I wrote the following many years ago as a means of introducing myself to others who had come to me for help in coming to terms with their own diagnoses. Over the years I began to volunteer my time with different agencies to help others cope. Eventually I began a an open page on Facebook as well as a closed support group. I am often humbled by the lives that have been touched, changed or saved by my words and experience and the knowledge that we are not alone in this struggle. The hundreds of persons from all parts of the globe who regularly communicate their suffering and understanding among themselves and support, encourage and accept one another is profoundly moving. They have helped me as much as I have helped them. And for that, I am eternally grateful.

 Danish philosopher and theologian Soren Kierkegaard wisely said: “Life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived.” Many years later I read a maxim by Oscar Wilde “The final mystery is oneself.” It is a mystery why you and I have been afflicted with this troubling disease (bipolar depression). Perhaps, you too, once asked yourself “Why me and not the other members of our families?”  Perhaps, you also felt that it was some sort of a curse, or a punishment for past sins. In the beginning, when I had lost my mind completely for the first time in June of 1989, I felt what seemed to be an inner battle for both my soul and my mind. I felt, tasted and breathed a fear that I had never known before. I felt such shame in accepting the fact that I was “troubled in mind.” I felt certain that I had a broken brain as well as a broken heart. I did not know where to turn with that pain and for the better part of my life, I internalized it.
            There was then, and sadly still is, such a stigma attached to mental illness. I had the feeling that everyone was looking at me differently and strangers would know that I was “different.” I believed that people would treat me differently if they knew. Perhaps they would love and respect me less. I could not talk about it. I would not talk about it.
 I did not know what had happened to me, or why, but I could not forget the experience. The only thing I knew for certain was that none of my family, not my husband, or our children, our families or our friends, as much as they loved and supported me, could possibly know nor understand what I was going through. They recognized that something was seriously wrong with me. Hell, I knew something was wrong with me. But they did not know how to help me and their immediate response seemed to be “She’s broken, fix her.”
            None of them could feel my pain, share my shame, or touch my fear. Embracing that fear was the most difficult thing for me to do. I was not certain if it was my own fear, or the fear that I read in so many other peoples faces strangers and loved ones that bothered me more.
For the first time in my life, I surrendered completely to God who I desperately needed to take control of my situation and my life. I needed help to endure this trial. I had to trust that He would see me through. I had never felt closer to God than I did when I first became ill. It seemed that He was the only person who really heard me. It was the second time in my life that I became acutely aware of His presence, the first was when my mother had tried to kill herself when I was nineteen years old and I had found her sprawled on the upstairs hall floor in October of 1976 after she had overdosed on a bottle of sleeping pills. But this was the first time that I personally trusted God enough to help me personally. Perhaps that was part of the problem; I could not completely TRUST anyone.
            I recognized that I had fallen apart like Humpty Dumpty and wondered if I would ever gather the fragments of my former self together and be normal again. The truth is that I am not normal, I never was, and I knew it. But how does society define normal? We are all wounded and broken in various ways and to different degrees throughout our lives.
            Ernest Hemingway had written about being “strong at the broken places” and others have said that there are within each of us wounds that only God may touch. Mine was a wound, or a succession of wounds, so deep, I myself, did not know the depth of that pain.
We hurt and we heal by various degrees. Several years later, after my open heart surgery at aged thirty eight to repair a hole in my heart, my friend and ex-teacher Angie told me that sometimes the healing process hurts far more than the original wound. And she was right. This is a truth which can be applied to spiritual, psychological and emotional wounds as well. They are long painful healing processes that do not occur overnight.
            Our lives circumstances and our personalities make us very different people. We each have our individual coping mechanisms. I do not know you and you do not know me, but I share your pain-I know it well. I have been where you are now and lived with my disorder for many years. Every day is a constant struggle when you are mentally ill.
            Galileo had said “We cannot teach a man anything, we can only help him to discover it within himself.” What helped me may not necessarily help you. The drugs that worked for me may not work for you. It will take years of various medications and a long succession of doctors until you find the proper combination that works best for you.
            The first step in my own recovery was learning all that I could about this disease. It helped that my husband Ian was willing to learn all he could about it too, in an effort to understand what I was going through and what he should expect.
I then learned to accept it. Knowing that it is incurable, hereditary but that it could be controlled, gave me the hope and reassurance that I would not be lost in this darkness forever.
I then found a doctor whom I felt comfortable with and finally a medication that worked for me. This process did not happen overnight. It took me over nine years and three more psychotic breakdowns before it was under control. In the mean time, I deepened my spiritually and strengthened my relationships with my loved ones and with God. I read numerous books that helped me, one in particular by a psychiatrist Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison who is herself, bipolar since the age of seventeen. Her book “An Unquiet Mind” totally changed my life and gave me the courage to go back to school part-time in September 2002 to work on my English Literature degree.
            When reading the epilogue of Jamison’s book, I cried uncontrollably because for the first time since developing this disorder, someone described precisely how I felt and what I experienced with brutal honesty and raw emotion. She spoke as a patient and a fellow traveler on a long and arduous journey rather than as a doctor using medical jargon that I may or may not understand. Her approach was emphatic and compassionate rather than cold and clinical. She spoke from human experience rather than from a clinical perspective. She shared the pilgrimage with me and knew the darkness, both the highs and the lows. She did not let her illness define her, and from then on, neither would I.
            I too, had several things in my favour. I have a huge loving and supportive family including my in-laws, good friends and intense faith in a higher power and a strong sense of humour. Sadly, as I witnessed for myself during my hospitalizations, many patients, coping with mental illness do not have these blessings.
            Please understand that although most of my family does accept that I have this disorder not everyone in my family and not all of my friends understand nor want to understand this illness. Many of them view it as a character flaw, a weakness, or a blemish on the family history. Many do not want to deal with the issue and therefore, will not talk about it. In many cases, I think it is because it frightens them and the possibility that it could happen to any one of them; or to future generations is an abject reality they simply cannot or will not face. T. S. Eliot had said, “Human kind cannot bear very much reality” and he was right.
            If I had cancer, heart disease or any other physical disease they would be far more tolerant and understanding, but mental illness is generally viewed as a psychological disorder and the biological component is seldom addressed. It is a chemical imbalance in the brain which a drug helps regulate. If not for my medication, I would not be able to function as normally as I do.
 I love to read, to write, to reflect and to record these reflections in my journals. I enjoy long walks and being with my loved ones, especially the intimate candlelight dinners with my husband, and dancing with him until the wee hours of the morning. I love movies and popcorn, cooking various culinary dishes from different countries, good food, good company and good conversation. I love the sanctity and peace I feel in my home and being with my husband, my family and my friends.
            I have learned to love life and to count my blessings. I have learned to enjoy the moments. But most importantly, I have learned to embrace the pain, feel the full weight of it and then let it go. I have allowed myself the freedom to love and to allow myself to be loved in return. I have, since embarking on this journey, found a sense of purpose in my life, and as strangely as it sounds for having developed this disorder, a gratitude for having become a more compassionate, loving and tolerant human being because of it.
            Bipolar depression is part of who I am, but I do not let it control me. Life wounds all of us and the scars forever remain. Although I have learned to accept and to control my illness, I also learned to view the world and myself through very different eyes. I have changed my perceptions regarding many things. 
I can recommend various books to help you toward better spiritual, mental and emotional health. Books have always been my closest companions. They are friends, teachers, and guides. I do not know you, but I shall hold you in my heart, in my thoughts and always in my prayers.

Lynn-Marie Ramjass