Somebody Always Loved Me

My name is Lynne Jenkins and I have a Bi-polar disorder, or manic-depressive illness - whichever you may want to call it. Where should I begin to tell you my story? Why do I think it happened? Who or what was to blame? Is there any blame? Should I tell you of all the weird things I did and said, from what I can remember, or should I focus on what I did to heal myself, and how I manage my disorder? I am telling my story not to elicit sympathy but with the hope it will help others to understand the illness better. Mostly you will hear of my manic episodes because they were always the most traumatic and soul destroying, not the depressions, or anxiety attacks. I can’t say exactly when my mood swings began but there were signposts along the way. A tendency toward anxious, excitable, or sad moments seems to have been present most of my life. It is just that no one recognized the symptoms as such when they first occurred. What caused my mood swings? One reason could be because I was a War baby, raised to be good and obedient in a British military family. This meant that all emotions except for ‘nice’ ones were forbidden and I learned very early to repress all my feelings and obey orders. Eventually the emotions came out in an outburst, or more often than not, in sickness. By the time I was in my teens I was considered to be too high strung, too smart for my own good, and by my twenties I was often out of control. Did my parents’ behaviour drive me into madness? There are more cases of people with manic depression in those born after 1940 than before that date. The environment is blamed because of the increased use of alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drugs which in some way may have caused the genetic vulnerability. There was alcoholism in my family, and my moods went up and down with the tensions and binges associated with the family member’s illness. I was overweight, had a stigmatism in one eye, a crippling lack of self-esteem, and I was very unhappy. I hated everything in my life and most of all myself. My survival tactics were to fantasize being a character in one of the books I was reading, or to disassociate. I was very sensitive and cried easily. My father was away at War for nearly the first seven years of my life. Like many War veterans, when he came home, he was a stranger with a drinking problem. Life would be fine for a while and then my world would be turned upside down. I knew great fear. I knew terror. Someone once said that if you are ever threatened by danger you should hide your soul in a rock and keep it far inside you. Is that what I did? No one noticed me squinting and I saw life through a looking glass without borders. I thought that was the way the world was. Mostly I identified things by colour and eventually my eyes over-corrected so I could read. There was not supposed to be anything the matter with me because my mother had enough to deal with having an alcoholic husband and a son who was sickly and thin. My hype ess was managed through food and criticism to bring me down a notch or two. Perhaps if I was heavy enough, I would not float away and people could not trespass against me. Somehow I intuitively knew that food could be used as internal body armouring by covering the cells. Mucous producing foods did the trick and later coffee and cigarettes. Bipolar disorder shares with autism a strong connection between intestinal health and brain function. There was a lot of pressure in my life to meet high standards, be smart, and tough. Living at home even on a good day was very tense. Also, we moved a lot and this meant I had to continually go to new schools and make new friends. My brother was the aloof child, while I was the family garbage can, or the one who acted out the family pain. I thought I had to make everyone happy and keep the family together. I don’t remember hearing the words “I love you” and I was never hugged, or held. Maybe this was why I became a reverse puppet. If I always did or thought the opposite of everyone else, possibly I could escape ridicule and criticism. I got sick a lot, or found other ways to hurt myself in order to get any kind of affection. Because I was so hyper I was convinced that I could never have or do anything because I would drop it, break it or lose it. I never stayed in a relationship and never put in for a promotion. As I grew up I took on all the “poor me’s”, of the world, the lost dogs, the stray cats and later the gamblers, the alcoholics, the out of work and even those imprisoned. I was a friend of the friendless and a protector of the weak. In this way, rather than feel sorry for myself, I could nurture someone else’s problems. If they were wounded, maybe they would not notice I was dysfunctional and I did not have to acknowledge my own pain and unresolved emotional chaos in myself and others. I always knew what others felt but had no idea what my feelings were until it was too late. People liked it when I was excited and would wind me up further and further. I was the catalyst, the one who broke up the energy in a tense situation by telling a joke or doing something to intervene. I spiced things up and people counted on me to be