"Living with Bipolar Disorder" was given to me by my therapist and it has proved to be one of the best reads I have ever read on this subject. I would suggest that anyone who has this illness or knows someone with this illness get this book as soon as possible. It is informative in language that all can understand, as well as clear and helpful with out being patronizing.
I have gone with it's adivce about starting a support group for myself. It is made up of people that do what the book says they should already. It is a group of my best friends who know me better then I know myself and will be able to sense if something is wrong and point me to my doctors who will take me from there. I was surprised at the reactions of some of the people I asked to be apart of this support network. Some people who I thought would be right on the band wagon were pensive and tentative about joining. I don't think I discribed it the best that I could have since I did it with text messaging, but once I explained that the people would not be responsible for taking me to the hospital or for being on suicide watch with me, they were more understanding. But I did have two friends who were like "YES! Thank you so much I am so honored." Right away....it was very encouraging. But it goes to show you that people have and come from different backgrounds with mental illness and from different backgrounds with me and we need to be aware of that. People have life and lives that are expanding with children and are full of other responsibilities than to be in a support group with you or your family. That is ok...they can still help from a far. We as people effected with the illness need to be open and aware of other people's responsibilities before we jump people with hopes and ideas of being in our support group and we should never never NEVER assume that people will be able to join us just because we want them to. It takes two to tango and so let us dance!

Walking Barefoot in December

I am getting into the mode of a new year...a better year....a hopeful year. A 2009 wonderous year where mental illness does not need to own every moment of my time. 2008 was terrible for me in so many ways and I feel like I will never be the same again. I wake up most days and just think "wow....I survived" and then this sinking feeling comes over me and I just feel so low. I am not sure if it is the low after the high of Christmas but it almost hurts like depression hurt. Questions go through my head "am I a loser? have I ruined my life? Has bipolar disorder ruined my life? How do I start over? Or do I?" I have been doing laundry all day and watching House on TV and chatting with friends in Oregon. I remember last year around this time. I didn't know it but I was headed down into depression and off meds and I would wake up with this ache in my chest...like my heart was cut out. I would miss my ex, my mom, my dad, my friends, Baltimore, and I would get dressed for work and just ache inside. Just ache. I cannot tell you the feeling...there is no way to describe the pain. I couldn't even cry it hurt so much. The mornings would come so crisp and clean and my chest would feel like open heart sugery had been done. I would look out the window and see a clean world and feel such a mess inside. Christmas this year has been warming but with a touch of fear that I will wake up with that same sensation of lonliness again. Today I walked barefoot in the grass and mud to the laundry room. It was warm enough. I breathed in the air and smelled all I could. I let the wind blow me away, let the past become the past. Barefoot in December...and the new year comes.

Christmas Cheer and Fear

Christmas came!!!! And my bed lay empty as I jumped upon the other poor souls in my house. "WAKE UP WAKE UP MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!" I soared around the house on wings of joy and hope. Such excitment is dangerous as the low that comes after can be quite like the low of depression, but I didn't care. I knew pretty much everything I was getting but still my heart had wings. I had a friend come up from Baltimore to spend the holidays with us and it was a blast to have her around. I got from Santa my first digital elf Cannon camera which I have been playing with non-stop. We all sat around the tree, fixed up with tinsel and lights and passed out the gifts one by one. With hot cocoa and peppermint brewing and waffels and bacon cooking, our house smelled like the north pole itself. But alas...the low came as Christmas was over. Mom took to her bed as the sugar crash began, I sat on the couch and just vegged. The low was almost impossible to shake and left me to walk through the rest of Christmas in a bit of a daze. But that is what Christmas is about and that is what I will do next year again...but this time maybe I can avoid the low being so low...and then each year will get better and better.

It's Christmas in China Right Now!

