Is your life, "on paper," representative of MI?

[walking_wounded]

What I mean by that is if you step back and look at your life as a whole - work, school, finances, criminal record, marriage, etc., would it raise a "red flag" that something wasn't quite "right" or do you mostly struggle "internally" and you're able to, for the most part, hide it and still do what you need to do?

 

 

[Manic Maverick]

......

Edited January 23, 2016 by Manic Maverick

[Bipolar_Flower]

No my bipolar was very obvious. It was the first thing my mom guessed I was when I was 12-even though I wasn't diagnosed till 15.

[melissaw72]

I think I hid things pretty well looking back at things, especially in college.  No one had any idea I had MI -- current diagnosis -- though I had depression but it wasn't bad; it was manageable.  But even the depression was well hidden ... although I *think* I let my guard down a little at times and some people might have wondered.

 

Anyway, I made it through life, and when I got to college, I made it through 5 years in a specialized program where only 15 people get into it a year (among  hundreds who apply), and 3 internships.  The days right before graduation was when I started to OD, and actually was in the hospital the day of graduation (fortunately pdoc let me go, as long as I was within arm's length of a specific person).  Then just about everything went downhill from there.

 

After college was when I started on more medication, more diagnoses.  Long story short, I had made it through all those years without people really picking up on things, even the DRs who came and went throughout that time.  Looking back, idk how I did that.  It was a shock for all my professors too when they found out after I had graduated and as the years went on.

 

I know I'm rambling (sorry!) but I can't seem to word anything right tonight.  Just wanted to make the point that I hid things very well despite a very hard curriculum, socializing (or trying to) and dealing with lots of people, etc.  No one had any idea of what was to come in the years after college.

 

Now, after all those years, the things that send up a red flag are when people see my medication list, what I do (and don't do) during my days, why I don't work and drive, anxiety, my affect (I usually have a plain affect, where you can't tell what I feel/think/etc), and that I tend to stare a lot, along with not being able to hold any conversation down (ie I just can't deal with people and conversations and I think that shows through me).  I am only able to appear like nothing is wrong to very few people.  Other than that the MI is fairly easy to pick up on.

Edited March 18, 2013 by melissaw72

[A208B]

My two biggest red flags are that I don't work (or volunteer or go to knitting circles or have a book club or raise children...) and I don't drive; I get asked about those two things a lot, and it gives me anxiety when I meet new people knowing in advance that I'm going to have to address why (which I don't do honestly, if at all). I am in a stable marriage, for which I'm incredibly thankful, but I think people very quickly realize how much I rely on my husband to do basic things like shop for groceries. I have our finances set up so I can't spend everything we own on a whim and I don't think that having multiple accounts would be too unusual to people, but then I'm not sure.

Socially, I don't think people would recognize that I have a mental illness, but that's primarily because I've learned to isolate myself when I'm having or close to having a severe episode. It used to be that people would ask questions, but I don't get that anymore, thankfully. But then, I don't have many friends. I'm not sure I can give a really accurate answer on whether I'm socially flaggable as crazy.

[malachite]

I, like Melissa, was able to conceal at least the extent of my MI in college. I was fairly "normal" at that age, going to school full time, working a work study job, partying with my friends. There were still these cracks though. Like having to get extensions on papers not so much b/c of the CFS anymore, but because of the depression. I drank too much, too, self-medicating b/c the psych drugs weren't working well. But I think I made a plausible college student, if one with a bit of a dark side.

 

Fast forward to today, and I see that my illness has gotten progressively worse. I have had two rounds of ECT, I'm on disability, the most I seem able to work is 5 hours a week, I've gained an unbecoming amount of weight on these meds, I count it a good day if I get the dishes done. So, yeah, at this point it's pretty obvious something's up.

[dreamcatcher14]

My CV is like Swiss cheese. I don't have a husband or babies. I got through university with excellent grades although I was depressed and smoked weed a bit. I've never spent large significant amount of money. I live at hone because I can't support myself on my own. Mentally I'm just not there yet and I can't work full-time.

Personality wise everyone says I appear normal and attractive, but that is only if I'm not manic or hypomanic I guess. Most people are surprised when they find out and unless they are ultra-intuative they can't tell anything is wrong.

That doesn't stop the internal and unfounded paranoia I sometimes get thinking everyone must know I'm bipolar and have the tendency to lose my mind.

Edited March 18, 2013 by nightbutterfly

[Dusk]

Hell. Yes.

