🏛️ Bipolar and Bipartisan
Bipolar and Bipartisan is an online forum where readers can learn more about a complicated mental health disorder and the public policy landscape that impacts it.
Posts highlight the lived experiences of people with bipolar disorder and other serious mental illnesses, including how individuals are using coping mechanisms and strategies to manage their diagnoses. Other posts are thoroughly researched commentaries on the mental health crisis we face and ways we might be able to collectively solve it. Tyler also writes a weekly roundup called “Last Week in Mental Health” that serves as a resource to advocates, philanthropists, and policy makers.
Bipolar and Bipartisan is published by Tyler Fisher. Tyler lives with bipolar disorder in Denver, Colorado with his wife Stephanie and son Theodore. Tyler is the Principal of Trailmark Strategies, a boutique consulting firm that helps philanthropists and advocacy organizations on strategy, programs, execution, and fundraising.
🧠 Previous Writing
Tyler wrote publicly about his lived experience in a post titled “Advocacy as an Outlet for Anger.” Tyler’s two mental health hospitalizations in psychiatric wards motivates him to serve as a mental health advocate. Tyler did not receive humane care, was denied legal rights, and left hospitals worse off than he arrived. He has been physically assaulted by mental health workers, verbally abused by other patients, restricted from regular consultations with psychiatrists, prevented from speaking to family and to lawyers, and more.
Tyler has written posts that explain what Bipolar Disorder is, including “Bipolar 101,” “The Three Types of Bipolar” and “Statistics and Quotations on World Bipolar Day.”
In early 2025, Tyler published a long-form research piece entitled “My Take on the Macro Mental Health Puzzle.” This post explores twelve different explanations for how our country is performing worse than ever before on mental health outcomes, despite knowing more about the issue and the topic being more destigmatized than ever before.
He has written about the impact of closing the Department of Education, how civic engagement intersects with both democracy and mental health, the tension between workplace safety for mental health workers and the human rights of patients, the courageous leadership of Senator John Fetterman, and how one Belgian town offers a radically different way of providing care to those with Serious Mental Illness.
🏔️ About Tyler
Tyler Fisher is the Principal of Trailmark Strategies, a boutique consulting company providing services to philanthropists, family foundations, private-sector startups, and high-performing advocacy organizations. Tyler can consult across a wide-variety of public policy issues, and is focusing on democracy, mental health, housing, economic opportunity, and immigration.
Tyler is an experienced democracy reform advocate, having spent over a decade working to recruit and elect problem-solving candidates from across the ideological spectrum and to pass a full-suite of election reform policies. He was the second employee of Unite America when the organization’s budget was < $500k. By the time Tyler founded Trailmark in 2025, Unite America was a philanthropic pooled fund with 150+ investors, 50+ grantees, and a $60M+/yr budget.
Tyler’s current work in politics builds off past experience working for reform organizations as well as engaging across the political aisle. He has spent time recruiting millennials to run for Congress, building a bipartisan policy organization on college campuses, and working at Change.Org on an online endorsement platform.
Tyler is diagnosed with bipolar disorder and writes a Substack, “Bipolar and Bipartisan.” He has spent years researching mental health policies and programs, advocating for change in Colorado and his hometown, and networking with philanthropists and organizations in the ecosystem.
Tyler grew up in upstate New York and attended George Mason University where he received degrees in both government and economics. Tyler lives in Denver, Colorado where he enjoys the opportunity to ski, bike, golf, camp, and read.
