 978-1897373453
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #854,869 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Moving and Inspiring read, December 30, 2008

By 

Darlene Jan Alice Oakley "DOakley" (Ottawa, ON, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Firm Place To Stand: Finding Meaning in a Life with Bipolar Disorder (Paperback)

Marja Bergen has written a gem of a personal memoir in this book. In a fluid, storytelling style, Bergen takes us through her ongoing journey and battle with Bipolar disorder. A Firm Place to Stand is a follow-up to her first book, Riding the Roller Coasterand focuses on the spiritual side of her battle; what kind of a role faith has played in her life.

The struggle to find a meaning to life and a way out of the mental roller coaster that is bipolar disorder, brings with it a whole slew of challenges that people without mental illness don't know about or can ever experience both in relation to their relationship with others and their relative striving to find God.

Bergen begins with her upbringing in Holland, takes us through her family's settlement in Canada, and when she first started experiencing the depression that would send her to hospital and to be misdiagnosed - as many with bipolar disorder were - with schizophrenia. Thanks to more research into mental illness, thirty years after she was first diagnosed, Bergen finally learns the true nature of her illness - bipolar disorder - and with that realization and re-diagnosis comes a different set of medications and counseling.

Throughout this struggle of maintaining her sanity, Bergen leans on the strength of her husband and her new-found faith in God and the people at her church.

A truly uplifting story for those who still struggle with bipolar and need to look to someone who has been there and is saying "you can do it". I have already recommended this book to two families I know dealing with the disorder.

The world of mental illness certainly needs people who will not hide in the shadows of their illness because of the stigma that still accompanies the name "mental illness". We need more Marja Bergens to come forward with their experiences so those experiencing mental illness will finally know that they are not alone in their suffering and coping, and so the public perception of those with mental illness will change into acceptance and understanding from the current ostracism and discomfort.

Marja Bergen has chosen her title well for this book, A Firm Place to Stand, and can help others find a firm place to stand in their struggles with bipolar and their search for spiritual meaning in their lives.

Darlene Oakley
Freelance Writer and Editor
www.darscorrections.com

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Candid Story About Coping With Bipolar Disorder, January 21, 2009

By 

Debra Purdy Kong "Author of Casey Holland Tra... (British Columbia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Firm Place To Stand: Finding Meaning in a Life with Bipolar Disorder (Paperback)

What would you do if you'd been diagnosed with schizophrenia and spent nine months in a mental hospital? What would you do if you later learned that you'd been misdiagnosed for twenty-five years and that you needn't have spent that much time in hospital at all? And how do you cope once you've learned that you really have bipolar disorder and will likely require a changing cocktail of medications the rest of your life? These are among the many questions Marja Bergen addresses in her deeply personal story about living with bipolar disorder. It's also about how she learned to break down the barrier she had built against God.

In A FIRM PLACE TO STAND, Marja describes her long, painful journey from psychosis to a happy, productive life filled with joy and purpose. The book contains many personal anecdotes and useful biblical passages that have helped her find ways to thrive through creativity, faith, and friendship. At the end of the book she also provides the names of organizations that can help other sufferers find support. If you know someone who's suffering, pick up this book. Bergen writes with clarity, compassion, and more than forty years experience.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Learning to Live with Bi-Polar Disease, October 8, 2008

By 

Richard R. Blake (Bridgman, Michigan) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: A Firm Place To Stand: Finding Meaning in a Life with Bipolar Disorder (Paperback)

In her book "A Firm Place to Stand" award winning author Marja Bergen speaks out to build a public awareness and to help those who have Bi-Polar disorder. The book describes the struggle and challenges Bergen has faced over the forty year period she has suffered with the disease.

Bergen describes the stigma attached to those with mental illness and hopes to educate the public and in particular the faith community on ways to offer support and encouragement to those plagued by those people with mood disorders.

Throughout the book Bergen projects a positive attitude and details how she personally has coped with the various forms of treatments, psychiatric counseling, and the monitoring of her medications to maintain the semblance of a normal life.

Bergen offers hope for living creatively, finding support, and finding meaning to life. She presents a positive testimony of her own spiritual journey and of how she found God, how she was nurtured in the faith, and how she has found strength, encouragement, and peace from the scriptures.

I found the appendix very helpful as it summarized Bi-Polar Disease with the symptoms, including depression, mania, hypomania, and psychosis. The resource list included and the end notes from books quoted within the text offer additional resources for further study.

With nearly 6 million American adults diagnosed as having some form of Bi-Polar Disorder, "A Firm Place to Stand" is an important and timely book and should be read by the afflicted, their families, pastors, and counselors. It is an important resource tool for faith based ministries who want to reach out into the community to provide ministry and to offer support and hope to a unique community within the community.