 

I got pregnant at 14 (hypersexuality) and that resulted in a miscarriage.

 

I ran away with a 26 year old I met online at age 15, dropped out of school and got pregnant, got married to him right after I turned 16 and we could legally elope because I was pregnant.

 

Divorced him 4 years later, got married to ANOTHER man *exactly* one week later and got pregnant days after that (I also have another child who was involved in all this, I feel immense guilt over this, as I should.)

 

I've been married now for nearly 7 years with no problems as far as the marriage is concerned. No cheating, fighting, etc. Without getting all mushy, it's really a great marriage and I don't know what I would do without him as far as dealing with all this is concerned.

 

I've had several hospitalizations for the depression part.

 

I'm 27 years old and have only worked twice. The jobs both lasted around 3 weeks each, but I DID try and for that I am proud of myself. I ended up getting my GED at age 18 because of my mother. She really encouraged me in doing that, and even if I never work a day again in my life, I am glad I accomplished it because I feel *worth* something.

Edited March 18, 2013 by Dusk

[Wonderful.Cheese]

My life on paper would show my MI for certain.

You can just look at my transcripts from school. One semester all A's and the next all F's.

I'm disabled due to my MI so that is another thing.

I never finished school.

I've had a lot of hospitalizations.

I've been on legal treatment orders from the state.

Etc.

[wj74]

When I was a kid/teen, yeah. I was drinking, on drugs, promiscuous, failing most of my classes. When I got married, I had a clean slate and kept it that way for the most part, on paper. There were still major problems, but I was married with kids, had a job and a car. No record. That doesn't make you any less mental.

[hagar]

My life is a train wreck. It has been one crisis after another for as long as I can remember. Anyone who spends even a little bit of time in my company over the years knows something isn't "right."

[confused]

I look better on paper than I am irl.  I did graduate college and worked until I had a psychotic break, I'm married with 2 kids.  But, I went to 3 different colleges and switched jobs frequently.  People would tell me I needed help because I would sob uncontrollably and my social anxiety is obvious.

[Phoenix_Rising]

On paper, I don't appear to have an MI.  I graduated college, got married, graduated from a master's program, held a job, moved to a city I'd always wanted to live in, held another job and had a baby.  That's when the cracks began to show.  I had post partum pyschosis and my dx changed from MDD to pregnancy-induced BPII.  I began having anxiety/panic attacks all the time and b/c agoraphobic.  A few years later I had to go on disability.  If you didn't know me, you probably wouldn't be able to figure out I have an MI, but those that know me have seen enough of the symptoms to know.  (Plus, I am very honest with my friends about my MI).

[enlightened_plutonian]

I have been out of work since 2006. I attempted twice to get my degree but had to drop out on health grounds both times. I am on disability. I have been in hospital twice, once was involuntary. At one point I was homeless.

 

But these days things are slowly improving. I am studying part time. I am pretty stable on my meds. I hope to return to work when I have finished studying.

[discomposed]

My history reads like one big trail of Things Gone Wrong. Nobody was specifically aware that I was Bipolar, but people did note throughout the years that something wasn't right.

 

Starting in grade 4, I never made anything above a C+ in regular school again, and in Grade 5 instead of normal progress notes mine were all about how my issue with crying in the cubbies was going. At thirteen I skipped school more than I attended, and at 14 was expelled from my first high school. That school, prior to expelling me, sent home a letter to my mother saying I needed to "see somebody" at the local CMHA, but my mother never followed through as she considered it victim-blaming (bullying). I dropped out of the next school two weeks in, having attended only the first day. At 15 I was arrested eight times: once for drug trafficking, the other seven for breach of bail conditions; I had two stays in YCC, one three-day and one 35-day stay, interspersed stays overnight in city lockup were also fairly normal. At 16 I got a job and quit on the second day. At 17 I returned to school, and in less than a month I was forced to see a doctor at the urging of the school, whom refused to allow me to return until a doctor's note cleared me; that doctor diagnosed me with MDD and SP and a week later I dropped out of school again. Various smaller things happened over the years after that: going to the doctor reporting daymares of killing my neighbours, bombing a provincial test my ACE teacher thought I'd ace, blowing a couple thousand on scrapbooking supplies so I could start cardmaking only to give it up a year later, blowing roughly $1300 on two babies that aren't even mine.... At 27 a job landed in my lap that lasted for a year and a few months, and I ended up in the hospital three times. At 28 I ended up in the hospital again and my diagnosis was changed to BP-I; I had to quit my job that same year as it was clearly driving me off the deep end. Now, at 29, I was approved for disability on my first try.

