Treatment-resistant bipolar disorder-- Finding stability at last
Back from the Abyss: Psychiatry in Stories | Psychotherapy, Trauma, and Psychedelics
10/17/25
•54m
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This story is a mirror to Elizabeth’s story from season 1 episode 1. Today’s storyteller Sarah was so moved by Elizabeth’s story that it helped her to trust Dr. H's recommendation to take a pretty scary medication, the extremely powerful antipsychotic and mood stabilizer called clozapine.
So why tell this story again? As they say, history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does often rhyme, and Sarah’s story rhymes beautifully with Elizabeth’s. Both had severe and treatment resistant bipolar 1 disorder, formerly known as manic-depression. Both tried all the meds, did all the things, then eventually reached a point of utter hopelessness and despair....and then they had to trust Dr. H enough to try one more thing.
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"I Love You, I Hate You, Are You My Mom?" An intensive experiential workshop exploring transference with Dr. H and Dr. Hillary McBride, Feb 4th-6th 2026 in Joshua Tree, CA
https://www.craigheacockmd.com/i-love-you-i-hate-you-are-you-my-mom/
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Previous Episode
Hiding in plain sight-- Life, work, and therapy on the autistic spectrum
October 3, 2025
•65m
In today’s story we explore what it’s like to be on the autistic spectrum, and more specifically, how a later life diagnosis can totally change the way you view the world and yourself. Aurelie, our storyteller today, was an autism expert, a clinical psychologist who had trained with some of the premier autism experts in the country...yet she didn’t discover her own autism until she was 40 years old.
This episode explores why women on the spectrum are so often missed, how women on the autistic spectrum are so often masters of masking, which means imitating the mannerisms and behaviors of neurotypical people, thus allowing them to both fit in and also to be left hiding in plain sight.
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Dr. Aurelie Welterlin
https://www.ncawag.net/our-team/dr-aurelie-welterlin
"I Love You, I Hate You, Are You My Mom?" An intensive experiential workshop exploring transference with Dr. H and Dr. Hillary McBride, Feb 4th-6th 2026 in Joshua Tree, CA
https://www.craigheacockmd.com/i-love-you-i-hate-you-are-you-my-mom/
BFTA episode recommendations/Podcast page
Next Episode
Rachael, a trauma therapist and today's storyteller, describes how her early childhood abuse was buried by the protective mechanism of dissociative amnesia. As Rachael wrote to Dr. H, “The only way I could continue to live, with no way out, with no one to tell, with no words even to describe what was happening to me, was to forget what was happening to me....when our minds forget, our bodies remember.”
Rachael saved herself by forgetting, then was forced to finally face what happened to her when her body carried out its ultimate rebellion in the context of having her third child, her first girl....a little baby girl, with no one to protect her....or at least that’s what the terrible and unrelenting obsessions began to say.
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Rachael Parsons Svendsen
https://www.rachaelsvendsen.com/
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"I Love You, I Hate You, Are You My Mom?" An intensive experiential workshop exploring transference with Dr. H and Dr. Hillary McBride, June 18-20 2026 in Vancouver BC
https://www.craigheacockmd.com/i-love-you-i-hate-you-are-you-my-mom/
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