creative, or funny. A caretaker, everyone’s buddy, the life of the party, the class clown, the matchmaker, were some of the roles I played. I have always done extremes, always been hard on myself. I did not know how to set boundaries or what normal was and anyone could take advantage of me. Being “liked” was crucial to me and I tried to live up to everyone’s demand by working faster and faster until I crashed. I thought this was normal. I was so eager to please that I seldom said “no” and did not know how to problem solve. The minute I got away from home I lived life to the fullest by going very fast, cramming in every ounce of joy and fun. Pills were part of my life since I was a teenager, for weight and for allergies. As well, I took a lot of laxatives to purge the monster out of me. Later my mother would give me Valium and sleeping pills to manage my anxiety and nervousness. I was often sad and felt the pain of the world, but few saw me when I was drained, or down. In my early twenties my father and I both had an unknown blood disease which nearly killed us and we were sick for over six months. He was hospitalized when it was found the virus was eating his bone marrow. In the future I would come down with two more blood diseases, mononucleosis and Epstein Barr. I believe turning my energy inwards and having no will to live during many depressions, brought on these illnesses. I was always nervous - especially with men and had a hard time maintaining a connection. I was always too much, trying too hard to please, and easily assumed the doormat position in the relationship. Many men came on to me because of my strong energy but it did not make me feel good about myself and only made me hate myself even more. Over the years I had lots of boyfriends but I never told any of them I was Bi-polar. Maybe I should have, perhaps they would not have thought I was so wild and emotional. I never could commit or feel safe in a relationship and thought they had to be crazy for liking me. As soon as someone liked me I usually did something to make us break up. If someone was stable and treated me well, I immediately dumped them. The highs and lows created by some of the “players” I went out with was familiar territory for me. My search for healing and wholeness began in my twenties when I joined a movement that many of my friends were in. I wanted so much to belong somewhere and to be understood. We lived in group houses that we had remodeled in a prominent neighborhood downtown and worked on their farms. It took me a long time to realize it was a religious cult. They took my energy, my time, and my money during years of their therapy, and mind control. Gradually they cut me off from my family and friends who were not in the movement. When I was in the cult I flipped out on an intensive confrontational weekend where they practiced a form of Gestalt therapy by putting me on the hot seat. My dam broke and everything came pouring out. I could not stop feeling or expressing myself. After a week of no sleep and little food, I was so weak that the cult members tried to hide me away. I was their first casualty. Later there would be others. I was still sane enough to call my parents to come and get me. When they arrived, the cult members said I belonged to them now and tried to send my parents away. I panicked as I saw them walking to their car and smashed my arm through a window in an attempt to escape. Because I was cut and passing out, the members had no choice but to dump me off at an emergency ward. I could not understand what foreign land I was in. The lights, the noise and the shiny metal were too much for me in my weakened state. I became frightened and ran for an exit. An orderly with a metal stand usually used to hang blood transfusions on, chased after me. I thought it was a pitchfork and he wanted to kill me. I did not know what was happening and ran bleeding and barefooted outside in the snow. Someone hit me from behind with a wheelchair to bring me down. The next memory I have is waking up heavily medicated in restraints three days later. I still did not understand when I was told I had suffered a nervous breakdown and was considered to be manic-depressive. I was twenty-eight and had no idea what they were talking about. The next two months were spent in the hospital in a psychiatric ward. Other than drugs there was no counseling and no guidelines on how to handle the illness. What I do remember is that when I was getting cleaned up a nurse held out a towel for me in my drugged state and said “come and get a mother’s love”. I have never forgotten that. When I could not love myself, someone offered me love. The doctor at the hospital told me all my problems came from low self-esteem, lacka nookey, and I was too fat. He put me on a 400 calorie a day diet. When I was released, I was to get a boyfriend, or pleasure myself. But who would want me? I was about 250 lbs., with acne all over my face from the pills and so heavily drugged my eyes were running. The next week I went back in and lied and told him I had a boyfriend. He proudly wrote it down in his notes that I had listened to his advice and was getting lucky. The problem was solved. He sent me back to