On the National Alliance on Mental Illness’ web site they answer the question “what is bipolar disorder?” this way, “Bipolar disorder, or manic depression, is a medical illness that causes extreme shifts in mood, energy, and functioning. These changes may be subtle or dramatic and typically vary greatly over the course of a person’s life as well as among individuals. Over 10 million people in America have bipolar disorder, and the illness affects men and women equally. Bipolar disorder is a chronic and generally life-long condition with recurring episodes of mania and depression that can last from days to months that often begin in adolescence or early adulthood, and occasionally even in children. Most people generally require some sort of lifelong treatment. While medication is one key element in successful treatment of bipolar disorder, psychotherapy, support, and education about the illness are also essential components of the treatment process.”

I think a good way to describe living with bipolar disorder is by saying it is like driving in the mountains of western North Carolina where I now live. Sometimes you are high on a mountain and feel like you can see the whole world clearly and at other times you are in a hollow between mountains without much sunlight and the darkness seems to consume your soul. The problem is I am not always the best judge of exactly where I am at. Am I really on top of the mountain or is my brain just tricking me. Sometimes I ask my wife Patty, but then sometimes I don’t trust even her enough to ask her the question. At times it is very hard for me to tell where on the spectrum from depression to mania I am, but it is equally as hard for me to trust someone else to make the judgment for me.

Trust is an issue for most of my fellow sojourners or at least that is what I seem to have determined over the years talking with folks like me. It becomes even more of an issue for those of us who have been sexual abused as kids or abused at anytime in anyway. I guess I just haven’t met very many of us that don’t have some story of some kind of abuse to tell. I am not crying poor us here, but I am saying trust is a big issue for a great number of us.

Many times over the course of my life I have left my home and gone to the streets to live simply because I lost faith in the people around me and would rather take my chances where no one knew who I was. That was the period before 1989 that I call pre-Patty. I have not lived on the streets since I met Patty. That is not to say I always trust her when she tells me whether I am on the mountain on in the valley of the shadow of death.

The point is it is not easy to know where I am at a given time on the spectrum and whether I am headed up into mania or down into depression. It is not easy to know whether it is the disorder or just the ordinary up and downs of life that is causing the bumps.

I have said from the time I began writing and speaking about this issue that it is harder on the people that love me than it is on me. My family has suffered more than me because of my mental illness. That is why it is so important that faith communities reach out to those of us with mental illness and our families.

You can reach me directly at [email protected]

HOMEPAGE: http:// www.geocities.com/eecoop_2000/ed.html