Although I have only been diagnosed with bipolar II disorder this past year, the many psychiatrists and therapists I have been in contact with believe that it went unrecognized for a long time. My father also has bipolar disorder, but was never really able to control the intense emotions that come with the illness. I think that my experience with my father is what brought the illness out in the open so early in my life. While my parents were together, my father inflicted a lot of physical and verbal abuse towards my mom. This most likely was the cause of my first bought of depression. About three weeks after my father had packed his things and left for good, I made my first attempt at ending my life. I was eight years old. When my mom asked me why, I had just told her that I didn’t want to have to choose what side to take between the two of them. She was already so upset about the whole divorce and I didn’t want her to think it was her fault. My mom had called social services to ask them what she should do about the incident and they told her to not worry about it and just to talk to me. To make things worse, over time my father became just as abusive towards myself as he had been with my mom, until I finally had to tell him I was through and that I no longer wanted anything to do with him. As the years went on the illness made itself more prevalent. I became reclusive and miserable most of the time, but completely energized at others. I threw myself into my schoolwork and books to try to keep my mind occupied. I guess I thought that if I was always doing something I could somehow escape the way I was feeling. In high school, I played the tenor drums in the marching band, any other percussion instrument for concert band, was a member of the percussion ensemble, was an active member in many clubs, and even played small parts in a couple theater productions. The truth hit me hard after graduation. I was extremely depressed and living at home and going to a local college wasn’t helping matters. I was alone on most days. Even when the family was there, the constant fighting made me feel like I no longer had any control over my life. I started to self-injure, shoplift with my sister, drink and do drugs, and eventually made a second attempt to end my life. I started seeing the counselor at my school every week after I started having visual and auditory hallucinations. Most of the stuff she said didn’t really sink in until after finals were done. A couple weeks into summer, I decided to take proactive stance on getting well. I was good for most of that summer and at the end I chose to transfer schools. The very beginning of the year was alright, but I was slowly watching myself fall into old habits. One night, at a friend’s apartment, I ended up with alcohol poisoning. The next day I made an appointment to start seeing a counselor at Charlotte. UNC Charlotte has a psychiatrist on campus whose services are paid for through the student’s tuition. After the first visit I had with my counselor, she set me up an appointment with the psychiatrist, who diagnosed me with bipolar II disorder and general anxiety disorder. It took a couple of months and another suicide attempt for the doctor and I to figure out the right medication and dosage that worked for me. The medication, along with the counseling, made a world of difference to my whole outlook on life. I stopped taking the medication after about five months because I believed that I no longer needed it. That was the wrong choice. I became worse than before and once again wished to no longer live. I wrote a note to my family one day in Spanish class and had already decided that I would not fail this time. My step-dad kept a loaded handgun in his bedside dresser for easy access in case an intruder where to come into the house in the middle of the night. I had stopped seeing my individual counselor and had switched to group therapy. That afternoon one of the counselors asked me did I have anything on my mind that might I needed to get out in the open. I eventually let out the information about my note. They asked me for more details and I guess I assumed that what could it hurt, since I already shared my end goal. It seems that people become concerned when you share that kind of thing. I ended up spending ten days in a hospital psychiatric ward. It was the most bizarre experience of my life so far, but I learned a lot from the array of people that I met. Since that experience, I am once again trying to make things better for myself. I have been on my medication for two and a half months now and I am currently seeing a new therapist and psychiatrist. I am feeling a lot better that I was when I entered the hospital and I plan to keep things that way. My goal is to become a social worker, and even though I had to leave school a little before the end of the semester, my professors are allowing me to make up missed work so that I’ll still be on the right track to completing my degree on time. I have learned to use my family for support rather than try to face everything on my own, and to allow myself to talk about the way I am feeling with my therapist rather than just explain what I am currently doing. Most importantly though, I’ve learned to follow my doctor’s instructions and take my medication rather than making independent decisions regarding things that I should really ask a professional about before doing. I do not self-injure anymore, I no longer take any drugs that were not prescribed to me, I no longer drink because I know that I am not able to handle it, and I do not get involved with shoplifting with any of my siblings. I know that I still have a long road ahead of me, but without a shadow of a doubt, I believe that I can make it and become the person that I want to be.