SheilaM

Teens and Bipolar Disorder ,My Story
Posted Today at 07:52 AM by SheilaM
I am 19 and i have just been diagnosed with bipolar disorder on april 5th of this year (2008). I have been put on many medications since then and i guess you could say my life has been a rollercoaster ever since. Before my diagnosis i had went on a 3 week drug binge of coke, E, weed, xanax, alcohol, pretty much anything i could get a hold of. So after my binge, i told my mom that i wanted to kill myself, and then off to the E.R. we went. I thought it was funny how the people with the broken arms, legs , etc. were treated before the people threatening to take their own lives ha ha ha As if we could feel any less worthy of ourselves and now we are just a number sitting in a corner on a cot. So i went to rehab about 5 hours later , which is a complete sugarcoat of the words mental ward. And when i got up there i was like , What the hell? they had people like laying on the floor, and just screaming for no reason, telling you that you needed to help them find the yellow brick road so they could go home. At first i thought i didnt belong there, with these "nutcases". i have always known something was wrong with me, i just didnt know what, i smoked a lot of weed, so i was fine when i was high but when i ran out of weed i would become violent , histarical, and try to do anything i could to buy another bag of weed, pawn everything i owned. anyway back to the rehab, so they took my blood, took me to my room, gave me something to eat and i waited until the next morning to see the doctor. Let me tell you, that really helped, NOT! try coming off of all those drugs and then they tell you , sorry , the doctor doesnt come in until the morning, so im thinking okay, ill just put off my suicidal thoughts until the morning . (yeah im a smart ass too)
So yeah i thought coming to rehab would be like a vacation , ha ha was i wrong, people screamed all night long, the supervisors would check on you with their flashlights like every two hours, come take your blood at 5 in the morning. So even if you had no sleep before , you deffinetely werent getting any sleep on your first night. ecspecially with no meds.

so I was told by the doctor that i was bipolar, which runs in my family , and was expected for many years anyway. So, they put me on Lexapro, Xanax, and Ambien. So , to say to the least I was feeling pretty good, i started sleeping, going to groups, which was like art classes, group therapy, stuff like that. The doctors warned me not to get to close to anybody in there, not to give out my number, address, personal info. etc.

But these "nutcases" became my family, for once in my life, i felt like i belonged somewhere. I was always a caring person who liked to take care of people, so thats what i did. Talked people out of bad moods, i could make anyone laugh , even when they were crying. I loved it there, and after a while , when i didnt hear the screaming at night , i knew something was wrong. And that worried me even more. I always voluntered to get my blood drawn at the buttcrack of dawn so everyone else in my room could sleep (they had to do one per room everyday). I would trade up some things in my meals to others , kinda like they do in jail.

I accidentally fed chocolate to a diabetic, whoops, but he was happy lol He was an old black man named willy , id say he was pushing about 70 years old, and he was one of my favorites. They put him on so many drugs , he sounded like bill cosby but even worse.

I am a little white girl, that looks 14 , with an energetic,urban, caring personality, so everyone loved me, and the ones who didnt , were the girls, trying to get the mens attention .But everyone wanted to be around me just because i was never in a ****** mood, i always had a topic to talk about, im a tomboy/classy woman so i could talk anything from baseball to vanity fair, I wasnt after anyone in there. i was told by many that i would not find my prince charming in rehab. lol

Soon it came to the time, where i didnt want to go home from rehab, i felt safe there, there wasnt any illegal drugs to get a hold of, i could stop smoking ciggarettes, i would come out completely sober , for the first time since i was 12, i was going to be sober.

The doctor came in and asked me if i wanted to go home, and i said no , just one more day. and he understood, i was scared to go home, more scared than i was coming in there.
I met three men while i was in there and gave them my number one was an ex boxer who was 35, one was an alcoholic football player who was 22, and one was a diabetic x crack head who was 29. We all got released on the same day.

When my mom came and got me , i fought to stay there, when we went outside it was freezing, she offered me a jacket, i turned her down, just the feeling of wind sent shivers up my spine. it was wonderful. I did not leave on good terms, i did not want to leave, being in a car felt strange, seeing groups of people was very unsettling. i could not go to stores for a while, did not stay at family functions for very long, cut off all ties with old friends,my boyfriend, all of my past. I figured it was the only way i could start a future.

and now here i am it is August 22nd, i have been sober since april 5th , minus the blunt i smoked on 4th of july, he he he. And the 29 year old from rehab , called me and asked me on a date the day i got out. We have been together since then and still going strong. We complete each other, he is my other half, he is my soulmate. so to say to the least, not all bad things , have a bad ending. I am completing school (college) , i have a job which i start next thursday, Me and Dwain (from rehab) have moved into an apartment together and have lived there since May and we plan on getting married and having kids once we both get our careers started.

So for everyone who is at their rock bottom , or feeling hopeless, things do get better, dont kill yourself, it takes more guts to live than die, dying is giving up , giving into the system.
I thought things were never going to turn around for me and they did. I almost killed myself, and was unsuccessful, odviously there is something better for me in life that is keeping me here, so if anyone wants to talk or if any parents have any questions about there own kids............ i am an open book.

Oh yeah and the doctor was wrong, i did meet my prince charming in rehab

:ghug

Rowan

Hi Sheila welcome to SR and to Bottoms - I see you managed to post your story on it's very own thread - thanks for sharing

Hello fellow denizens of Assville - this laptop IS tricky! But I'll try again ..
daughter and I went tree-top trekking today in the Copeland Forest - beautiful! A very hot and humid day though, so we were soaked at the end of the course. We did beginners, intermediate and then the advanced course where we were 60 feet above the ground, going tree to tree using suspension bridges, ladders, logs, nets, tightwires... we were wearing harnesses and were careful to stay attached to the wire .. the bonus was a 1000 ft zip line at the end - sailing through the forest 60 feet up at 45 km/h, took 23 seconds .. and I FLEW! All that extra weight paid off

Great fun but what a workout! I skipped the gym ..
I'm tired. Went to a meeting tonight - first one in a week, and the church was so hot I had to leave a bit early. So did others ...

I hope everyone is good? I rented a couple flicks to watch tonight .. gonna watch Season 1 of The Office, and High Fidelity (2000 flick with John Cusack I keep promising myself that I will watch).

New movie out on DVD called Smart People is supposed to be good - but it was all out. Anybody see it yet?

SheilaM

Thank you for the welcome, it just helps me to hear about how everyone else has stayed sober, and i hope the best for everyone. I would really like somebody to talk too, as no one understands me, not friends ,family, teachers, nobody, i feel kind of lonely sometimes, just because no one knows what its like, they talk about bipolar like its just something the doctors say to put you on medicine and make money , god it pisses me off when people say that.

Anna

Hi Sheila,

Welcome!

You are not alone. We do understand. I am not bipolar, but have read enough about it on these boards to know it's a very difficult thing to live with.

I'm glad you found us.