 

So yeah, my paper trail is ugly, and that kind of sucks, but c'est la vie, look forward and all that crap.

[girlwiththefarawayeyes]

Probably not. I have a pretty nice-looking resume. The only thing that might tip someone off is that I change jobs every 2,3,4 years. I've worked for a number of grants, though, so I've always been able to chalk it to to "I left because the grant was over".

What doesn't show up on paper is that I basically haven't had any long-term friends since college. I got married (and he's my friend), but I've isolated myself more and more. A lot of this has to do with, I think, me maybe getting worse and the jobs getting steadily more demanding. I can hold it together at work, but I'm done when it's time to go home. My brain is just shot.

Mostly, though, I'm just chronically restless and unhappy (and I have everything I could want- beautiful kid, good husband, we're financially okay, blah, blah, blah- I'm just always restless). I have bouts of depression where I basically operate like a zombie. I have periods of what I now recognize as mixed-state where I'm very creative, but I throw it at writing and don't get anything else done. I cause myself a lot of stress that way. I guess I have a good game face.

Edited March 18, 2013 by girlwiththefarawayeyes

[Alien Navel Cord]

I honestly don't know one way or the other. I haven't ever evaluated myself like that before. I am fairly certain off the top of my head that on paper my MI sticks out like a sore thumb, or at least a few red flags. But I always thought that everyone's life is pretty messed up, MI or not... so it was never easy for me to judge something like that.

[Rowlena]

I think on paper I look much better, I have a BSW, got into a competative grad school with a nice scholorship. But I do float from job to job becuse most of them are seasonal (Summer camp jobs) and i'm a full time student. The one flag might be that I went from March12 to January13 without anything on my resume becuse I was riding the express cross town crazy bus.  But i think that it shows more, expecialy as I get more iritable and cranky and am 'off' to those around me.  My med list might also give it away but you'd be amazed how many pepple do not know what lamictal and seraquel are if they have not been on the bus at some point.

 

But whats good about being somewhat transparent is that at the place my internship(a kick ass food pantry). Many pepple I work with have some crazy in there story. So I think by my sharing it has helped to create a culture of 'its ok to be crazy here!" We also work with the local MHA and other behavioral health agency.   Also I have sort of become the local resident out BP person at school, it has its ups and downs but again pepple ask me for information.

 

So I think paper is just a part of the package, but not the entire package.

[girlwiththefarawayeyes]

Rowlena- yes! I do not choose to share my diagnosis, but I think it's part of what makes me good at what I do. I "get" the people who live on the edges of sanity and I'm tolerant of them and nice to them when a lot of my coworkers can't/aren't. I've been told many a time that my office is a safe place to be. I can usually spot and guess a person's MI issues if they don't come right out and tell me.

 

Unfortunately, I cannot depend on my coworkers to be a shoulder for me to bang my head on, and I won't lay that burden on my students/clients. And that causes me to burn out, I think. And I get bored really easily.  It's about time for a new job now- according to my inner clock- and I'm fighting it beause I don't know where else I'd go.

[dtac]

My teenage years look bad on paper. I went from a A/B student to failing classes, doing drugs, quitting all extra-curricular activities, and didn't graduate on time. I got it together for a couple of years, started college, worked part time, but quit college after one semester and randomly quit my job one day. I only have a couple of friends, and they never found any of this weird, so I never thought anything was wrong.

Eventually I got married, finished my BS degree through an accelerated program, bought a house, etc, but I could barely hold it together. Finally got dx a year and a half ago, and now I view the last 15yrs as a horrible destructive waste of my life. I hate who I am and who I've been. Amazing how your perspective changes when you start getting help.

[Kaashii]

My whole life looks like a mess on paper, but there are parts of it that don't really look MI-related without the explanation.  That part mainly pertains to my previous attempts at going to college.  With the exception of the 1 semester that I managed to get retroactively withdrawn, the years that I was in college after high school look like I was a spoiled party girl screwing about on her daddy's dime.  The grades that I had during my dual enrollment period while in high school were pretty high - the whole honors society, taking a full load of hard classes type thing, but those years after were basement level GPA, academic probation, constantly changing majors to fluffy crap.  The record itself doesn't speak to the fact that I was contending with undiagnosed BP at the time and went from my first major depressive phase to a prolonged manic episode - the manic just written off by my family as me being young and stupid and completely worthless and the record is going to haunt me.  I won't have what would appear to be a high enough GPA for most colleges to even consider my transfer application and unless they allow me to explain and maybe provide supporting documentation from my treatment providers, I'll get laughed out the door.

