Life with Bipolar Disorder

There are demons that lurk, and laugh behind our backs. Those who suffer from them can't get away. The demons cause death and destruction with those in whom they live within. They even have the capability to flush away
marriages, destroy families. They are a quiet evil.

What are they called? Depression, manic depression, bipolar, those are their names. And the only reasons they have of doing this to their victims are "chemical imbalances in the brain." Why? Why do they do this to us? Why to me? What have its victims done to deserve this?

I have its victim for about 10 years. Well, at least that's how long I've been being "treated" for it. It seems like I've not felt myself since my son was born. No, I don't blame him. He's a victim of it too, as well as my husband. They suffer from it too, in the sense that I'm not as active as I used to be before this monster kicked in.

I'm always tired. I have no energy. I feel like I'm sleeping my life away. Bipolar is robbing me of my life. Medications help keep it in check, but there's only so much it can do to fight back. My job as a wife suffers, and my job as a mother suffers. So, they suffer. I've been asked, "What do you have to be depressed about?" "Why can't you just change?" I've tried to explain that it's a chemical imbalance in my brain; I can't change that besides take my medicine. I'm depressed because those chemicals being out of sync won't let me be happy.

Bipolar is a complex illness. There are many different symptoms - and several different types of bipolar disorder. The main symptoms of the disorder are dramatic and unpredictable mood swings. The various types of bipolar disorder range from mild to severe.

I've been through both, and every extreme in between. I've even had suicidal thoughts. The things that kept me from acting on them range from not wanting to put my son through losing his mother to not wanting to put my
parents through losing another child and not wanting to put my baby sister through losing another sibling. I had one sister that died when she was two days old due to birth defects and another sister that died a little more than four years ago at the age of 31. And she left behind a daughter that turned 10 years old twenty-two days after her mother died. But sometimes I wonder if the only relief I'll get is to just end it all, and other times I can feel the old me, the one that existed before this evil kicked in, wanting to come out.

As of right now, I'm taking 100mg of Zoloft a day, and a grand total of 1,350mg of lithium a day. All of this helps, and keeps things at bay to an extent. But my advice to anyone who suffers from this is to keep up with your medicine regimen, keep in touch with your physician, keep a healthy diet...believe me, that makes a difference, find a good therapist, and keep in touch with family and friends, even friends whom you've went to school with that you haven't seen in a while.