It's Christmas in China right now. I can't believe it is here...this blessed holiday. See, I hate the crowds and I hate the busy angry people that drive around, but there is a giddy bubbly spot in me that has been here since I was old enough to know what Christmas was about. It is Christmas Eve and it is time for hot cocoa and candy canes, candle light Church services with strangers that become friends upon the first lighting. What a beautiful holiday full of choices. Choices to be well, to accept loss with courage, choices to see the truth instead of believing the lies that surround us. It's Christmas Eve, and the spirit of Christmas is upon us.

Dear Drew

Dear Drew,
I have been learning alot about this new person that I have become after this last episode. I am trying to see it on a continuum. I am trying to look at it as part of a bigger picture because I have looked at my episode as a stealer of life and time. But it was part of time. An adventure of its own with it's terror and it's mania. It is hard to explain and almost impossible to share, but it was hell. I have never been in such a dark place, demonic, almost satanic of places. I felt and now feel I was completely separated from God.
I went to church on Sunday and I believe I realized what I have been feeling when it comes to church. It is not that I do not believe in God or His Son Jesus, It is that I do not see how my life experience fits into Sunday morning worship and prayer. The darkness of my depression, the perverted thoughts, the murderous thoughts do not fit with most sermons. Where is my history on Sunday in the Presbyterian faith? My experience most closely resembles Christ's Crucifixion when Hashem (God) turned His face and left Jesus to be alone and separated. It is there I fit, in that moment when my loving God left me to my suicidal thoughts, to dark cold rooms and racing thoughts. He left me to insanity and paranoia. Like scarecrow in Batman, with his powder and his mask, God became evil to me.
I know that as time moves forward and I gain distance from this episode I will see that God was right there with me, not teasing me with gas and masks, but holding my trembling anorexic hand. In the darkness of the psych ward, full of screams through the night, He was there. But for now I feel betrayed, I do not trust my God or my mind and I am aware of how feeble my mind is. I can sense a bitterness in me and that is something I am fighting tooth and nail. I will not be bitter. I will yell and scream, stomp and dwell, cry and lay limp in His arms but I will not become bitter. I have matured a great deal since this episode and my heart is broken in two. But it has broken so wide it can now let more love in.

Grief: n. Deep sorrow.

Even as the cheer of winter and holiday comes, grief has come as well. This year it comes in a gift wrapped package with ribbons and bows, fat santas frolic on the paper, while little children run in papery snow. The package is warm but what lies within I need to deal with. Without dealing with the loss of what has happened to me this year, I will be unable to deal with the joy the new year may bring if I allow it to touch me. My heart has been broken wide open and the only positive thing I can say is now I can let more love come in once I have dealt with the pain...maybe even while I deal with the pain. Limitations come with Bipolar Disorder. Limitations that seem possible to handle to anyone, yet after "freedom" of a manic episode, or the depths of depression, these limitations can cause us to grieve. No longer able to stay up late to party with friends, or have deep conversations, no longer able to drink or smoke, no longer able to have a free flowing life, structure must be laid out for those of us to suffer from this illness for our own wellbeing. It can be overwhelming what changes must occur to resolve an episode that brought such chaos. But it is almost Christmas, and it is time to allow grief to come and settle, stay for the night and share tea in the morning. This mourning will be over soon and with it will come a joy so genuine and true, even paper Santa will smile through the ribbon encased package he now frolics on.