 

Everything else on paper looks like a complete disaster and it would be hard for someone to MISS the red flags.  I can only hide things in front of people that only see me for a few minutes, like the cashiers at the store or the people at the post office.  Everyone who spends more than that with me pretty quickly figures out that the appearance is only a mask and that what's underneath is like a wounded bird that can't fly.

[forgetmenot220]

Despite having major issues in high school, I had a great resume for colleges to see. Got into a small, competitive school in a competitive program, and then it all slowly fell apart. I did have a few years that I chose to take off to get married and have a kiddo but things were never normal again. I got back into school and did well but I eventually I felt TOO good and had a huge crash. I made it through last semester without any episodes that slowed me down but now this semester a mixed episode has knocked me off balance. I've been able to keep the same job for 3 years (at the same place for 4 years this summer, had a different job for the first year) but that ends by December. I'm terrified to start a new job...how will I keep it? Current employer has been EXTREMELY understanding of my MI issues. I know I will find no other employer like her.

 

Long post short, I think my life on paper is somewhat representative of what has gone on...especially if you look deep into it (days missed, time taken off for various reasons, etc), but it could be a lot worse..

[Parapluie]

On paper, In look extremely put together. I was an honour student in high school, got into a very competitive nursing program, I have above a 4.0 GPA. But if you know me personally, you know my struggles. The last 3 years have been hell. I went from depression to a three month long hypomania (I have that hypo to thank for straight A's), into what I now recognize as a mixed state and then crashed into the worst depression of my life with psychosis that never ended. Throughout all of this, I managed to hold it together enough to fool people on the outside. But my friends and family knew I was going through some shit. I'm finally stable.

Edited March 19, 2013 by Parapluie

[The Emperor]

I was born six weeks early into a world I wasn't going to want to live in. Yeah, my life would reflect it all on paper. All of it. The paper would be shit-full of crazy. Anyone with half a brain would probably figure that out before they got to the "age five" part of the paper.

 

Shit. Bad mood today, but the above is likely very true. And that's sad so. . . hmm.

[khaleesi]

It depends on who is reading the paper.

 

To the outside world, I've got my shit together. Stable career after getting my master's degree in my chosen field, marriage, kids, nice house (from the outside), nice cars, etc etc.

 

But if you know me, you know I'm sitting in a cluttered, disorganized home. My moods are unpredictable and can vary wildly throughout any given day, but I've done a decent job of hiding it from the most of the world. I worry about the day that I'm no longer able to hide it. I do think there are cracks here and there that make people go "hmmmm" but so far it seems they chalk it up to a bad day or garden variety moodiness or time of the month or something.

 

k

[WhiteFemale]

My attendance and grades in school are an indicator. I've thankfully held a job and avoided marriages and babies. But I get myself into trouble with money. And I've had a couple incidents with the law that I know were due to mania.

[BIMBO]

I've had over 50 jobs because when I'm hyper I can talk my way into anything, but then I crash and can't keep the job. I've moved around and lived with different people constantly, been homeless too. On paper it's been a train smash.

But I isolate when I'm really bad and people don't actually see how bad I am. They know I'm mentally interesting but they never get the extent, even the people I've confided in dont get it.

Now I'm on disability, do uni part time and work part time. I'm on my own, no kids. Sometimes I think I'm pathetic for 39 but at least I'm trying.

[jarn]

On paper I think I'm pretty damn good.  Gifted program, scholarships, graduated with honours, published papers, full time work from graduating university, and I make good money (but making good money also means you can rack up some impressive BP debt).  Ultramarathoner, I volunteer.

 

One the other hand, people who know me know I have mood problems, and my partner knows the reason I'm wearing a hat on the subway is try to stop the thought broadcasting, and that it's not working well.  He came with me on the run tonight because I'm more stable when he's around and people could see and hear what I was thinking on the way home.  I worked today though.

 

I am lucky.

[gizmo]

I think it depends. I started working when I was 15, had stable employment (even earned an associates degree) until 2007 when I completely broke down and got fired from three jobs in less than a year and went on SSDI in 2009. I had all the "classic" signs for years but kept it under control. I would miss enough work to get me in trouble and written up at work, but not enough to get fired.

