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What happens when your mental health is challenged in the blink of an eye? Can keeping your head down and reading help hold you together?

When a devastating skiing accident in Patagonia leaves her husband, Conrado, in a coma with only a 10% chance of survival, Argentinian born journalist and author Juana Libedinsky suddenly finds herself navigating a stark family medical crisis, confronting uncertainty, and knowing that her life and that of her young children would be changed for a long time—or for good.

In her new book, Downhill: A Memoir of an Accident, Two Comas, Many Books, and Starting Over, Juana recounts how books became an unexpected lifeline. From literary classics like Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking to cozy mysteries and cookbooks, Juana grasped for a book at all times. Keeping the simple act of reading as part of her routine, offered a way to stay grounded amid exhausting days in the ICU waiting room, the burden of questions about care, and the persistent anxiety and fear of losing Conrado.

Juana and Janine also explore Argentina's remarkably open culture around mental illness, where there is less stigma and shame about seeking care to stay on top of your mental health. They explore the kindness of friends and strangers, and the peculiar pressure to emerge from a crisis stronger, wiser, and transformed. Perhaps resilience isn't always about transformation. Sometimes it's about holding on to the ordinary pleasures and people we already love.

Buy Downhill Here

Juana's Instagram Here @jlibedinsky

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Bipolar She is dedicated to real conversations for women living with mental illness. Hosted by Janine Noel, the majority of episodes give voice to a woman who has lived-life experience with mental illness--or who has experienced the illness of someone close to them. Along the way, I interview experts in the field that address additional mental health concerns.

Frankly, coping with a mental health condition can be exhausting. Here's a place where you can land and find an episode that resonates with you. Some topics we've covered: being a bipolar mom or having a bipolar mom. Anxiety, agoraphobia, chronic depression, ECT, borderline personality disorder, ADHD, a psychiatrist that breaks your trust. A therapist who goes above and beyond to help you. The impact of trauma on your brain.

Bipolar She couldn't have thrived without guitarist, JD Cullum's original music.

Editor Brandon Moran makes everyone's voice sound both crisper and smarter.

Sponsored by Amy Vincze's Emotional Freedom Technique App: Soar With Tapping.

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You're waking up at 4 AM, your body craves donuts, your anger is deep, and the midlife health industry insists you buy supplements, protocols, and magic smoothies. Fortunately, Nancy Fisher, a women’s health educator, yoga teacher, and the founder of Zevah, takes us on a deep dive into thriving during perimenopause and beyond.

We have a few more disordered eating topics to go over, including low hunger signals and anorexia; orthorexia, disguised as “clean eating;” and why "intuitive eating" is more nuanced than just “listen to your body.” Nancy shares why vilifying carbs and sugar backfires, and how recent nutrition trends can turn life into an exhausting set of restrictions. With the bottom line being that there are few nutrition studies to date that have strong data correlating specific foods to good health.

From there, Nancy builds her practical framework around five pillars: sleep, mindful movement, healthy eating, getting outside/nature, and connection. We dig into sleep hygiene that supports the nervous system, how poor sleep changes appetite hormones and what sustainable movement looks like for longevity and health span.

We also talk sunlight and vitamin D, and the risks of an under-regulated supplement industry. As part of connection, Nancy speaks about being in community and one's connection to self. And when women begin to feel "invisible," are they grieving a sudden change, or the possibility that they have never been known? Finally, we get real about midlife symptoms, HRT and hormone therapy myths, and the belief that women have suffered enough--so let's get through this as peacefully as possible.

Books mentioned in the episode

Anti-Diet by Christy Harrison: Challenges diet culture and explores intuitive eating and food freedom. View on Bookshop.org

Intuitive Eating, 4th Edition by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch: A practical approach to making peace with food and rebuilding trust in your body's signals. View on Bookshop.org

Estrogen Matters by Avrum Bluming and Carol Tavris: Reexamines the research and controversies surrounding menopausal hormone therapy. View on Bookshop.org

Our conversations are meant to inform and inspire, not to replace medical advice. Guests share their own knowledge, experiences and perspectives, which, at times, may differ from those of the host.