Tis the Season

Sunday in Baltimore was filled with sunlight and ice. I woke after a wonderful Saturday with my dear friend Judi and her 8 and 1/2 month belly about ready to bust come February. I had driven down to Baltimore with another close friend for my last time in Baltimore until I move back come Fall 2009. I was sure that this would be a wonderful weekend and it has turned onto a wonderfully chill time of catching up and relaxing in the face of friends.
Today is Sunday...once my favorite day of the week, now a day full of questions and some what fearful thoughts from my last episode. My last episode left me feeling sad and betrayed by the God I would worship each day. Sunday was just the day to be with fellow friends and believers. Today I walked into church and felt the warmth of old friends and smiles and hugs. Questions and wonders..."When will you be back?" "Stay in touch over facebook, ok?" "What have you been up to out in Oregon?" Finally after the people left I sat with an old old friend from college and looked him dead in the face and smiled..."What do you say to people? I just had a mental breakdown and am moving back to baltimore?" He smiled and said "but you are better now." "Yes," I said. "But what do you say? People don't need to know the details but I feel like I am lying when I say Oregon just didn't work out for me." Mark leaned back in his chair and just listened. It was like old times, chillin with Mark laughing about life.
But it is truely an interesting moment when someone asks you what you have been up to for the past how many months after an episode they don't know has occured. "Ummm....well....I'm recovering." HA! It has become a tad on the humerous side. I do not take what has happened to me lightly, which makes it hard to answer questions but at the same time you can't take it too seriously or I would be crying all the time.
I continue to reach out to friends and family. Touching them with cards and love, emails and calls. Reaching to make a connection with God is taking a little more effort as I realize my relationship with him has become so much more genuine and real.
Oh Sunday!!! What you do to me now!

Winter Wonder Land

It's snowing. It is beautiful even though it may impede my plans to head down to Baltimore and see one of my best gals...a few of my best gals. It floats down and layers each leaf, each pine needle, every area of ground. It's almost an exact image of what depression does to ones heart and being. It is just like Mania which touches every aspect of one's life. On the outside once can look "normal" but deep inside the realization that every ounce of one's moral fiber is being polluted by either a low or a high hits hard. It hits hard and then like ripples in a pond spreads out over every part of one's life. Only the closest of friends can see the ripples begin, the waves sweep away the sanity of one's mind. And like a winter wonderland, with every layer touched, one can fall into the pain of a low or the elation of a high with crystal clarity and fluffy white fervor.

Could It Work? Continued.......

I went! I got my shoes on and walked to the car. There was a strange confidence that came over me, and I could feel my shoulders fall back in place as I stood taller, straighter. As we drove up Main Street, I began to feel my heart pound. No, we were not headed to the hospital where I received so much trauma, but the path was the same as my goal in therapy. Get someone to drive, leave the house, get in the car, drive to the hospital, and get to the ER doors and then my anxiety would get to be too much, and in therapy we would have to stop and work. All of a sudden we were there. We parked in the hospital lot and the anxiety left. The confidence came back. Confidence and this empowering curiosity. What would it be like to need help again? What would it be like to walk through the doors again? I walked towards the ER beside my mom and she asked if I was OK. "Yes!" I stated with no question. We walked in the sliding doors. A set of baby twin girls came out. Wow, I thought. Life comes out of a place like this. We walked and I tensed as we passed security. In my last hospital experience I was not seen kindly. I was placed in green scrubs and blue footie socks and looked at with suspicion and question. I was escorted to each bathroom break and shower as I stayed four days in the ER in Portland Oregon, by security officers who watched every move I made in case I made a break for it, or tried to kill myself within the sterile confines of the ER.
Mom walked up to this security station and asked where the procedure room was and with a big smile and a sure finger he pointed us down the way. We found dad and I sat down to breathe. So far so good, but I had not seen into the actual ER doors or seen the tile floors or scrub adorned nurses. Well, I went to find them. Dad went down a tile floored hall way and I went and stood with two feet on the floor. I waited......I jumped up and down a bit.....and waited....soon I saw a nurse in scrubs.....he was watching his hands....I waited....I looked in another door, down another tile hallway....NOTHING! No panic! No flashbacks! The ER doors were next. I got mom to come and I found them, big metal sliding doors with "Authorized personel only" on the side. I stood there daring the doors to open and swallow me whole. A nurse walked by with a wheel chair and the doors opened. I looked into the ER, saw the curtained off rooms and folded scrubs on beds. I was breathing. I sat outside the bathrooms and what unfolded before my eyes was an intake of a patient who was in a very bizarre state of mind. She gazed at the ER nurse who was interviewing her and stared through her. She looked over the intake nurse's shoulder and her eyes were blank, taken by a mental state that I dared not think about. She was helped to standing and then guided out, stumbling through the doors of the intake room and lead through the big metal doors. Her frail figure and the entourage of people who accompanied her went in. She mumbled something about that being her old bed and pointed to a curtained off bed and then the doors swallowed her and she was gone. Soon a woman walked out carrying a bag "Patients Belongings."
Once and only once did my heart begin to pound. That bag meant minimal clothes so your body could be examined by a Doctor, maybe three. It meant "You're not leaving." It meant soon family would be gone, the night shift would take over and you'd be alone. I was number 26 in my hospital bed. #26 in a glassed in room with nothing in it but sheets on a bed. I remember trying to hang myself with those sheets when no one was looking, just to end the fear, the sterile land of the ER, the paranoia that told me someone would come to get me, put me in prison and leave me to die. In the throws of a mixed episode, death seemed the only hope for freedom.
It was the sight of this bag that started a panic that I stared down. I stared right at that bag and wouldn't stop until my heart calmed and the memories were silent. After Dad's procedure we went back to see him. Tile floors, scrubs every which way, and my father lying in a bed hooked up to tubes and sleeping. I saw my Grandpa and suddenly my heart was beating again. "He needs to wake up, Mom." I said and reached for his hand. "He will. No worries." After 5 min he opened his eyes and my eyes which had been transfixed on the heart monitor changed to meet his. "Phew." I breathed. We sat and talked and laughed. "How ya doin', kiddo?" He asked. "Pretty damn good, Poppi." He got dressed and gave me his "Patients Belongings" bag while laughing. HA! I took it and put it in my purse as proof. I have it even now!

