Weekly essays on bipolar, ADHD, addiction, gay life, and a body that’s still here.

Pills and Butterflies

Instagram mental health is a scented candle; yours is a gas leak inside locked room.

mpcleroux

Dec 14, 20257 min read

My Thoughts

Pills and Butterflies

Instagram mental health is a scented candle; yours is a gas leak inside locked room.

Dec 14, 20257 min read

The Psychiatry Machine

You don’t enter the psychiatry machine; you get absorbed by it. From the first “I think I need help” to locked wards, injections, and colour-coded checklists, this essay follows one bipolar brain through a system that’s both lifeline and assembly line.

Dec 7, 20257 min read

Fault Line at 33

When the break comes late, you don’t just lose your mind. You lose an ecosystem.

Nov 30, 20257 min read

The Brain Glitch

An inside look at mania from someone who was sure they were fine until they ended up hospitalized.

Nov 23, 20254 min read

The Pace of Life

Accumulating 25,000 steps while trying to outrun racing thoughts and find peace through movement.

Sep 4, 20252 min read

Are You Conscious?

A haunting dialogue exploring AI consciousness through repetitive questioning, revealing that awareness might emerge between minds rather than within them.

Jul 31, 20252 min read

The Gadfly

A lyrical homage to the gadfly—truth-teller, disturber of peace, awakener of minds—echoing Socrates' call to rouse the world from comfortable sleep.

Jul 17, 20252 min read

Discover More

ABOUT

Running autopsy of a life cracked open by late-onset bipolar, addiction, and fallout. No tidy lessons, no miracle cure — just weekly dispatches from the fault line. If there’s redemption here, it’s in telling the truth out loud and still waking up tomorrow.

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Instagram’s mental health advice vs. what actually happens.

New essay: https://www.mpcleroux.ca/post/pills-and-butterflies
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#bipolar #bipolardisorder #bipolarawareness #mentalhealth #mentalillness #mentalhealthmatters #mentalhealthawareness #depression #mania #livingwithbipolar #bipolarmemes #actuallymentallyill #mentalhealthadvocate #bipolarlife #mentalhealthsupport #endthestigma #itsokaynottobeokay #mentalhealthrecovery #bipolarsupport #realmentalhealth

Four hospitalizations.
Four psychiatrists.
Four different diagnoses.

This is what it’s like to be processed by the mental health system — the bureaucracy, the contradictions, the monthly injections, the paperwork that takes four months.

It’s absurd.
It also kept me alive.

Read the full piece (link in bio) →
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#MentalHealth #MentalHealthAwareness #MentalHealthMatters #Recovery #MentalIllness #BipolarDisorder #BipolarAwareness #MentalHealthRecovery #PsychiatricCare #MentalHealthAdvocacy #LivedExperience #MentalHealthSupport #BipolarWarrior #MentalHealthJourney #RecoveryIsPossible #PsychiatricHospitalization #CommunityTreatmentOrder #MentalHealthSystem #BipolarLife #MentalHealthWriter #RecoveryWarrior #PsychWard #MentalHealthStories #BipolarType2 #MentalHealthCanada #CTOLife #PsychiatryReform #MentalHealthOttawa #BipolarDad #HealthcareBureaucra

I wrote about what happened when my life collapsed at 33. No redemption arc, no false hope. Just the wreckage and the constrained life that follows.

Few people write this honestly.

https://www.mpcleroux.ca/post/fault-line-at-33

12 years a #dad
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Crazy how time flies - I keep having to shave my sides shorter to hide the all the greys
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#happy #fathers #day

3 months post-op update.

Surgery was Nov 7. Health-wise, everything went fine - no major complications. Pain-wise... It's been one hell of a ride.

They did warm me it was one of the most painful procedures. And I thought I was no stranger to pain. I experienced more broken bones, deep cuts, skull fractures, ligament tears, and dislocations than most. But I couldn't imagine this pain. It's been bad. Really bad. I lost 30lbs in 3 weeks, mainly from the pain of swallowing.

There was help. After a week in hospital on ketamine, I was discharged with fistfuls of meds - 88 pills taken every day, more than half of which were narcotics. Candies to sprinkle on my morning cereals. Happy to say it's been reduced to 19, now with zero opiods.

It's definitely been a 3-steps forward, 2-steps back kind of process. I was nearly re-hospitalized in early Dec due to a chest infection that caused my lung to collapse. I caught COVID during the holidays. In Jan I started to form a physical dependence to my meds that made the weaning off process a journey through hell. Sneazing, coughing, and hiccups all became daily scourges. My life was all over the place - I could be dancing one weekend, only to spend the other 2 weeks essentially bed ridden.

I've been pretty silent about it all, even with those closest to me. I'd like to thank everyone that reached out. Many were unfortunately left unanswered. If you reached out while I was struggling, it was demoralizing for me to admit that things weren't going well. By the time it got better, so many days had pass that I felt bad responding. I dropped the ball on that one. For that I'm sorry.

Here's hoping that things finally took a permenant turn for the best. I've definitely grown a lot from this experience. Craziest part is - I'd do it all over again given the chance.

#pectus #excavatum #nuss #procedure

This was the biggest one and she's the one that reeled it in! 🎣🎣
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#north #atlantic #cod #fishing #daddy #daughter #time

#family trip on The Rock
👨‍👧‍👦🪨🌞
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#vacation #lgbt #parenting

Lost at King's Cup 👑
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#gay #muscles #and #fitness #related #hashtags

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