the cult for therapy because I could not have therapy in two places. The cult was run by ex priests and nuns so the hospital staff assumed it was a safe place. Once out of the hospital my family, and anyone associated with me, never spoke of it again. Like my father’s alcoholism, it never happened. I was on my own. Every week I was required to visit outpatients where a different intern would examine my file and curiously looked at me. At that time there was not much support because there was not that much known about the illness. I had become terrified not only of life but of myself also. What had happened to that adventurous fun loving woman I once knew? When I looked in the mirror I did not recognize the zombie looking back at me. I never knew when the monster was going to come out of the cage. If I could not love nor trust myself, then how could anyone else? If I stayed up past 8 o’clock I became anxious that I would not sleep. It wasn’t much of a life because I was frightened to laugh in case it made me hyper and I was terrified to go out. As I no longer lived in a group house, my old roommates took me back for a few weeks. Then I was asked to leave because I was so depressed. I moved into a rooming house where I could be close to the members of my group who lived in the area in group houses. One by one the members of the group told me they hated me because I had let them down - I was not the person they thought I was. It was devastating. Over the next couple of years I had two more incidents. One was later that year when I had to go on a marathon weekend with my group. I was really frightened and nervous as I remembered what had happened the previous year. Once again the cult was doing confrontational therapy on me. This time it was psychodramas. I remember being sick to my stomach and fainting but they dragged me back into the room for another psychodrama. The leader apologized to me and said he had let the group get out of control and doubted I would ever trust anyone again. Possibly I had a harder time in the cult than others because it was run by Catholic ex priests and nuns and I was not a Catholic. When we came back into the city I once again could not sleep and I guess I was doing some weird things. The next thing I knew a policeman was in my room and he took me in his police car to the hospital where I again spent another month. After the second breakdow I was not allowed to go back to the cult. When I passed members on the street they would shun me and look the other way. They were not allowed to associate with me because now I was a deserter. My oldest friends were still in the group and to this day some of them still will not talk to me. I hung out with other ex mental patients, transients and lost souls in my rooming house. I did not even have a phone because no one would phone me and few would return my calls. That spring I tried to come off the pills cold turkey and it threw me into another manic episode. After I threw a MacDonald’s puppet full of pills at my doctor, I was again hospitalized and put back on Lithium but I was allowed to go out to work every day. In the morning the other patients and myself would gather in the waiting room and play “I’m leaving on a jet plane…” over and over again. It gave me an idea and I told the doctor I was going to Bermuda. I wanted out of there before they started experimenting on me again. He said he had never met anyone with such a strong will. Somehow I booked a flight and a few days later I went to Bermuda for a week to stay with two old friends who had not been in the country to witness my downfall. The people in my life whom I had thought were my support system were not. Strangers and people I had never given the time of day to before suddenly had great compassion for me. It was a very strange time. Those closest to me, such as family had a very hard time accepting my illness. It was very difficult for them. Eventually I moved into a bachelor apartment and tried to make a new life for myself. Somehow during all these episodes, I never lost a job, never not paid the rent, never went on disability, nor welfare, nor had my parents support me. Somehow I got sick leave and managed and then went back to the office where everyone avoided me. As most of my friends wanted nothing to do with me, I did volunteer work at a church were I taught cooking to little boys. Somewhere within me I knew that there must be a better way to exist than being controlled by drugs that had made my weight balloon up, scarred my face, and further damaged my vision. When many of the people I once knew were getting married or having babies or dating, I was doing my best to cope with mental illness or blood diseases. Often during this time I contemplated suicide. A few other ex mental patients and myself would sit around and discuss the least painful way to do it. Once I tried to cut my wrists but only a few tiny cuts was all I could manage. One woman thought putting rat poison in a slice of apple pie would do the trick. I still have a hard time eating apple pie. I have never been strong physically and could not stand the sight of blood. Something always happened. Someone always gave me courage to go on or something