I go to school right now, but I'm not being successful or able to study appropriately.

[Sjs]

I guess it would depend on which paper your looking at. I held a job long term, my marriage is intact, i have two grown children who are kind, compassionate individuals, i own a home and a couple of cars etc.

But now lets look at my credit report thats shows i owe about 50,000 dollars in credit cards plus my home and cars and my pdoc chart that shows ive been cycling like crazy the past three years plus an attempted suicide last summer and not to mention all the leave i take from work for mental health days.

It's all just how you want to look at it. I try to look at the positive as much as i can...I can say that today b/c im not in some big depression right now..but i have always been a fairly positive person.

[creativelycrazy]

Other than some crazy manic spending debt and a lot of job hopping (2-3 year stints) generally motivated by some sort of deluded epiphany about life change I look pretty good on paper. It takes almost all of my energy to fake it in order to keep it that way. In my business everyone knows everyone and I have to keep my secret identity hidden. That makes me angry and tired. I think where I have truly suffered is in the romantic relationship department. Maybe in a way it's a blessing that I come home to an empty apartment everyday. I don't know how people can maintain intense careers and intense families at the same time without their heads exploding. I have often struggled with weight issues so that's my handy hiding place for why I never date. The drugs surely don't help with that. In reality, and for reasons I won't go into here I'm not sure any amount of skinny would make that feeling go away. So for now I just accept it. 

[misanthropicusername]

Very, very obvious if you look at my track record. Dropped out of college with almost only A's and F's, little in between. You can practically see my bipolar cycles in my transcripts. I somehow got good grades in high school, I think owing to the fact that I almost never had to actually learn anything or apply much effort to get A's. Never held down a real job. The closest I came to that was 10 hr/week lab assisting, which really meant getting paid to smoke pot and watch Spaceballs on the classroom projector. It's even more obvious looking at my social history. I was socially maladjusted going back to elementary school, at best with entertaining bouts of impulsiveness alternating with periods of sullenly avoiding everyone. My social life before I dropped out of college was basically this classic Onion article. I've only been able to make friends through substance abuse and, with two notable exceptions, never keep them for long. Also, dating? Lol, good one. That has more to do with my PTSD though. (Can't make myself vulnerable to anyone, creep people out, know it would be unfair to inflict myself on anyone, yadda yadda. Also: Don't fucking touch me!)

[lysergia]

my teenaged years look great on paper in spite of me being a really fucked up kid doing really fucked up, dangerous stuff.  great marks, volunteer work, part-time job.

 

up until about age 28 looked great on paper too.  stellar marks in university, volunteering for a bazillion things, making money writing papers for other students (yeah not so ethical, but i was broke!).  raising a child on my own.  involved in politics at school and in my community.  working full time, challenging job for a few years after graduation.

 

after that?  can't work for almost ten years.  no volunteering, no anything.  tried going back to work, three jobs in three years with months in between - i would be a great employee, then crash, then need 3-4 weeks off for medical leave, then get fired over something trivial because i had become "unreliable".

 

been a year since i tried to work again.  i'm not ready to even try to go through that whole i'm fine i can work/go nuts and get fired.  i become more hopeless each time.

 

so my work resume looks like someone who is either really lazy, really irresponsible, or there's "something wrong with that woman".

my academic resume (old as it is) is what i'd rather show people, but it's irrelevant now.

[Antigone]

On paper, I look phenomenally successful through college, masters, Ph.D program, full time work as a writer.  Until my daughter was born six years ago and my PTSD was triggered and I was diagnosed with post-partum induced BP1 with psychosis.  I've been disabled ever since, which is hard to hide.  I have one or two real life friends and cannot stand to leave the house or talk to other people.  I am lucky to be in a very stable marriage with wonderful children, but I struggle to get through every day.

 

So that's me.

[minouette]

My paper me looks great  (with two time gaps that are easily explained by "family illness" when asked even though it was the MI rearing its ugly head again) up until September 2011. Haven't worked since, haven't finished master's, haven't done anything. My mother now tells people I had a nervous breakdown and it's OUT IN THE OPEN!! But I don't have to confront it or explain it since I don't leave my house except for Pdoc, group dbt, and tdoc. 

[melissaw72]

Mine is out in the open too, but I like it that way because if it was not, I'd be having to think up excuses for everything, acting differently (although I could do that but not forever), and explaining "why ..." to everyone.  So I am thankful it is out in the open and I know who are people who give a shit or not, as opposed to people who dropped me from their life when they found out about the MI.

