Terms & policies

If you are in crisis right now: in the U.S., call or text 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Outside the U.S., contact your local emergency number or find a helpline. If you or someone near you is in immediate danger, call your local emergency services.

Terms of use

Last updated October 18, 2026

Welcome to Bipolarist. By using this site you agree to the terms below. They’re short on purpose—if anything is unclear, email [email protected].

What this site is

Bipolarist is an educational and community project covering bipolar disorder, mental health, and related topics. It includes essays, tools, and a newsletter. Content is written from a first-person, lived-experience perspective and informed by public research.

Not medical, legal, or professional advice

Important. Nothing on this site is medical, legal, therapeutic, or professional advice. Don’t use it to diagnose or treat a condition. The medical disclaimer below says exactly what that means.

Always consult a qualified professional about your personal situation. Reliance on anything you read here is at your own risk.

Use of the site

• Don’t use the site to do anything illegal, harmful, or abusive.
• Don’t attempt to break into, scrape at scale, overload, or reverse-engineer the site.
• Don’t impersonate anyone or misrepresent your affiliation.

Your content

If you send us a message, feedback, or a submission, we may read it and reply so we can run the project. We won’t publish what you send, or identifying details from it, without your permission.

Our content

Original writing, graphics, and tools on this site are © Bipolarist unless otherwise noted. You may share and quote short excerpts with attribution and a link back. For reuse beyond that—reprints, translations, derivative works—email us.

Third-party trademarks and research cited on the site belong to their respective owners.

Tools

Tools such as the planners are self-guided worksheets. They don’t replace a care plan made with a clinician. Answers you enter stay in your browser unless a tool says otherwise.

External links

We link to external sites, research, and resources—research papers, clinician sites, government health pages—for context. We don’t control those sites and aren’t responsible for their content, privacy practices, or availability. Linking to a source is not an endorsement of every position it takes.

No warranties

The site is provided “as is.” We don’t guarantee it will be error-free, uninterrupted, accurate, or fit for any particular purpose.

Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent allowed by law, Bipolarist is not liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, or punitive damages arising from your use of the site.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of Virginia.

Changes

We may update these terms. When we do, we’ll update the date above. Continued use of the site after changes go live means you accept the new terms.

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Privacy policy

Last updated October 30, 2026

Bipolarist is a magazine, not a data business. We don’t sell, share, broker, or build profiles from reader behavior. What we collect is enough to know which essays land and which don’t—nothing beyond that.

Google Analytics 4

We use Google Analytics 4 (GA4) to track aggregate site usage: which pages you visited, how long you stayed, what device you’re on, and which country you connected from. IP addresses are anonymized before they reach GA4. GA4 sets cookies named _ga and _ga_* that expire after 13 months.

For visitors connecting from the EEA, the UK, or Switzerland, GA4 loads only if you click Accept on the cookie banner. If you decline, GA4 never loads and no analytics cookies are set. Elsewhere, GA4 loads by default. A stored choice in your browser’s localStorage always wins on later visits, and the banner won’t reappear once you’ve decided.

What we collect without a cookie choice

Cloudflare Web Analytics runs at our content delivery layer regardless of consent. It is privacy-friendly by design—no cookies, no fingerprinting. Cloudflare collects aggregate request data (pageviews, country, browser family) for security and performance purposes. We have no way to opt this off short of moving off Cloudflare entirely.

Our server keeps standard access logs for about 30 days: timestamp, requested URL, response code, originating IP, and user-agent string. These are used only for debugging and security—not for analytics, profiling, or advertising.

What we don’t do

• We don’t sell, rent, or share your data with third parties
• We don’t serve display ads or work with ad networks
• We don’t build behavioral profiles or cross-site tracking
• We don’t use session replay, heatmaps, or scroll recording tools
• We don’t run pixel trackers for Meta, X, TikTok, LinkedIn, or any other ad platform

Newsletter and contact

Bipolarist publishes a newsletter on Substack. Subscribing means giving Substack your email address; their privacy policy governs what happens to it. We can’t see who subscribes by name through Substack’s dashboard except in aggregate.

The contact form sends your message to [email protected]. We don’t store the message on the server beyond the time it takes to send, and we don’t use a third-party CAPTCHA that profiles you. A counter keyed by a hash of the IP address is kept for one hour, then dropped. It does not store the message.

The Marketplace application form works the same way: it sends your application to [email protected], nothing is stored on the server, and it keeps its own one-hour counter. If you’re listed, your profile publishes your name, business, service, price, where you work and what we checked, which can include a license number. Your email address and your answers to the focus questions are never published.

Opting out of GA4 after the fact

If you accepted earlier (or GA loaded by default outside the consent region) and want to opt out now, set localStorage.cookie_consent to denied for this site, or clear that key so the banner returns on your next visit from a consent region and you can choose Decline. Or install Google’s browser opt-out extension for site-wide GA4 opt-out.

EEA, UK, and Switzerland

Under GDPR and the UK GDPR, you have the right to access, rectify, or delete data we hold about you. Since we don’t identify visitors individually, that is limited for most readers to aggregate GA4 records that cannot be tied back to a specific person. If you contacted us directly and want your email and message deleted, write to [email protected] and we’ll comply within 30 days.

California

We do not sell personal information under the CCPA definition. We do not knowingly collect personal information from California residents under 16.

Changes

Material changes will be reflected in the date at the top of this section. We don’t silently rewrite privacy terms.

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Medical disclaimer

Last updated May 14, 2026

Bipolarist is education, lived experience, and community support. It is not medical advice. Here is exactly what that means.

