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2004-12-20, 2:49 p.m.

Sometimes bipolar disorder seems like a terminal illness.
It goes on and on. There are treatment options but they come at a mental, physical, spiritual, emotional, and financial cost.
You have to go through dozens of treatment options in your life. You can't skip doctors appointments. You can't skip meds. Sometimes things get bad enough to send you to the hospital for a little while.
Treatment options keep things nice for a while, sometimes. In many cases they prolong your life. They often improve the quality of your life.
But nonetheless, you still spend much much of your life in pain.
Much like a terminal illness, bp spreds all over your body. It can make you hurt from head to toe. It has an effect on your family, friends, job, you name it.
At least with a terminal illness you often retain your will to fight. With bp...that is often eaten up so easily.
A common thread among folks like me is that horrid hopeless feeling. No matter how many times you beat the depression, you know it will come back. Even at your worst...you know it isn't the way you are supposed to be...but even at that low low point, you know that when things get better, they will always fall again.
It's tiring.
Don't get me wrong...despite it all, i do like a lot of things in my life. I like being alive. But I know that life is harder than death.
I pray they find a cure for this crap someday....that way wonderful, creative, intelligent people will stop dying from it. That way incredible and sensitive people will never again turn into shaking victims of the american mental health system.
When a cure is found, children will no longer be left out of the socialization process that other children experience. Due to the quirks within the bp child's mind and often eccentric behaviors, these children are often left to the side of the group. Sometimes they read quietly alone...sometimes they act out and get in trouble. It could be many things, but if they found a cure, it wouldn't happpen anymore.
If they found a cure, I would feel more comfortable having kids. As a bp, I have to face the concept of 9 months of pregnancy and many months post partum that will mess w/ me in many ways. No meds...nothing. HOw? I haven't even had 5 stabil months in my life??!! Have you seen the movie The Hours? The woman in the 50's was ready to kill herself despite the pregnancy. BP women don't mean to be that horrid or cruel...but you get to a point sometimes that even the promise of giving birth cannot keep you alive.
That could be me. Then on top of that, if both the child and I made it through...I have many hormonal stress filled months beyond that.
But me...I have a choice. I can recognize this within myself and know that it is not an option for me, at least now. But so many women don't face that. Many things stand in the way...socioeconomic factors, culture, family history, drug abuse/addiction, and selfishness.

When they find a cure...I will wait in line for it. I want to be upset or sad for a reason. I want to be happy for a reason. I want to handle the real weight of my problems...not the perceived weight of these matters. I want to stop it.
Even if they don't find a cure...even if they find a treatment that will work for 96% of bp people....i would take it. This kind of drug would be like my Synthroid. It works just the way your body should. No big deal...a pill a day. No side effects. No problems. And it would be cheap and avail in generic form.
Till then *sigh* Status quo. Pill help...sometimes. But not enough for me to ever let my guard down.

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