Could It Work?

I was angry. How could I be put in the place to decide to face my fears so soon? Was that fair? Dad had to have a procedure at the hospital. His instructions were to head through the Emergency room doors, past security and down the hall. Should I do it? Should I check to see if all this therapy was working? I had started to panic after hearing "Emergency Room" over the message machine in our house, how could I walk in there...AND it had a mental ward. It was the mental ward I had been to when I had my first episode almost 10 years ago. Thoughts and hopes and fears raced through me as I put my anti-anxiety pills into my purse and walked over to put my shoes on.

The Therapy Always Helps My Sanity

I am in therapy right now. It is very intensive. I am being seen by a doctor with the heart the size of Manhattan...actually Connecticut. She works with a style counseling that focuses on memories. It has been fascinating to work in such new ways. It has also been extremely painful. I sit in the chair and talk with her. I tell her all about my day and what I am now keeping track of. At this point I am working on my homework that she gave me the first session we had two months ago.

1-Consistency in Social Support
2-Behavior Activation-Pleasure, Connection, Mastery, Increase exercise
3-Omega-3...Start taking it regularly

Then I close my eyes, clear my mind and we begin the long session (3 hours) of searching deep into my mind and remembering. I am working on a goal...being able to walk back into a hospital through the ER and up into the psyche ward. It is amazing. I go through the total thought...picking up the phone to call a friend, getting in the car, driving, getting to the ER, etc. At the point in which I start to feel anxiety I stop and we start to focus on the feeling, where it is, what it feels like. Then she asks me to think of only that feeling, the center of it and then let a memory come up, positive, negative or neutral. If it is negative I think about it and then rate it from one to ten, one being least painful and ten being most. After the rating is done she has me focus on the feeling and allow a positive memory come up. In the positive memory I rate that and then see how much of the negative emotions are there. Zero is usually the answer. We then go back and forth from negative memory to positive memory until the pain of the negative memory is at a zero and all the positive feelings from the positive memory are still there. This is how I have been spending my weeks back in NY with my family. I go at least once a week maybe twice and work my butt off. It has been amazing how far I have come these past months. I have been terrified of the hospital but I am able now to in my mind, get to the ER and almost walk in the doors. There is still more work to be done. But I am grateful for all the work that is happening no matter how painful it is. Some of my negative memories have been rated at 45's with me crying in a heap in the chair. But with the positive memories there to turn off the pain of the negative old memories I am able to keep it up and trust my Doctor in all that she is doing to help me get better.