always gave me hope. Now I began to have other problems such as mononucleosis from the extreme dieting I had been on. That Fall I tried again to come off the drugs but it threw me into another manic attack. A team held me down on the floor while they shot me full of drugs. I struggled to get free and ended up with bruises the size of footballs from the struggle. When they went to sign me in, somehow in my drugged state, I managed to walk out a door and tried to find my way home. All I had for a guide was a red light on top of Sutton Place. I followed it, even if I had to climb over fences to keep it in my sight. I staggered along, recognizing familiar buildings on my way. Once I thought my number was up because a policeman pulled me over and asked me who I was. He said he was sorry that he was looking for a man. Somehow I made it home and poured myself a hot bath where I passed out. Hours later my father came looking for me and was about to give up when he heard moans from the bathroom. I begged him not to put me back in the hospital again and drug me and he didn’t. For the first time in 29 years I heard him say that he loved me and would not do it. I was black and blue and very weak. My energy was all over the place for months but somehow I made it. That summer I went slightly off again and got put back on only Lithium. What eventually saved me was meeting an amazing psychotherapist who brought me back to wellness. The first two or three sessions I could not speak, all I did was cry. His love and compassion over the years and his belief in me that I was a worthwhile person eventually led me on a healing path that has been rewarding. A few years later he advised me to come off the Lithium I was on. He said it would eventually cause me problems with my liver. It was frightening to let go of the pills. Would the monster come out again? This time I did not go cold turkey. I took my time and each night would shave a little off my pills and take a few grains out of each capsule. It was a long slow process but I was not going manic again. I was very unstable and ultra sensitive for a year. In addition to the Lithium I was also addicted to sleeping pills. I think it was harder coming off the sleeping pills than it was the Lithium. My career or jobs were rather shaky. I would no sooner be at a place and get promoted then I would have an episode and would find some reason to leave because I could not bear the shame. Then I would start at the bottom all over again only to have it happen once more. I was very depressed in one job and the Office Manager told me that he would help me and that I was to have an affair with him to cheer me up, or leave. I left and once more started from the bottom in a new job. The down side of this is that I never had a career and I never built up a pension, or savings. All my money has gone into trying to heal myself. One day I was sitting looking at my computer and wishing I were dead. I said a prayer to the Creator. “You have to either kill me or get me better because I just cannot start over one more time, or survive one more thing.” I had survived three blood diseases, several surgeries, numerous manic attacks, depression and anxiety attacks. Also I had even been paralyzed for a year when I had been sprayed with DDT while on holidays in Cuba. It cut off my motor system at the stem of my brain and left me paralyzed, especially down my left side. Because of my past, no one believed I had been poisoned. They thought I was just flipping out again. The doctor gave me pain killers and sleeping pills. My body was so numb and full of pins and needles tthat one night I had a near death experience. I knew death was not far away because I was going through a tunnel with a bright light at the end ofit. Something got me out of bed and I walked and walked around the apartment and drank black coffee all night. In the morning I called my shrink. He knew it was an emergency and saw me that day. I asked him if I hated myself that much that I could paralyze myself. He had tears in his eyes and told me that no one was that smart. He immediately got me appointments with specialists at one of the hospitals. By this time the poison had set in and they did not know how long it would take to recover. I had to quit my job in a management consulting firm because I could not work under that pressure nor put in the extra hours required to work there. It was then that I got into natural therapies that let me scream and cry to get the backlog of emotions out of my body. I was not given a pill or sent to my room. I tried one and saw some results, then another and another. As the pain of my past was released, I felt much more focused and began to make healthier choices for myself in life. So much stress was released out of my body that within a six- month period I changed my glasses three times for lesser prescriptions. My life improved so much that I began to take courses in natural therapies and have been in private practice for the past 15 years. Of course everyone thought I was going off my nut again because nobody in their right mind leaves a government job. Over the years I have read every book on self improvement, or psychology that I could