Some days you have to get by minute by minute so that you can hopefully get to a day where you make it through a whole hour and then for a day. I've had a lot of those minute by minute days. It sucks. No other way to say it. I've had times where if one more person said "keep your chin up" I wanted to punch their chin. I hope that you can find some local support group. Not the doctors and social workers,although you need them, but people who have your experience so that they can help you up on bad days and have fun with you on good days.

Here is wishing you more good days than bad. Take care of yourself, there are people who care about you.

issues you do, but I have been where you are in terms of deep dark depression where every breath I took was filled with pain...mental and physical.

All I could see was a dark hole from which I would never climb out.

It hurt to be alive.

The good part is, you really can feel better. It will take a while, but it can happen. Often, we fail to see the little improvements and focus instead on the negatives, which, trust me, only makes matters all that much worse.

Try to find the smallest good thing in each day. The tiniest improvement, even if it's physical and not mental just now.

Our thoughts have the power to impact everything we feel.

Hope you're feeling better soon.

They also ask you if you want to harm or kill yourself. It's routine. It's part due to actual concern for your own safety, and part cya, concern for the safety of others in the infrequent case that they have a violent person on their hands.

Yeah, it's unfair, Denninmi. But you don't really have much of a choice, do you? You can try to get better OR you can go back to the way things were and things can possibly get even worse. I'd stick with the doctors.

Not that you can't talk about it here, it's just a good example of an issue a psychologist would deal with.

I know it's probably impossible for you to see this in a positive way right now, but something good really is happening to you. Try to keep the faith.

1) Denial: "No way I'm crazy!" or "I'm getting a second opinion. Something's wrong, but it's not bipolar." (I didn't actually go through that one. I cried in relief when I was diagnosed because it meant I didn't really have some flawed character or personality. It was just brain chemistry.)
2) Bargaining: "Lord/Universe/Whatever, I promise to do better things with my life if you just take this condition away from me."
3) Anger: "Why the hell do I have to have this stupid disease? I didn't ask for it! I don't deserve it!"
4) Depression: "Why should I even bother? I'll never have a normal life. I'll be sucking down pills day and night, and they only help a little."
5) Acceptance: "My life and my image of myself have been changed, but I can make the best of it and still thrive and enjoy who I am."

To be honest, I still haven't made it to step 5, but I think it's partly due to my cycling not being under control, and also a huge struggle with long-term grief over losing my parents. I guess as long as the chemistry is off-balance, that will be hard for me. Hopefully you will find the best doc and med combo possible and will be able to pick up the pieces and move on faster than I have.

the genetic roll of the dice fell the wrong way and stuck you with this mess. That if there is really a benevolent super-being watching over us, it sucks that you have been left to suffer.

And since the 'net is so hard to express emotion over, I want you to understand that I am completely, and utterly sincere and crying for your situation (and a little for my own, too to be honest.) You don't deserve this!

Do you know how many famous people, especially creative people have this?

LOTS...and if, as you say, you have no psychosis, you're probably only bi-polar II

like me, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Jane Pauley (she may be bipolar 1, actually)

Billy Joel tried to kill himself in his early twenties and did TWO stints in the mental hospital.

It's what inspired his song "Second Wind"..As you can see, he seems to have gone on to a rather

spectacular life since then...didn't hurt him a bit Do NOT worry about "labels" of any kind...Just concentrate on feeling better.

I've been where you are now, bro, and I KNOW how depression feels, but HOW you feel, rather

than whatever "label" you think you have, is what really counts...You're the same person you've always been.

I had a "breakdown" in my early twenties and they didn't have any decent

anti-depressants then, and I had to work it out in talk therapy and I DID and that sad person

I was became a distant memory...That was all like forty years ago, and I'm FINE now, feel good, no big problems, I'm sending

you all the best thoughts and wishes..

your sense of humor is in good form.
.

but it's very survivable, you'll see.

Just a thought, but if you feel embarrassed, or self-conscious

about the escort thing* keep in mind that everyone ELSE there has gone through the same

thing and the people who work there?...Meh...This is everyday stuff to them...They may

have even been through it themselves, or have family and friends who have...Really..It's much

more common than you might think


* Everyone I know who's been in a psychiatric hospital, myself included, has had this kind of experience.