Not just menopausal but crazy too.

I am bi-polar, which isn’t a big deal. It’s the mental illness that is all the rage. Everyone is bi-polar or knows someone who is bi-polar. I remember when I was first diagnosed back in the 70s when it was a big deal, something to be ashamed of, something you didn’t talk about because if your boss found out, well you could lose your job, if your ex-husband knew, he could take your children, and if your neighbors knew, they would look at you funny. It was manic depression in those days. I took lithium, haldol, and on more than one occasion thorazine. I was a mess and decided to stop the drugs and deal with the disease. You don’t deal with the disease. I am manic all the time with occasional bouts of depression. My depression is short lived but it is harsh when I do crash. I am always so manic that I can be disrupted, have lived on impulses, and can’t always be trusted with my credit cards. I know, that sounds weird but I have just up and moved in the middle of the night, left housefuls of furniture behind, lived on hot checks and credit cards, and even spent time in jail for writing hot checks. My children loved the manic me. I would go get them out of school to rock climb or look for wild flowers or shop in the mall or drive in the mountains. Finally, I did go back on medication but thank god, the medicines now are less harsh. I still don’t like them and often go off just so that I can have a few days of being the crazy me, the one with all the thoughts rushing through her brain, the one I like, not the subdued me who is like everyone else. When my oldest grandson was a baby, we used to go get lunch and hang out at the airport and watch the planes, or go to the mountains and look for deer, or fish at the lake. It was fun and he reminds me how much fun we have had. Bi-polar, I am concluding, isn’t so much a disease as a personality. A personality with gusto. One that is busy. One that is sad too. I suppose the medication is good and needed and so I take it, just like I take my arthritis medicine, my thyroid pills and my pain medication. At least I don’t hear voices, well I do but they are mine.