Support the show

Bipolar She is dedicated to real conversations for women living with mental illness. Hosted by Janine Noel, the majority of episodes give voice to a woman who has lived-life experience with mental illness--or who has experienced the illness of someone close to them. Along the way, I interview experts in the field that address additional mental health concerns.

Frankly, coping with a mental health condition can be exhausting. Here's a place where you can land and find an episode that resonates with you. Some topics we've covered: being a bipolar mom or having a bipolar mom. Anxiety, agoraphobia, chronic depression, ECT, borderline personality disorder, ADHD, a psychiatrist that breaks your trust. A therapist who goes above and beyond to help you. The impact of trauma on your brain.

Bipolar She couldn't have thrived without guitarist, JD Cullum's original music.

Editor Brandon Moran makes everyone's voice sound both crisper and smarter.

Sponsored by Amy Vincze's Emotional Freedom Technique App: Soar With Tapping.

TEXT US: Have a Story? Feedback for the Show?

We were taught that thinness meant beauty, discipline, and good health. But what if some of those lessons were lies?

Women's health educator Nancy Fisher joins me for a talk about eating disorders, body image, and the beliefs about food and weight that have followed us for decades.

Nancy and I attended the same college, where academic excellence coexisted with rampant disordered eating. We revisit those years—the restrictive eating, the pressure to stay thin, and the painful contradiction of looking our best while feeling our worst.

Nancy shares how her eating disorder began in high school and went largely unnoticed by her parents. She also introduces the fascinating research of Cynthia Bulik on the genetic underpinnings of anorexia nervosa, challenging the assumption that eating disorders are simply about diet culture or even family dynamics.

We explore the relationship between undernourishment and mental health, including my own questions about restrictive eating, depression, and bipolar disorder. For Nancy, becoming a mother brought new urgency to learning how to eat healthfully. She wanted to nourish herself not just physically, but emotionally—to have a greater buffer against stress and more patience and stability for her children.

Decades later, we're still confronting old habits, from scrutinizing our bodies in gym mirrors to refusing to step on a scale.

Nancy also shares surprising research on weight and mortality, including findings that people classified as overweight have, in some large population studies, experienced lower mortality rates than those classified as normal weight. It's a provocative challenge to the assumption that thinner always means healthier. And it's a reminder that disordered eating can affect women at any point in their lives.

This is Part 1 of our conversation about eating disorders, the lies we learned about our bodies, and the hard work of unlearning them.

In Part 2, Nancy returns to discuss five pillars of women's midlife health.

Nancy Fisher's Substack: HERE

Research Mentioned

Cynthia Bulik and colleagues — Genetics of Anorexia Nervosa
Nature Genetics (2019)
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6779477/

Katherine Flegal and colleagues — BMI and All-Cause Mortality
JAMA (2013)
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4855514/

Please note: Guests on Bipolar She share their personal experiences, knowledge, and perspectives, which may differ from those of the host, Janine Noel. Our conversations are intended to inform and inspire, not to replace professional medical advice.

If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, call or text 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, for free, confidential support 24/7 in the United States.

Support the show

Bipolar She is dedicated to real conversations for women living with mental illness. Hosted by Janine Noel, the majority of episodes give voice to a woman who has lived-life experience with mental illness--or who has experienced the illness of someone close to them. Along the way, I interview experts in the field that address additional mental health concerns.

Frankly, coping with a mental health condition can be exhausting. Here's a place where you can land and find an episode that resonates with you. Some topics we've covered: being a bipolar mom or having a bipolar mom. Anxiety, agoraphobia, chronic depression, ECT, borderline personality disorder, ADHD, a psychiatrist that breaks your trust. A therapist who goes above and beyond to help you. The impact of trauma on your brain.

Bipolar She couldn't have thrived without guitarist, JD Cullum's original music.

Editor Brandon Moran makes everyone's voice sound both crisper and smarter.

Sponsored by Amy Vincze's Emotional Freedom Technique App: Soar With Tapping.