Click Here ToWatch The
Video "Unwell" By Matchbox 20 Good Insight!
The aggravated agony of
depression is
terrifying,
and elation, its non
identical twin sister,
is even more terrifying—attractive as she may be for a moment.
You are grandiose beyond
the reality of your
creativity.
~Joshua Logan~American
theatrical and film
director and writer
In short, I am sharing my story to help others. I have opened myself up in this forum and web site because people have written to me and requested I relate more about my experiences and myself. Thanks for your interest! :-) Some things here I have never told anyone, not even members of my own family. This was a difficult decision to make, but I hope it will help someone somehow.
I am blessed with a wonderful
marriage. My marriage is strong because I have a very loving and supportive
husband named Greg. He's been through a lot with me and has tolerated many
things that most people would not have. I guess we value our long relationship,
and tight bond having met each other in the summer of 1981. We have no children
at this time, just our two girl Dachshunds Emma (the older girl 14) and Ruby.
Ruby (black dog) is the newest edition to our family (she's a miniature
Dachshund). We got her in January of 2005. She
was just 7 weeks old and quite adorable. Greg and I try to lead a pretty simple
life. I grew up in a small coastal town on the
Eastern Shore of Maryland, located between the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic
Ocean. It's beautiful here! I am truly blessed to have grown up in such a
unique place.
When
I was exactly 30 years old, my husband and I sat with a psychiatrist who evaluated me
for two hours. At the end of the session he diagnosed me with Bipolar Disorder,
in a matter of fact manner. I had known for a prolonged period of time that
something was wrong with me. I had been searching for countless years for
answers as to why I suffered from severe depressions and euphoric moods. Hearing
the doctor say I was Bipolar was somewhat of a shock but a relief at the same
time. It was as if someone had finally opened a window but took away a bit of
sunlight. What I suffered from had a finally had a name. So here I was,
sitting on the clichéd psychiatrist’s couch, being handed a prescription for a
mood stabilizer and a book on Bipolar Disorder.
Manic episodes for me can be greatly animating, buoyant, and exhilarating. My
first manic episode in looking back, occurred when I was just 15. I am giddy,
effervescent, grandiose, creative and wild. Everything speeds up, my thoughts
race, sleep is non existent, my soul is at one with the universe, and I look for
deep meaning in everything. My speech becomes disconnected, as I can’t make
sense of what is circulating in my head. I have spent incalculable dollars on
trips, cars, clothing, jewelry and the like getting my husband and I into some
serious debt. Then things can change and I become extremely irritable,
explosive and sometimes violent. The smallest things set me off into fits of
yelling and screaming, shouting expletives and breaking things. I’ve been
behind the wheel of a car I have no business driving speeding along in an
erratic fashion. Sometimes I hallucinate. The thing I crave the most turns into
a monster of its own. Then, what goes up must come down.
Depression for me is brutally unbearable. It’s a torturous pit in hell extruding
a forbidding darkness. I shrink into my gloomy mind, and cease to function. I
don’t groom myself for days on end nor eat properly. I’ve literally been in bed
for months on end hoping some medication will work. I don’t venture outdoors nor
talk on the phone very much. I hide from the world. My ability to concentrate
ceases. Suicide is a comforting thought; my salvation. Sometimes all and can do
is weep and other times I am completely numb. When I am acutely suicidal I end
up being hospitalized. I have experienced ECT
treatments because my depression was extremely severe. Ever so slowly, the
deep depression will lift however; I always even out on the “low” side.
So, I suffer from a stigmatized mental illness. I learned to deal with this
fact. For the record, I am not one bit ashamed to admit that I have Bipolar
Disorder. It’s a brain-based illness that I have no control over. I have been
through countless medication trials, nineteen hospitalizations since being
diagnosed. I have attempted suicide on three occasions. I'm still trying to
stabilize my rapidly changing moods. The illness can be very taxing at times,
making one weary. Manic Depression is bittersweet.
Juliet Wilkerson