I'm writing this autobiography as a dedication to the millions of people who suffer from bipolar disorder. I was diagnosed with this illness in 1989 a year after I had just graduated from college with a double major in Theater Arts and Creative Writing. I hope that as you read this book you'll relate to some of the problems I've had along the way. Everyone has a little different experience, but basically the symptoms and coping strategies are the same. Prior to my diagnosis, I experienced a head injury that I claim, after years of head pain, has acted as an accelerator of this illness.
After my physician tried several anti-depressants that were not compatible with my system, he put me on Lithium. It worked. I took it faithfully from 1989 to 1992. In 1992 I had a meeting with a psychiatrist because after not taking the medicine for six months, I seemed to function all right and I thought I was normal. I wanted to be re-diagnosed as “normal.”
It was an insane thing to do. Friends had told me that I acted quite “sanely” without the medicine and I believed them. After all, I worked with them every day. I assumed they knew me quite well.
I demanded that my physician take me off the pills permanently. He said he couldn't make me do anything I didn't want to do, and if I didn't have any problems for five years I probably didn't have the illness. He was very reluctant letting me abstain from Lithium. I struggled to work and I struggled to survive. My head hurt immensely and I thought I was going to have a stroke. After a few years of not taking anything for my illness, I began to have some bad feelings about myself. Nevertheless, I continued to look for work, and when I got it, sometimes it worked out very well for me. My co-workers and bosses had loved everything that I did. Yet due to circumstances beyond my control, some jobs just were not meant to be.
For example, in October of 1998, I lost a good job. I had been hired as a data entry clerk and office helper in 1997. I had worked up to the position of manager. I am extremely organized, and the owner liked me.
Since I was the manager of a small HVAC company, I made more money than I ever had at any other job. Unfortunately, in 1998, the owner was an elderly man who'd had a partial stroke. He decided to retire and sell his business. Everyone had been laid off. At this time, I also had severe family problems with my daughter. My personal strength, my employment, my era of good feeling became as extinct as Atlantis. I felt very disoriented and helpless, and I was forced to get professional help that would again diagnose me as being bipolar. I knew I would need to be on medication and counseling for the rest of my life. This illness just doesn't go away. It is to be managed diligently and regularly.
September 1999. The ground opened up and I fell down, down, down into the deep, dark pit. When I applied for work, I literally had to beg my way into the position, and then, as it turned out, I lost many jobs in a row, eventually ran out of unemployment money and a place to stay. I had to ask to live with my mother until I could get myself together, due to a long list of uncontrolled circumstances in my life. My health was, well, like my mother-in-law once said to me, “death warmed over.” My mother took me in as she had done twice before when I had lost my jobs in former years. I've worried her so much through the years. In 1999, the housing authority accepted me for housing, and I found an apartment nearby and moved from my mother's domain. I had no furniture, but I did have some nice household articles that I had saved money for and bought them brand new for my new apartment. I lived on $300 a month at this time, from the disability office, and had to pay them back once I got situated with my settlement from SSD benefits once they were approved. I applied for disability and received it in 2002. I had to hire a lawyer who took most of the settlement money, and the money owed to the State of Oregon. I had very little to live on, but at least I had somewhere to live.
In June 2001, after many runs to my doctors, and at the request of myself, I asked for an MRI on my head and brain area. I was diagnosed with a meningioma. Brain tumor. I knew it. I didn't just have an abnormal brain function; I had a reason for the hard days I had experienced. I needed surgery. The former diagnosis of manic-depression was correct. I was still bipolar and the current events had created an episode. I applied for Social Security benefits and am now, in 2008, still receiving SSD. It was clear to me at that time, that my headaches were caused by this tumor. In August, 2001, I had the tumor resected, and much of it had been removed. This caused me to have a very different attitude towards myself, as I explained to myself that I was not really a bad person, just a person with a lot of physical ailments. Four days later, I went home and took care of myself, sleeping daily, taking my psyche meds, and taking it easy. This went on for about six years, and in those six years, I had several problems with my daughter and her family. I got two new grandchildren in this time, and do not regret that at all. Unfortunately, this family broke up and I was asked to take in children in 2004, but I was not well enough nor recovered enough from my surgery, so I had to let my grandchildren go to the State of Oregon for foster care placements.
