I guess. Before that everyone just thought I had major depressions. I had a lot of moodswings. I still have bouts with that. Someone will say something critical to me and I just slip into the depression and spiral down.

I write a little still. Poetry. But I use to write and draw a lot. The medicines stunted that, I think. I take depakote, topamax, seraquel, tegretol (for the bipolar and my seizure condition)...heart meds. Asthma meds. You name it. Celexa.

Before this combination of bipolar medicines I was a mess. I was promiscuous, and doing things without thinking. I'm married and it has been a long journey to an attempt at sanity. I tried to commit suicide the first time when I was 13, cutting my wrists. Many times after, over the years.

One time when my two children were 2 and 2 months. I called my friend to take my children, and told her I had taken a lot of pills; that she needed to take the kids. She lived in my same building. She called the ambulance and my stomach was pumped.

 
Not surprising that I did that because my own mother tried to kill herself at 7 months pregnant with my twin and I. Yes, I am a product of my own mothers mental illness; that was never diagnosed. She's passed on now. But all the times I remember her with a knife threatening to kill herself when I was a child, come rushing back. I hate that I became her as an adult myself. I loved my mom and miss her dearly. She died peacefully, and not the same person as she had been years before. But the scars you put on your children when you suffer your illness are there...even if you have no control to stop them from happening.

My children are adults now. 18 and 21. My oldest, Lacey; will tell you that she was the mom for way too many years that she should have been a kid. And it hurts. She hates all the medicines I take now, being artistic herself; she doesn't understand why I had to choose to take the meds that stop me from being artistic. But I just had to. I am not well.

I still feel like the little kid that hurt. My father was abusive. My ex husband beat me. And now that I'm married 18 years to a good guy, I can't always
appreciate my life. My husband works all the time since I can't. It's hard to function sometimes. If my children get mad at me..I take it personally and that little voice inside me says, "You are not worth living."

To my daughter who shares a car with me and says to me often, "You don't need it. You don't have a life." And then takes my car almost every day..I argue with and then let her win. She works and goes to school. I let her take the car and leave me with no car to do things with, even though she could let me drop her off sometimes. I am not a fighter. I just have no will to stand up for myself.

My meds make me fatter and fatter. And now here I am writing a book. Forgive me. I guess I've been in need of a good opening up. My therapist next session isn't for a couple of weeks. Thanks for this club. We all need a place for expression.

Rhonda Susco