[starship_subaru]

Definitely obvious from my school transcripts. I'm a "super senior" in college now, and ever since the 7th grade I have been either on the verge of flunking out or getting straight A's. There's nothing in between. In elementary school I got really good grades in academics, but I guess I must have had behavioral issues or something because I was always getting in trouble. I don't have any of those report cards anymore, but there was a section where you were graded on what a good, compliant little child you were and I was always failing that section. God, I hated elementary school. But that's for another post...

 

I've never had any serious monetary issues, although there have been times where I have spent more than I should have. But I've never had any sort of debt. I don't have any credit to speak of, though, because I refuse to get a credit card or take out any sort of loan. I'm pretty good about jobs. I've had a few customer service and food service jobs that I hated, but managed to come in to work every day and do decent enough work. I have a dream job right now. I'm not going to say what it is, but there is zero social interaction, zero multi-tasking, and I get to work slowly and be neurotic about it. Perfect.

Edited April 13, 2013 by starship_subaru

[Gearhead]

I think it depends on how closely you look. You could think to yourself "bright underachiever" or you could think "utterly fucked up" or, if you knew about my issues, you could think "handling a tough hand pretty well."

 

I was an obviously very smart but "troubled" child. I was never off of my schools' radar for very long, either because I was testing very high in whatever or because I was clearly in some kind of psychological distress. I have two college degrees, but I went crazy and dropped out several times before earning my BA and got an AAS between enrollments at the university. The longest I've ever stayed in any field was six years and my job history makes perfect sense during that period. Other than that it's pretty random, and there's a nearly three year gap when I was incapacitated and couldn't work at all. I have no history of substance abuse and have been married only once, for thirteen years. I've done public speaking on mental illness and am good at it. Lots of volunteer work. At this point I'm seriously considering sorting out some kind of career change that will lead to self-employment because I don't think I can stand either being dependent on other people to keep me employed, or being around another goddamn office full of people. 

[owly]

I suppose it depends on what you mean by "on paper." It was pretty obvious that my grades started to slip and I dropped classes all over the place during my last years in college. I also got (unofficially) fired from a job, but I don't exactly share that information. Overall, I look pretty damn good on paper, thank Christ. If I were to write a resume of my personal life, however, the story would be very different.

[crtclms]

On paper, I look spotty, but promising. I went to a really good college, where I got a 2.7 GPA. Yes, I got depressed a lot. I tried to get help, and was told to snap out of it.

 

After college, I taught for few years.

 

My really good college's name got me into a top 20 law school. There, I got a 2.71 GPA (see, improving!). Yes, I got depressed a lot. There were no pdocs available on my student health plan, so oh well. My professors were always shocked at my grades, they knew that I knew the law, because they had discussed it with me. So I suck at 6 hour long exams, sue me. Even so, I passed the bar.

 

Then I looked for a job for several years. I even stopped looking for legal jobs, and started looking to teach again. I got three single semester classes between the ages of 30 and 36. But never a full course load. Also when I was 36, I worked full time for 4 months, and got fired for insubordination. My pdoc told me no more full time jobs.

 

Don't get me wrong, a lot of that time was spent in bed being really depressed, but the time span is 30-36.

 

Then I didn't even work part-time for a few years. From 2002 and 2010, I was working with the dogs, but I'm not working now, or in the foreseeable future.

 

By many of the commonly used criteria of success, I fail. Those criteria happen to aline with my family's definition of success pretty closely. So that didn't work out very well. I've had to decide what was truly important to me, vs what was important to them. And choices must be made.

 

I can never find this quotation by the Reverend Peter Gomes, but it goes something like this: When you are a kid, you are taught that life is linear, that one thing leads to the next, and that there is an order to be followed in life. And that is a lot of people's experience. But then there is this huge part of humanity whose path takes a turn, makes a loop, goes backwards, stops, all before moving forward.  Stepping off the straight line can lead to a different, but very good life.

[Fitgal44]

I had noticed since I was 8yo that I was different mentally. Of course I was not diagnosed until many years later as BP. I was able to hide reality very well from others. There would be breaks in the facade frequently and usually I could cover with some excuse. I have always tried to numb my reality thru various things (exercise, bulimia, sexual promiscuity, illigal drugs, spending $$$...etc).

The breakdown of my life on paper will show how Ihave been increasingly unable to keep the fasade intact.