find, took every affordable seminar, or course, joined a gym, did yoga, performed volunteer work, fasted, listened to subliminals, spent year after year in Jungian, Freudian and Adlerian therapy, or support groups, was hypnotized, put on a time line, discovered my inner child, learned to meditate, chanted, drummed, sweated, had my numerology and astrological charts done, used color therapy and went into my past lives. I have had fingers stuck down my throat, elbows ground into my backbone, and crawled down a birth canal. I have screamed into pillows and come out of therapies black and blue and so much more. Currently I am doing Chinese acupuncture and herbal medicine to detox. There is no end to healing. We can always go to another level. Mostly I am well grounded but every now and then….. Have I gone out of balance since my late twenties and early thirties? Yes, I have several times. Each time was for only a few days and I quickly got back on track. Each time there was some terrible stress in my life, like my mother dying and once it was after a weekend long intensive where they deprived us of sleep and food. I came down with a crash on the Monday. Also, I was on a fast at the time that threw off my electrolites. Years went by and I thought I had made friends with the monster. Four years ago I was under a great deal of stress again and I had another small attack and was taken to the hospital in a police car. It was a shock because I thought I had outgrown them. I had spent most of my life being in denial that I was manic-depressive and rarely spoke about it to anyone. My family and friends are still in denial about this part of me and often will insist “oh no you are not” because they do not want to believe it. This does not help me, or make me feel safe. The last episode was such a surprise to me that it broke my heart. It was then that I decided to wake up, take control and get informed. That led me to the Mood Disorders Association. I had found my tribe. I have loaded up on books and videos to understand more and I was relieved to learn that the disease can be genetic. My family had always blamed me and I blamed myself that it was something that I must have done. I have learned not to be in denial. I want a support system around me. I want to understand and I want others to understand. I want to feel safe. Tell me when I am getting too hyper, or too tired. Don’t wait until I am so far-gone that I can’t and won’t hear. I have been drug free for over twenty-four years. It has not been easy and I do not advise this for everyone. Finally I am now learning to take care of myself and what stresses me and what triggers me. In the past I always focused on my highs. Now I am also paying attention to my depressions and lately I have noticed I sometimes have anxiety attacks if I do not know how to solve a problem. What is mental illness? It will never be clear to me why I swing out of balance every now and then. Are the neurotransmitters in my brain not working? Was it patterns I learned in my dysfunctional family, was it allergies, a missing chemical? Is it caused by genetics, poor coping skills, poor social skills? Bad mothering? My mother did her best under the circumstances. Was it a karmic debt, past lives, a bad womb experience, or something that happened at birth? My mother’s first baby had died three days after she was born. Had I picked up my mother’s fear while I was in utero? My mother had taken a blow to her stomach at four months. Did this blow have an imprint on me while in utero? I do not know, nor do I want to spend time going over and over it looking for clues. What I want to do is to manage my state and take care of myself. Currently there are many theories. One is that some sort of trauma usually occurred between the ages of two and six years old that involved a separation of some sort such as the death of a parent, or divorce. Was I more upset at being separated from my father than had been acknowledged? During those times a form of poisonous pedagogy was practiced. Children were to be seen and not heard and it was believed many things were beyond a child’s comprehension. Attachments are critical to people and the disruption of a meaningful relationship can have lifelong repercussions. Another theory is that the child was torn in alliance between warring parents. Ah hah! That must be it. Another common factor involves identification with victims of a forebear. A member of the family two, three, or four generations later will atone for an injustice without even knowing who the person involved was or what they did. This I shall never know because I have not learned much family history. My mother had a motto “never look back”. German psychotherapist, Bert Hellinger, believes there is some kind of interference that comes from a previous generation in the family. In this type of interference the cause and effect are separated by several generations. Rather than a genetic inheritance of a physical weakness, it is an energetic legacy of an injustice with which the family never dealt. Could this by why many members of the Black community are very angry this century, or we are witnessing the pain body coming up in third generatio Holocaust