Dear Liz:
So many people have learned from your pain, through you talent. I wish you would not describe those 10 years as lost. You give voice to people who cannot write, speak, or webcast.
Ayana

(((Liz)))

I was where you are now a year ago. (And two years ago, and three years ago, now that you mention it.)

But not now. Even when, like you, I am worse off financially.

It will get better. As you say, it always does. And frankly, you're too much of a fighter, anyway :-)

I'm glad to have found your blog. I was diagnosed with depression about a year ago. My psychologist is all about talk therapy but is open to me using meds. We're having that discussion right now. Guess we'll see how that goes. I do sometimes wonder what it would feel like to feel good?

Peace.

I am sorry that you don't remember most of your twenties. But you can be confident about your helpful website and blog which spread information on mental health which people need to know. What I mean is that you are helping people any more than you are being helped. I think you are already constructive toward making your future better.

Hi Liz,

It's painful to see you suffering like this. Hang in there and as you rightly said, this too shall pass.

Wish you all the best.

I'm glad you've hung in there. As Ayana pointed out, you chose to push your illness in a positive direction by helping to increase awareness and understanding - and you have made an impact.

Whoever you find looking back at you in the mirror as you approach your birthday, and however she chooses to define herself, will have that choice (and the willpower it took to see it through) as a part of her.

The flavor of mango is the greatest flavor in the entire universe. It even beats out coffee.

Get better soon, Liz. But stay home for now because it sucks outside.

Still reading, Josh.

hang in there, liz. don't dwell on the "lost years." only look forward. you are a talented woman. get yourself a job that is fulfulling AND pays well. and do some writing for larger consumer magazines. altweeklies are fun and important, but don't pay enough, as i'm sure you realize. that's my free advice for today, anyway.

Dearest Liz:
I just happened upon your site ( I'm almost sure now the CIA genetically altered Penguins and the alien mothership guided me here for some strange and bizarre reason, or my bladder was full and just needed a place to relieve myself! I'm almost sure it was one of those ), you are a gifted writer, and so great a talent showing a humorous take in dealing with these mental health issues both personally and in the bigger scheme of things. I'm bipolar and have enjoyed reading your witty post and plan to come back for another spanking and read more! I wrote a little piece of handy garbage for the round bin on bipolar for non-bipolar.

what do you think. ring any funny little bells in that wonderful twisted mind of yours?

Bipolar—a personal perspective

People have often asked me “what is Bipolar?” Of course there is constantly the standard diagnostic banter of what we are. But I somehow feel that always tends to fall short of expressing our genuine humanity.
I know I often just want to say: if I truly tried to Explain, you of this norm could never comprehend the depths of my being. For how can you understand with any meaningful Comprehension what it might be like to stand within the fires of the most heated emotional contradiction in extremes?
How can I express in layman’s dialog how it might be to feel the world as streams of blinding light permeating your mind, with thoughts at such accelerated speed and clarity that within yourself it can overwhelm your ability to relate to a world of permissive indoctrination of futile norms and the overbearing weight of the regulated mundane?
To go upon a journey from the very mountain peaks of glorious monstrosity, of infinite kaleidoscope possibilities, surreal euphoric bereavement; and then crash head on into a world of darkest despair, a lonely place where you alone can dwell.
A hell contained within the limitless confines of your imprisoned mind. Yet, limited to nothing more than hopeless mashing & grinding of teeth. A lethargic state of such void that its burden is only bearable for the grace of our faded scared memorial of memories which were once stars glistening across the moonless night sky with wonder and unbridled enthusiasm.
We survive not by the simple act of hardened will, but by the grace of our passionate spirit, yet slumbered away in this weathered time of morose seclusion.
How can those who cannot walk this lonely journey that faces us with the countless forks upon its road; fathom the complexity of these thoughts, judge the actions of our behavior, or sit in jury of our healing?
What can I tell them? That yes I am very much a part of your world, sometimes more a part of it than you can allow your imaginations to even ponder! Yet so often I’m so completely and totally isolated that I’m torn away from your world, and stand starkly alone in my very own!
Sure I can mutter on and on about this journey I’ve experienced, or that one too, and so forth babbling forever! But if you have not been to these exotic and foreign shores of emotional travel; if you have not shroud yourself in my moments of madness, the days of euphoric grandeur where all things are possible and the line between dreams and reality can for a brief time be breached; or parked upon a bare wooden floor crouched for days on end weeping to the point where the weeping is but breath unto itself; leading steadily spiraling toward this unparalleled place where the dry tears are but the purest void of feeling entirely. This faded statuesque portrait bushed in a silent grim testimonial and laden upon a living corpse of this sacred tormented being.
How do I explain this Juxtaposition in living duplicity? How do I face this quagmire of inquisitive souls wanting information, curious to our fates, delving at us for an explanation to our existence? Do we continue just to spout out to them some doctor’s reference book terms? Do we futilely go on and on about what we are, somehow trying to justify why we are, who we are?
I’m really not sure if there is one pat answer I can pull from my bag of tricks that will cover their hunger or quench that thirst. Not a single idiotic, wise, sarcastic sentence or verse that will cover every base and not offend their fragile sense of moronic superiority.
I guess sometimes I just want to say nothing at all, or continue to try in vain Explaining to them this simple truth. Yes I’m of this world in which you inquire of me! And yes, it is a world sometimes we share! But make no mistake; many a time I am not of your world. My Mind has much more or much less color than yours, my mind has no walls that can socially bide me, my world is the endless rainbow of all the emotional realms you have yet to open your eyes and see.
You feel but seldom those rare heightened moments of Joy and tragedy only when fate throws them in your face by great loss, gain, and circumstance! I feel them like its breathing air or drinking water for subsistence.
So I answer you concerned citizen of this dismal world within you dwell. I have no answer that could fill your gluttony, no wisdom to cure your ignorance. I am Just me! We are what man dreams to be in all his/her greatest imagination; but we are also what you fear in the deepest caverns of your souls, the hopeless grief of un-soothed suffering and isolate torment.
We are what you choose to call us, we are bipolar! But, we are more than your label tattooed to our foreheads & medical charts, or heated burning brand upon our humbled thought.
We are just who we are. We work right next to you each day. Sit right next you in your classrooms each morning. And believe this or not? You may even be in a close relationship with us and not know it for the ticking time bomb of our shrouded clock. Or even glimpse the shimmering reflection of this journey’s juggernaut of battles we struggle against and conquer each day of our lives.
Yes we are Bipolar, flawed in the most bizarre and mysterious of artistic ways. But we are also just like you! Flesh, blood, and bone through and through.
We cry, we laugh, we grieve, we rejoice, and as life’s curtain rises over earth’s unstilted theatrical stage, we live! Oh yes!
We gloriously live!
And like you, we ultimately die.