What Bipolarist is

Bipolarist is a magazine. It publishes essays, interviews, tools, and community resources on the lived experience of bipolar disorder, primarily from people with bipolar themselves. Some pieces translate peer-reviewed research into accessible language. Some are personal essays. Some are practical templates—crisis plans, accommodation letters, mood trackers—built by and for bipolar minds.

What Bipolarist is not

Bipolarist is not:

• A substitute for evaluation, diagnosis, or treatment by a qualified mental-health professional.
• A source of personalized medical advice for your specific situation.
• A pharmacy. We do not prescribe, recommend dosages of, or rank medications.
• An emergency service. If you are in crisis, please use the resources below.

Nothing on this site—including essays by clinicians, references to research, or community testimonials—should be interpreted as a clinical recommendation for your case. Diagnoses, medication choices, hospitalization decisions, and treatment plans require an evaluation by a licensed clinician who knows your history.

How to read us

Read Bipolarist the way you might read a thoughtful magazine article on a serious topic. Take what resonates. Bring it to your care team. Discard what doesn’t apply.

The fact that an essay describes something working for someone with bipolar disorder does not mean it will work for you. Bipolar is heterogeneous. What helps one person can harm another. Your psychiatrist, therapist, or primary-care doctor—not a magazine—is the right partner for individual decisions.

Crisis resources

• United States: Call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline). Free, confidential, 24/7.
• United Kingdom: Samaritans—call 116 123.
• Canada: Call or text 988.
• Elsewhere: findahelpline.com lists vetted crisis lines by country.
• NAMI HelpLine: 1-800-950-6264 (information, not crisis intervention).

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Editorial policy

Last updated May 14, 2026

Bipolarist is a magazine about bipolar identity. Mental health is a Your-Money-or-Your-Life topic—what we publish can affect how readers think about their diagnoses, their disclosures, their relationships, and their care. We hold ourselves to a higher bar than vibes.

Who writes here

Founding editor and primary author: Jeff Brown. Openly bipolar since 2003. Three-time patented technology inventor, two decades of advocacy work, and a public diagnosis history we treat as professional context rather than confession.

Guest contributors are noted by byline. Every author publishing on Bipolarist either (a) lives with bipolar disorder themselves, (b) has formal clinical or research credentials in psychiatry / clinical psychology / neuroscience, or (c) writes in clearly-marked allyship from another disability/identity tradition (cancer survivorship, autism, etc.).

What we publish

• Original essays grounded in lived experience, named research, or both.
• Tools—planners, crisis kits, accommodation templates—built with bipolar minds in mind.
• Interviews—podcast appearances, Clubhouse recordings, written conversations.
• The canon—figures of bipolar brilliance, fully cited.

What we don’t publish

• Pharmaceutical advertising, sponsored content, or affiliate-driven medication rankings.
• Crisis-cure claims, miracle protocols, or anti-medication advocacy that contradicts current evidence.
• Anything that names a non-public figure’s diagnosis without their consent.

Sourcing standards

Where a piece makes a medical, statistical, or research claim, the claim is linked to a primary source—peer-reviewed journals on PubMed/PMC, federal health agencies, or named clinicians on the record. Lived-experience claims do not require external citation, but are clearly framed as such (“in my experience,” “for me,” “our community has found”).

We do not generate medical advice. We do not diagnose. We do not prescribe. We translate, we contextualize, and we tell the truth about what it feels like.

Corrections

If we get something wrong, we fix it visibly. Substantive corrections are noted at the bottom of the article with a date and a short note describing what changed and why. We do not silently rewrite published essays.

To request a correction, email [email protected] with the article URL and the specific claim you’re challenging. We try to respond within five business days.

Disclosure

Jeff Brown also builds BipolarOS, a related practice product. Where Bipolarist coverage touches that space, the relationship is disclosed inline. Bipolarist is editorially independent and does not accept commercial direction from any sponsor or partner.

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Marketplace provider terms

Last updated October 30, 2026

What you agree to when you apply to be listed in the Marketplace, which lists non-clinical services from providers who focus on bipolar. The terms of use above apply too.

What a listing is

A listing shows that you exist, what you offer, and what we checked. It is not a referral, a recommendation or an endorsement. We don’t match people with providers, and we never see or handle what people send you.

Who can be listed

• You run a registered business: an LLC, a corporation, a partnership, a filed DBA or assumed name, a local business license, or a nonprofit.
• You hold a license or credential where your field has one, and it is current.
• Bipolar, serious mental illness or psychiatric disability is a stated focus on your own website.
• Your service is non-clinical. You don’t offer or advertise therapy, diagnosis, treatment or medical advice.

We don’t list law firms or attorneys.

What we check and publish

We check your business registration and any license or credential against the public record, and we read your answers to the application’s focus questions. Your profile shows what we checked and the date we checked it. License numbers are public record, and we may show them. Your email address and your answers to the focus questions are never published.

Your profile

You write your own bio. We may edit it for accuracy and plain language, and we will remove anything that reads as a clinical or medical claim. Your profile links to your own website or booking page.

Term and renewal

A listing runs for twelve months. Before it ends, we re-check your registration and credentials. We’ll write to you sixty days before the end of each term. Nothing renews into a paid plan unless you say yes.

Removal

We remove a listing straight away if a license or registration lapses, if something on it turns out to be untrue, if it makes clinical claims, or if a complaint about it is substantiated. You can ask to be removed at any time.

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Questions

About any of this, or to request a correction or deletion: [email protected].