survivors? Gene penetrance refers to the increasing development of a genetic disorder the further along the generational chain it has been passed. Descendants may be more likely than their forebears to develop bipolar disorder. This phenomenon could also be viewed in energetic terms, with the energetic influence becoming more powerful the more times it is passed down, much in the way that a homeopathic remedy, which is an energy-based medicine, becomes more potent the more times it is diluted. Whatever we don’t heal we pass on. We are made of the same chemistry as our ancestors. Perhaps in this century as we explore DNA research, we will find a way to fix the problem. Then of course there is the current conventional medical view that manic depressive illness is a brain disorder involving some kind of neurotransmitter malfunction. In some cases there are heavy metals in the brain where they work like antennae picking up the electromagnetic or geopathic interference, which exacerbates the symptoms of mental disorders. Nutritional medicine points to biochemical imbalances in the brain, nutrient deficiencies, or toxicity as the cause of much mental distress. This is true, but not entirely. Often, no matter what a person eats or takes in as nutritional supplementation, he or she still struggles with profound psychological issues. It could be in “stinkin thinkin”. Another theory put forth is that the main underlying problem is a disconnection from one’s life purpose. This disconnectio “leaves room for some alien energies to come in that do not have anything to do with the kind of promise the person made before coming into this world” the promise of what one will fulfill in one’s life. Not fulfilling your contract leaves you subject to “mental” disorders. Some spiritual orders such as the Falun Dafa and some New Agers believe we have entities. Therefore, we are not responsible. In ancient Greece, melancholy was considered to be an excess of black bile, one of the four “humours” of the body (blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm) believed to regulate health. One physician suggests mania was the result of too much yellow bile that had turned into black bile as a consequence of too much heat. In Chinese medicine the belief is that if one gets rid of excessive heat in the body, the mind will balance itself out. I have too much heat and my accupuncturist is clearing me with acupuncture and herbs. It seems like a long process and at times my hands are covered in bandaids because the heat splits my skin. My fingers are always peeling off and also the bottom of my foot. It is a messy process to go through but every little bit of heat that leaves my body finds me more and more grounded. My main profession is that of a Rebirther. We clear cellular memory by doing a series of conscious connected breathing rhythms. We believe that womb experience plus the way we are born become our map of the world. Early patterns begin in the womb when it is the first time a baby reacts to stress or pressure. Some theories are that depression, manic-depression, psycopathic behaviour begins in the womb. This is a subject for another talk but a few examples are: a baby being given up for adoption, a mother who is on hard drugs such as cocaine, or a womb experience where the baby has experienced a lot of trauma such as an attempted abortion, or a serious accident. The birth process itself can be quite horrendous where there is a good deal of struggle with near success followed by abject failure or difficulty at birth. A common example is struggling to get out against a tumor and the resultant Caesarean section, or, the baby being held back during labor by a nurse who was waiting for the doctor to arrive. What this kind of birth does is stamp in a cyclic personality. The chief cause is the amount of struggle at birth before catastrophe struck. Later in life, particularly when life is harsh and stressful, the cyclic prototype kicks in. First the person is engaged in wild struggles and uncontrolled impulsiveness, etc. This is followed by utter despair, hopelessness, lack of energy, and a feeling of what’s the use? They mirror exactly what happened in the birth struggle. In the first phase there is activation, struggle, and hope where the person is desperately running from the possibility of death. The second phase is touching death and the terror of that experience. A Califo ia study learned that the most violent prisoners had the most violent births. Many natural therapies look at how birth affects our lives such as Primal Scream, Holotropic Breathwork and of course Rebirthing. Several doctors believe that there are precursors by the age of one, and that by age six you can very straight forwardly diagnose a manic-depressive illness in a child. There are a lot of children who have mood disorders because mood disorders are rampant in families. People just don’t want to believe children can have an illness this serious. And often believe if they have the child change schools or get some new friends the symptoms will disappear. In addition to whatever genetics are at work in perpetuating manic-depressive disorder through the generations, certain patterns of family