~~Did you know an estimated 22.1 percent of Americans ages 18 and older – about one in five adults – suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder?~~Depressive disorder affects approximately 18.8 million American adults, or 9.5 per cent; major depression, 9.9 million adults, and bipolar disorder (manic-depression) about 2.3 million adults. ****** I have Bipolar Disorder. [...]

  Envision feeling lonely when you are actually with people; with friends, celebrating a birthday party at someone’s house.  You experience emptiness.  The room is filled with chatter and laughter, yet you are seated; numb. Depression is lonely.  Curled up in a ball – lonely. This actually happened to me.  I was pretty much forced to [...]

I conducted ‘chats’ with these courageous women while an in-patient on the psychiatric floor of a medical hospital, recovering from depression in 2002.  I was able to converse with each woman separately where they shared their stories. Note:  I was discharged earlier than any of these women; therefore at that point, a conclusion to each woman’s [...]

Written by: ME I describe bipolar as a house with three levels. Upstairs is Mania, Main Floor in even moods, and of course the basement where the shackles of Depression are clasped ever so tightly around your ankles.  I seem to wind up in the basement much more often than upstairs. I was diagnosed with Bipolar in the late [...]

See also TOXIC PARENTS .  I received many comments on this first article – seems there are so many people experiencing this. It was difficult at first, but now as time goes on I feel this weight lifted off me and the feelings of guilt just aren’t there.   I’ve cut ties with my family.  Just to know [...]

     I ultimately realized that depression was altering my life when I met some girls from work for dinner.  Sounds bizarre. Supervisor of three women in accounting, I enjoyed my position and found it a challenge. Crushing depression found me with two brief hospital admissions in 1994, and an on and off medical leave from [...]

Mental illness is surrounded by a glut of half-truths and untruths. If you tell someone that you’ve been diagnosed with, for example, bipolar disorder, they are likely to roll their eyes and say, “I don’t believe it – you don’t look mentally ill…?” Which brings me to my question: Do I perchance look like I [...]

When you first hear these words, you automatically think of losing your job.  I thought I would take it one step further and think back to some of the times I’ve actually been ‘fired’ in other situations. I will begin with the career position.  The ‘firing’ took place during my first year, in what would [...]

It was decided: Wednesday would be the day.  I’ve kept count; it will be #77, another nightmare procedure producing nil results and I’m pessimistic.  I have to keep going, plodding along, slowly – ever so slowly to somehow reach the top of the mountain. I’ve lost most of my faith in ECT, including most of [...]

I met Audrey in 1998, as an inpatient during one of my countless hospital stays.  Both of us were living and breathing pitch black depression.  We grew very close, seated in the lounge daily, forever sipping diet Coke.  Both of us were struggling though, both feeling as if we were being swallowed up by quicksand.  [...]