Beside Me

"Even in the Dark
When I've missed my mark,
There you are beside me.

When I'm all alone,
with no one to console me,
there you are beside me

Chorus:
When the sun is rising
I can hear you call my name
heaven's breath is sighing
and I am no longer afraid
This heart was dying
take my hand and walk with me
right beside me.

The waters seem so deep,
I'm timid in this leap,
but I'm ready to feel you beside me

The chaos is gone,
and I'm somewhere in this calm,
but I feel you quietly beside me."

I wrote music to it and put it on my demo.
This song represents to me a giving up of my desires and standing naked and vulnerable before fears and pain knowing there is hope even in the darkness. As I play this song over in my mind I am given a sense of peace, of calm.

Journey On

I am moving on,
through windows clear.
Opening my heart,
to what I once feared

Cast not on to the ground,
what was once beside your heart.
You are my winter wonder,
the end of what I start.

I smile upon my pillow,
where once I shed each tear.
You tried to keep life,
so dark and so unclear.

Next time might be harder,
to keep me so distressed.
I have support from many
I am so very blessed.

Next time will be never,
I've decided I am first.
You will not destroy this Honeybee,
it is you who are now cursed.

My Story

My story starts 10 years ago when I was first diagnosed with Bipolar and put in a hospital for 2 weeks. After finding the perfect drug (Lithium) for me I was allowed out of the hospital and spent the next 7 years in emotional peace. 2 years ago a therapist told me that I may not be bipolar....that I should talk to my Doctor and go off my meds since it is bad for your liver to keep lithium in your system. Once talking to my Doctor he did not think it was a good idea but that if I was to go off meds I would need to be under strick supervision. I began to go off my meds in July of that year and by Feb of the next I was drug free and feeling fine. A year later I began the decent up into a mania with energy and excitement I had not felt in many years. What followed after that was a depression I had also not felt for many years. 9 months ago I experienced a mixed episode that was mania and depression put together. I was surrounded by people who had never seen bipolar at its worse. I did not sleep for 5 weeks and grew more and more paranoid and anorexic and filled with suicidal idiation in my mixed mood state. It is by the grace of God that my parents came and put me in a hospital where I was placed under care and supervision as well as on meds again. NEVER GO OFF YOUR MEDS! I am now in recovery and very glad to be on meds and alive and sharing my story for others to read and take part in. This blog is to be interactive and hopeful, becuase when you are in the midst of the heaving moods it is hard to see a way out. There is...you are not alone.

Breaking it Down

"Bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression, is a common psychiatric disorder. It is one of several conditions referred to as mood disorders, which are diagnosed based on the occurrence of episodes. Understanding the concept of an episode is important for understanding mood disorders. A mood episode refers to a set of symptoms that occur during the same time period. This simple definition is made more complex because the set of symptoms used to make the diagnosis can include many different combinations of symptoms. For example, mood episodes can be understood much like an episode in a weekly television show. We can think of symptoms like the cast of characters. In this example, mood symptoms are the leading players, but to be recognizable as an episode of a specific show, the presence of other supporting actors is required. Although the entire cast may never be present in the same scene, and some actors may appear in more than one show, we can usually recognize a specific show by the appearance of any combination of a small number of cast members. Once we recognize the show, however, an episode can be said to continue for as long as the lead player and/or the supporting cast maintain a significant presence on stage." -Living with Bipolar Disorder by: Michael W. Otto, Noreen A. Reilly-Harrington, Robert O. Knauz, Aude Henin, Jane N. Kogan, and Gary S. Sachs.

There are 4 types of episodes someone can experience. Depression, hypomania, mania and mixed episodes.

