Bipolar Disorder by Anonymous

My father is bipolar and is complete denial about it; always has been. As a child we had to constantly walk on eggshells in fear that he might flip out.  I can remember him going weeks without saying a word during depressive phases. It wasn't easy to watch or live through, but little did I know that soon enough I'd be going through the same thing.

Most of my problems surfaced around puberty.  There were lots of fights with my parents, broken objects from my rage, I ran away from home, etc.  I felt so crazy being extremely happy one minute then devastatingly sad the next.  You just don't know what to do.  I decided, however, that I was not going to go through life like my father did.

I did some research and was diagnosed bipolar around 22--no surprise to me.  I've been on more medications than I can count, and none of them helped me.  Most of them made me feel spaced out and like a robot.  I didn't understand what was going on around me. Sometimes I would sleep for days and other times I couldn’t sleep at all.  It seemed to me that the medications all made my condition worse.

Right before I turned 24, I started smoking marijuana. I couldn’t believe the difference it made in my life, especially if I was in crisis. 

When I hit a manic spell, I always think I need to run away.  For no reason whatsoever, I woke up one morning and decided that I needed to move to Hawaii. I had the paranoid idea that everyone hated me and everyone knew I was crazy, including my family and friends, and the best thing to do would be to just move to the other side of the country. I packed all I could manage in my car.  My plan was to drive across the country as far as I could go in Cali, and then perhaps take a plane or a boat to Hawaii. I got maybe 30 miles down the road and decided that it wouldn't hurt for me to smoke a little bit.  By the time I had taken the third hit, I was thinking, "Whoa, what am I doing?  Hawaii?  What was I thinking?"  So I turned around and went home and nobody ever even knew I was going to move.

There are tons of stories similar to this one that I could relate to you.  Most of the time, I don't get much of a high feeling, especially if I'm in a mood. It just brings me back up to level. 

Sometimes, (and this is strange to me) I will be in such a mood that I have to actually force myself to smoke because I know if I do I will be better.  Have you ever heard of such a thing?  A person who has to make themselves smoke? 

At any rate, I am 30 now and these last 6 years of my life have been spent much better than my first 23 were.  I'm grateful to have found this remedy and I'm also glad that I am not killing off my kidneys and liver with pills that didn't work anyway.