Mania is said to cause an individual’s thinking to be overly positive and impairs judgment, actions are not evaluated thoroughly and negative financial, career, or relationship consequences may follow.

In my life:

I was first diagnosed with major depression in 2000, I was under 19 and I was given an antidepressant. The medication at the time came with no warning but I became suicidal for the first time in my life after only the first week. I stopped the medication and I stopped seeing my psychiatrist, who I had only known for a couple of hours. I tried talk-therapy at that age too but the therapist made some crude comments to me that made me not want to continue. She made some trauma in my life seem like it was something I liked. Several years passed without proper treatment, and I dealt with my mental illness alone. At the time I hadn’t even heard of bipolar or mood disorders. At first, I just thought I was depressed because of specific life situations. Like a broken heart, physical illness, or something. I switched friends and started hanging out with the “wrong crowd”. These people I still know and talk to today. They’ve actually changed as much as I have if not more but for the positive. One of them graduated from UC Berkeley with a Bachelor’s in Philosophy and now works as a Counselor and another is a Vocational Nurse and mom.

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I have had mania for so many years, I can’t remember back that far. It was, back in the day, an undiscovered problem handled by my father with alcohol  because there were no drugs at that time or the doctors to diagnose it. He was a great dad but I understand him more then ever now because I too have this illness, this wonderful madness that let’s you see things and feel like you can touch the stars. I am on right meds finally and working it out. My boyfriend is a retired medic and firefighter, and my power of attorney. Thank you for listening :)

When I was five years old, my adoptive parents divorced. Soon, my mother and I were packing our bags and moving to a new house, with a new man. When I look back on this, I didn’t fight it, I didn’t seem to care in the slightest bit. 

Soon after I moved into this house, with this new man, I began to be very difficult. I wouldn’t want to go to school, I would have outbursts of violent anger, I began to steal money from family members. That was the lighter side of the symptoms I developed. Soon, I became very paranoid. For the longest time, I blamed it on my mother letting me watch a ghost movie but I know now that this was not a normal paranoia. I refused to sleep in my room, I wouldn’t go near a dark hallway, I would scream at the top of my lungs if I managed to get stuck in a dark room [like, a power outage for example]. My paranoia took over my entire life. Remember, I was on five years old and I was consumed with fear.

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The room was dark and silent, but I could still hear the voices. That inaudible mind chatter would be the soundtrack of my early adolescence. It crept up inside me without warning, took hold of half my heart and coiled its way around my spine. I lived in fear, we all did; fear of my unpredictability, emotional outbursts and bouts of severe depression. I remember my mother’s tears and my father’s strong embrace as we sat in my room confused and helpless. White pills covered my floral bedspread and it seemed the truth had been discovered. The screaming and cursing had started again and no one could seem to tell us why. I had that all-too-familiar feeling that knocked the wind out me and left a cloud of smoke in my body. The pain was indescribable; I was suffering in the deepest part of my soul, drowning in my own tears, and experiencing my first manic episode at the young age of fifteen. My parents and I listened intently as the doctors threw around terms like “chemical imbalance,” “mania,” “clinical depression” and “hospitalization.” The Doctors diagnosed me as Bipolar - a disease that is treatable, but not curable. My diagnosis would define me for my most formative years and help shape the person I was to become.

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I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder when I was 12, but I had had problems with depression, manic episodes since I was 3. I had a hard time growing up, my father didn’t except my situation and just thought I was a bad kid, I was abused until I was 17 by him. My mother tried to help me, but at the time, she didn’t know how. I was put in hospitals frequently. I had three stays over nine months long each, and many shorter stays as well.

I was in a state hospital for a year straight. Most of my childhood was spent in mental institutions, and as an adult, I have been twice. When I was not in them, I was home, getting into major trouble. I remember being violent towards others, mostly family that was only trying to help. I was constantly in trouble at school, got suspended 8 times in two years, and expelled for half a semester.

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I had always had anxiety. As far back as I could remember, I was always afraid of something happening. My mother was always screaming about something, and my father was drinking a bottle of R&R Whisky a night. I witnessed many fights, some physical, and lived with constant fear of being yelled at. By the time I was 9 we had moved from Oregon to Alaska, and My mother had been diagnosed with Bi-polar disorder. My father, who was still drinking daily, became sick, and I ended up finding him passed out in the bathroom one night, he was rushed to the hospital, calling my name, and in less than 24 hours, he was dead.

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Three days before my high school graduation, I attempted suicide.  I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, PTSD, and depression.  I was hospitalized for a month before I lied to be discharged.  I was in and out of the behavioral science center numerous times.  The suicide attempt before my last one, I had a seizure, and I was in a coma-like state for three days.

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When I think back on my mental illness, I can remember symptoms from a very early age. I grew up in a very different environment than most – a log cabin in Alaska. I realize now that my mother suffered from deep, debilitating depressions and my father had no tolerance for her suffering. My father, on the other hand, probably lived with borderline personality. Both of them suffered with PTSD for different reasons: My mother had a father who molested her when she was young. My father had multiple issues that were catalysts for PTSD but the most prevalent that I remember is that mother had to wake him with the tip of a broom handle or he would jump up in a panic and knock her across the room before he realized what was happening. He often would cry out in panic in his sleep – something I never witnessed him do in his waking hours no matter the danger.

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Hi, my name is Ybsa, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at the age of 30, but since my teenager years I suffer from highs and lows, all my psychiatrists diagnosed me with mayor depression, because I never revealed my manic stages, until my last psychiatrist asks me some questions that revealed and diagnosed bipolar disorder I with psychosis.

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