Depression is more than a sad mood most people might experience when they are having a bad day. This is a medical disorder that lasts at least 2 weeks and makes a combination of emotional and physical symptoms that make it difficult to function in the world as we know it.
Feelings of sadness, hopelessness and pessimism usually follow this mood. They are accompanied by physical symptoms like difficulty sleeping, poor concentration and memory, low energy, and change in appetite.

Hypomania refers to a clearly abnormal mood state with mild to severe symptoms of mania. This can last for a few days or for many months. The difference between mania and hypomania are both the severity of symptoms and the effect the symptoms have on your life. Hypomania does not usually cause the same about of damage to one's life as mania does but it still is problematic. Hypomania usually occurs just before or right after other severe mood states.

Mania is more than just a lot of energy, it is actually a very serious condition. It includes increased energy, racing thoughts, inflated self esteem, poor judgement, a decreased need for sleep, abnormal irritability, extreme happiness, and overparticipation in risky activities. It is considered mania if these symptoms are present during the period of at least one week.

Althougth mania and hypomania can feel good to someone with mood disorders (especially after a bout of depression) they can cause the most damage to relationships, jobs, and life in general. After mania, a person can be left in a pile of debt from over spending or in sexual trouble from hypersexuality and many partners during the mania.

Notes to Jenny

Everyday we are influenced by the people and places around us. I know some people who try desperately to live uninfluenced...to go against the tide with pride...stand strong with the wrong...you get it! I have been learning that in this life of mine I can either "force" life to move or let it move on it's own. Throughout the recovery process since my last episode, I have seen that life cannot be forced anywhere. That people cannot be forced, jobs cannot be had, friends cannot be made to stay, family cannot be made to love, it happens. Something else also happens as people try to force life to move and that is SHIT. Shit happens and then it is over and done with and we move on...or try to stay there making the past relive itself. I have grown more and more in love with the fact that life lives on its own. I can't do anything to make it move, it does just because it does. Many times I have felt in the last 9 months that I need to catch up with life...that I lay stagnant in depression for so long that I need to be engaged, married, baby and job NOW! But something that has caught my eye is the simple fact that as I was seemingly stagnant, life was being experienced, new days were being put on with the morning sun and slipped off with the dew of twilight. I was in life, even as I felt I was taking no part in it. My life was always full of giggles to boot and smiles for miles, but this illness took them and an innocence from me that I will never get back. But I will tell you this..what is coming back is more genuine than anything I have ever lived before. My relationships are deeper, my family loves farther, my eyes see into souls and search out every bit of life there is left. There is so much to explore, so many more lands to experience, so many more skys to lie under with commrades in this experience called life, eh Cate? And so go my notes to Jenny, my dear sister from another time in life, another event in my years. Everyday we write eachother without fail, we write deep and shallow, we write strong but never weak. She is ever confident in my ablities to grow and shine in the glory of a God that showers mercy on all. I am influenced not only by her consistancy with me as a friend but in her love and strength as a daughter of God. May everyone meet and have their Jenny, Amen! And so this day ends with another shedding of the old and sinking into bed with hopes of new light. Each star will sing its own song tonight and fill the sky with joy even when sadness is all I can bare, even when laughter is all I can sing.

It will all be worth it...

It will all be worth it in the end. Even before the end, the hand of a loving savior will work in this most low time. It will be with signs of self worth, it will be with signs of love, it will be with messages from old friends who care about me more than they care for themselves. My darkness will be redeemed. Each step is getting closer to the time when I can say I won't be taken away by the lies that so easily penitrated my being. I will know what paths to head down and what paths to avoid simply by being. My weakness is a blessing, my weakness is rightous, my weakness is a strength that will guide me thorugh my highs and my lows. And people will come to me for wisdom...not cousel but wisdom. People will not be turned from me but I will welcome the sick and the families of the sick because bi polar is not to be thrown out with the bathwater. To you who are "sick" and not "normal" and have caused "trouble" and "shame" to your families....WElcome to my blogpost. Welcome and please comment. You are not alone and your weakness is all of our strength.