behavior may contribute. They include: - The use of denial to manage hostility and anxiety - Family members having unrealistic standards of conformity and self expectation - Difficulties in initiating and sustaining intimacy outside the family - Transmittal of low self esteem from parents to children - Fears about the inheritable aspects of psychiatric illness within the family. I tend to view life from a native Aboriginal perspective, although I myself am not native. They believe that for us to be happy, healthy and wholesome, we must bring four elements into our life each day. These are mental, emotional, physical and spiritual, or earth, air, fire and water. If any of these aspects are out of balance, we become out of balance. So what do I mean? We contain all the different energies of the universe which apply to how we experience and understand and deal with the world. We cannot live only in one direction such as mental - where we are using computers at work all day and then come home and sit and spend more time on the computer. I am learning to manage my states. I very quickly notice when I am “off” or in a negative state. If I am tired - why? Do I need to get some sleep, do I need to eat? Am I drained? Do I need to drop some people, or chores out of my life? What am I feeling? Where do we get energy from? From food, water, people and the environment. We can only give from a full cup. Is it mental? Is it something I am thinking? For example I have noticed that if I do not problem solve I will go over and over the same material working myself into a negative state. Ninety-five percent of what we do, say, or think comes from internal reference around us. We must look at our lives in terms of all the influences we allow into our environment. Spiritually? Am I taking time to be creative, go inside, meditate? I cannot always be in a giving position or “on”. I have to take time for myself. I don’t do extremes any more. I am no longer over- responsible at the expense of myself. Am I taking time to relax? Be creative? Physically? I go to the gym at least three times a week, I walk a lot, I like 8 hours sleep, and I like three meals a day and I don’t like to eat on the run. Am I remembering to take my vitamins and especially my fish oil? I am learning to like vegetables more.I don’t do all nighters. I don’t let people drain me, or use my energy. I don’t go in large crowds because I find I absorb too much energy. I watch that I don’t get over-stimulated. Even if I am being creative, I have a cut off time. I know I can turn the switch back on. I detox regularly. Emotionally. It is enough to feel my own feelings and be responsible for myself. I can empathize with others but I don’t have to feel their feelings or be responsible for them. I don’t hang out with victims. I had no center, but as I am becoming more aware, strength and determination are born. I am practicing putting myself first. I am my first priority. As one of my clients once said “I am getting rid of anything and everything in my life that is not good for me, love me, or supports me.” This is not always easy as I have had to put distance between myself and family members who still want to see me as the “character”,or the “black sheep”. Also, I have had to let go of some friendships that had been in my life for thirty years or more. It is not that these people do not love or like me, but rather they like the old me, the clown or the pleaser, and still treat me that way. I don’t want “to go there” any more. Never stop trying. Never give up. We cannot just expect our drugs to change our lives. We have to take responsibility for our wellness. That might mean changing our diet, our thoughts, giving up certain friends, or taking a less stressful job. I believe there is a cure. I believe we can manager our diseases. I believe we can heal. Haling takes time and hard work. A thorn hurts as it goes in and it hurts as it is pulled out. We just can’t take a pill and expect to be healed. We also must make the effort to do what it takes to heal our lives. I believe we have to start putting as much energy and money into researching mood disorders as we do physical diseases, or viruses. We have to start understanding. We have to stop locking our emotionally disturbed people away in prisons, or letting them wander unprotected on the streets. We have to care. A society will be judged by how it treats its’ most vulnerable people. You would think by the way we act that mental illness is contagious. It scares us, causes us shame and embarrassment and makes us ridicule, reject and finally isolate a person as if he/she has an infectious disease. Perhaps we do this because deep down we know that no one is immune. We are all victims of victims. Many have asked how have I survived, how have I managed to go on? The answer is simple; there was always someone or something that loved me. Someone always held out a hand, gave me hope, picked me up, dusted me off, protected me from myself, or gave me a pill. Also, I think I am just stubborn. I asked a doctor once if I would ever be drug free and he gave me thumbs down and told me I would never make it. Well, I am here today to tell you I am thumbs up, I am making it.nn nnn