No one Really knew

including me, that there was something wrong. Well, perhaps that's not entirely true, by the year 2001, my mother tried talking to me to see if I would get help.  Help?  For what, there was nothing wrong with me. Just because a social worker had diagnosed me a year earlier with Bipolar didn't mean she was right. In 98 I was diagnosed Depressed, in 2000 they said they were wrong.

I wasn't aware of my racing thoughts, to me, they were just... me.  The ideas or epiphamy's that filled my brain moment to moment I considered just to be intelligence.  The three hours slept a night while filling the hours with songs, poetry and music, was just my creativity.  The slam into need for sleep, the inability to gather with others, show up for work, or even leave the house let alone bed, well that was just the down side of my "up" times. I wasn't manic, nor depressed, I was just creative and this all went along with it, as did my credit when I simply couldn't get myself to pay a bill, let alone shower or clean.  Just as the low's became almost too much, I would even out and feel normal, no racing thoughts, no over sleeping, I was just me and why would I have to change it.  I thought.

Then one night, while watching tv late with a roomate, Kay Jamison Redfield came on a program where she was discussing her books, "Fire of The Mind" and "An Unquiet Mind". From the first five minutes, my insides froze, my emotions were set on fire and tears poured out of my eyes.  For the first time ever, I was listening to someone describe what it felt like to be me.  I was bathed in relief as well as terrified.  I was mentally ill.

My roomate and I would talk, tear free, during commercials, his kindness radiating towards me, as I suddenly realized he had already known.  Did everyone?  Why hadn't I?

Nonetheless, I went for two years without any medication, terrified to get back on that rollercoaster again.  Your mind is not your own off meds, and only will work on them?  This didn't seem right to me, I was certain I could cure it with the power of positive thinking.  It helped, but cure it? No.

Finally, in 2003, both my best friend, and my mother once again, spoke to me. This time I listened.  I was in such a place that I felt that I was to blame, I could still fix it, the title made me feel weak, worthless and crazy.  No one wants to be friends with someone that's mentally ill?  Haven't you see the TV?  They depicted BP's as crazy people, out of their minds, and simply outrageous behavior.  I couldn't be one of these, I had done well all my life, how was it I just suddenly got so sick?  And was I really.  I went back and forth like a pingpong ball.  But that talk in 2003, convinced me.

I arranged to see a doctor, right away as I knew I could change my mind at any time.  I had lost so many people I had loved over those past few years, all who thought I was weak, lazy, giving up, they stopped loving me, and all the while I thought I needed those friends the most...I mean I had known them the longest.  But they were gone, and I was left partially alone, or so I thought.

Deanna, my best friend, the night before my life changing doctors appointment, prayed with me.  She got her mother, Sherry who I adore, on the phone and we prayed for nearly twenty minutes. I felt more at ease then went to sleep, both terrified and excited about the following day.

The appointment went well, and the doctor immediately placed me on Lithium, explaining that it can be lethal so the dosage must be checked and often, I assured him I would keep that up, then left.  I left my mom at her house, I was still battling tears, as it isn't easy to have someone tell you that you can't be the person that you are, that you have to be like "somebody" else, anybody, just not the person you were born.  I was told,"its like diabetes" you just have to take your meds.  But it's not like Diabetes, they're not told that their personalities are "too much" that they suck the energy out of a room, when at one point in my life, I had filled a room with it.  Now I would simply be a drone, a mindless idiot on pills, labotomizing me so I was pliable and easy to handle.  It made me sick, but I didn't have a choice.

Then it happened.  I awoke one morning, and for the first time since I could remember, I could hear myself think.  I was able to get to the sink and shower without stopping fifteen times to contimplate some new idea I had just had.  My heart wasn't racing at the pace of a runner, and my body actually felt relaxed.  Up until then, I hadn't known how it was I really felt. It was liberating, yet sad all at the same time.  And though I have never worked a full time job since (well that's not true, I simply work from home now), I have spent the last five years finding the right doctor and the right mix of meds.  What they call a "cocktail". Parts of it were hell, medications having adverse side effects, truly making you crazy, it takes years to get right, and your life is going nowhere during it, years simply passing by while others get ahead.

I hate medication.  I had written tons of articles on the pharmaceutical companies and their abuse, and now here I was one of their junkies, or so I felt.  But the more I read, the better I got, the more problems I had with meds and stays in hospitals, I eventually understood more of what was happening, and what was going to happen.  And it did.

I stabalized.  For over a year now, with boughts of depression here and there and the occasional "rage", I have been mostly normal.

I met the man of my dreams, who I recently married, and the doctors I'd been searching for who I believed could actually help me.

Bipolar is not a disease that you simply take a pill and it all goes away, it's an often life sentence, just trying to get your "life" back.

My life now has become about helping others with this illness, as well as those with Depression (giving a BP meds for depression alone can and usually does set off a suicide attempt... not the persons fault)  It is not a WEAKNESS, it IS an ILLNESS. I want to help those who don't understand and want to, to learn. I want the World to understand that what these people need the very most IS understanding, not betrayal and abandonment, although for their credit, it isn't easy living with someone with BP especially left untreated.

There's a whole big beautiful world out there, and I intend to find it and live it.  I've written two books on the subject and will continue to write more as well as have speaking engagements and motivational seminars.  Staying positive is KEY. And not owning your own mind, is HELL.  You crave forgiveness for those you lost, perhaps only wishing they would finally admit that it wasn't your fault, you didn't become this way on purpose, and you can be the person you were before you got ill, actually even better, though it's a long road to haul.

I thank my friends and family for the support and incredible patience and I thank Jesus for letting me live, so that I may turn my life into one that serves HIM and the good in life.  I can wish for a lot of things, money, notoriety, fame, success, health, but mostly I guess I wish for understanding, and freedom from the guilt I feel for when I was at my worst and never even knew it.  I pray for forgiveness, though I know I shouldn't have to deserve it, and remind myself, that this isn't my fault.  I didn't do anything wrong.  I have to let go of those I loved, and still love, and accept that they may never accept this as anything more than a weak excuse, but then, really, that's their problem.

I'm happy now, and hope to help others, in any possible way I can.  My life is a success, and will continue to be, as long as I don't let myself down, or the Lord.

I'm just another so and so, with another so and so.  Heck, none of us is perfect. How boring would that be???

Thank you for reading, and God Bless.