Please just keep writing and sleeping as need be. you have a God given talent and style I love. Of course I'm insane, a bipolargoober, and a royal dorkness. So take that comment with a grain of salt and for what it's worth while considering the sourse .

Yours truly Stan

Bi-polar depression is caused by an organism called mycoplasma fermentan. I was diagnosed with BPD and am now cured. The treatment? Mild silver protein. It is an alternative treatment and kills the organism. Search on Amazon.com and search "Linda Emmanuel" and read my book description "The Messenger"

I happen to believe that sleep was given to us as a cure for just about everything that ails us, and it's just one more thing we've messed up that most of us can't or won't turn to it when we need it most. (A hundred years ago, a girl could take to her bed without having to explain herself.) So give yourself some credit for knowing what you need right now.

And for realizing that this, too, shall pass.

Hope you start to feel better soon. I sympathise.

Been in a similar place myself lately - can't get out of bed, when I do I'm half asleep, and the last thing I want is to be round people. Just want to hide in the cupboard.

I'm on medication - it takes the edge off and definetly makes a difference but I don't think its a long-term cure: whenever I taper off its, well, unpleasant to say the least. Giant black hole is the best I can do.

As you say: it passes. I hope it passes for you soon. And on a positive side I very much enjoy your blog. Its honest and open and I can relate. Thanks for your writing.

Liz, your "lost" years led you here where you are baring your soul, educating & inspiring others, and advocating for those of us who cannot speak through the mire of this illness. During your darkest moments, please remember that there are many, many people who recognize something very special in you and are rooting for your well-being & success.

I am 45 yo and have had bipolar disorder type II since about the age of 12. My life has ebbed & flowed, just like this illness, and my most recent ebb landed me in a homeless shelter & on welfare. Throughout everything, I've been able to maintain that, as an artist, I have something of value to offer this world, no matter how long it takes me to manifest it. You, my dear, are already sharing your talents with the world... you are my role model!

I am back on my feet again... living on SSDI (in my own apartment), attending college for a BA in art, and picking up the pieces, yet again. My life has new purpose and I am in recovery (akin to the model described in the WaPo article). I have come to realize that my illness does not define me... it merely defines how I have to live. I've been fueled by hope again... and more so now that I've begun reading your blog.

A very wise Buddhist friend once told me, "Even on a grey & raining day, the sun shines above the clouds." Also, Nichiren, a 13th century Buddhist monk once wrote, "Winter never fails to turn into spring." May these words give you solace.

Your words define you... and from what I've read, you are really awesome!

Coming out of a daze of my own, I'm late catching up with your wonderful blog and sure hope you're feeling better by now. I must say it brings tears to my male eyes, that have seen a couple more of those big birthdays than you have, to read about you're wanting "to live an authentic life, to be my true self." I've thought that way so often myself and written about this same search, yet seeing you say it here moves me simply because you are so clearly living an authentic life and so much of your true self comes through, right now, right here! You must be or else neither I nor any of your many readers would be able to connect with you and care about you. I also realize that no amount of evidence to the contrary does much to shake my inner belief that whatever I'm doing must be wrong - when I'm in that fallen state you capture so simply and well. So I pray the talking therapy reminds you not to take the fallen thoughts as the whole truth. In fact, they're just the opposite.

My best to you,

JohnD

Bravo Liz! For you (okay not for going through a rough time I mean) but for "fighting the fight" of creating yourself in a new way.

And a serious Bravo for your Doctor.

If only more doctors would think this way.

Best,
Frank