According to a NAMI, “2.6% of Americans live with bipolar disorder”*.

When I was first diagnosed, I felt so alone.  Being a sixteen-year-old girl coming out of a psychiatric hospital was terrifying.  I was already struggling to survive high school like everyone else was.  I had just started driving, had a new boyfriend, and my parents had recently divorced.  Now I was taking medication for the rest of my life to  stave off psychotic mania and possibly erase who I really was.  I told most people some vague story about  being sick, but I was fine now.

I don’t think I ever took the time to grieve the loss of normalcy.  I went to therapy, but  I didn’t attend any support groups, the internet had not caught on yet, and few celebrities had come out of the mental disorder closet.  As far as I knew, there was no one else like me outside of institutions and scary movies.

It wasn’t until I read Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison’s “An Unquiet Mind” (after I graduated high school), that I knew that you can have this disorder and be a doctor and writer.  She literally wrote the book on it (“Manic Depressive Illness”).  She gave me hope to succeed despite the disorder.  Even more wonderful, she tempted me with the thought I can succeed because of it (“Touched by Fire”).   Her books were life changing for me.

*https://www.nami.org/NAccoAMI/media/NAMI-Media/Infographics/GeneralMHFacts.pdf