Dearest Love

Eternal optimism is something that I pray for secretly at night. When the darkness wraps me in blankets of anticipation of a day newly coming, sweet prayers lift from my lips into the air. To look into the eyes of a child and believe that life is ok, to see into the flushed face of a newly wed that hope still is there, to look up into a sky of blue and be in the moment...not secretly state that clouds must be on the way, that is my wish. Star light star bright one wish I wish tonight is for optimism to win in a heart that seems to have been so crushed that all grace, mercy and hope has twiddled down to thin shreds. But the shreds are there...they are thin but they are there and I do believe in hope...maybe not love but I do believe in hope. I talked to a newly wed friend of mine who is so real. Six months have gone by and she is in a state of realism. She may still flutter, she may still blush, but she sees the reality of a responsibility greater than her...to be a wife, a lover, one who sacrifices for her husband. I wonder...will that ever be me? Do I hope still? Almost 28 and counting, but with friends like Jenny I can keep on praying into the night. I do believe.

Scrambled Eggs

I would like to say that scrambled eggs are what brains are like when they are going through manic or depressive states in the mood episodes of bi-polar disorder. Everything is going on in ways no one else can understand. There is the utmost importance on getting things done, words written, heads hidden under pillows, bodies blown away by fear or paranoia, food disorders like anorexia rear thier ugly heads as the brain is just scrambled. And then it is over...meds are in me, 30 pounds have been added to my once slender figure and I can't understand how I got here? Where is the bread crumb trail? Where does the insanity stop and sanity begin? Now that I only feel anxiety and slight fear is it over? is the war over between high and low? I have been angered by the smiling faces of us all here on face book. Our pictures showing no sadness or fear. My pictures are from another time, a skinny time, when a false manic confidence pulsed thorugh my veins. Now plump and fearful I laugh at the pics I display. I can be that person if I just post the things everyone else cares about. No one needs to know right? No...some people do need to know...that life is not all smiles. But life can be more than smiles..it can be deeper than smiles. Deeper than white teeth and twinkling eyes. But what is that deepness? I still don't know.

Manic Depression Mixed in Life

What to say...an illness to overcome every single day. It leaves me on my knees to pray...Lord, have you left me here alone?Can I see anyone?Please release me from this disease. A cleansing is an understatement for sure and I am writing now by God's grace. I am alive by God's grace. I will be strong again by His love and grace and through the gentle touch of friends and family near and far. I must be surrounded by people in this time. The long time adventurer is now in a corner fighting her way out. I have become so quiet and observant...just don't want to stir any waters. How will God use that? Such bravery was taken from this soul who headed out West looking for a new life to start. Now I am back in the trenches of an illness that does not let up. But I know that the sun is coming...coming to shine on the shadows that bring fear to my heart. Please Lord help me.

In the Beginning...

The day light hours have been drenched with rain and clouds today. I have spent move of the day contemplating whether to start a blog or to keep my thoughts to myself and my diary. I have concluded to begin what will be the start of a view into the heart of a woman who has suffered and is learning to live with an illness known as Bi-Polar Disorder or Manic Depression. I wish to reach out with my words to those who have been left alone, gone astray, felt betrayed by their own minds and bodies, and been left to clean up the pieces after episodes that many do not understand. I do not want my experiences, my defeats or my accomplishments to go on without some verbal coverage. People with this illness must know they are not alone. Their families must know they can make it through the fear and utter helpless frustration at watching loved ones go from mountian highs to valley lows. Through doctors that do not seem to understand anything, to hospitalizations and suicide attempts, to stable medicated times of calm and well being.
This is the beginning of the Tales of One Honeybee who is buzzing to find not only where I fit in this world, but where others like me can fit as well. I want feedback and words from your lives and experiences. We are in this together. Let the stories begin.