My story...

I am the third of four children. I will be 41 in July and have two living sisters. One is 52, the other will be 35. My mother had a stillborn boy two years before I was born. My mother had severe post partum depression after I was born.

I am blind in my right eye and have been since birth.

When I was three, I fell through a plate glass door. I am lucky to be alive and almost lost my left arm. This was the trauma that started the dissociations I experience.

I was a shy, quiet child. When I grew up, I wanted to be a veterinarian, then a nurse, then a doctor....always medicine. At the age of 24, I finally earned my Bachelor's degree in clinical laboratory medicine and am a registered Medical Technologist.

I had my first depressive episodes as a young child and my first psychiatric hospitalization when I was 14. The manic episodes began when I was around 16, but it took 14 more years to get the correct diagnosis of Bipolar I. I have had 8 psych hospitalizations and have made two serious sui attempts. I have had ECT.

I had a severe depressive episode and postpartum OCD after the birth of my second child. At one point, I became too sick to care for my children and they had to live with other family members under the care of the state.

I have seen my mother's psych records noted with "paternal mental illness". My own records read "maternal psychiatric illness", as do my own daughter's records. I am wondering when this cycle will end.

I have been with my husband for 25 years and will be married for 19 years this month. We've had probably more than our share of ups and downs, but we still laugh a lot. If I had to write a book about our life together, it would be titled, "What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been".

I am on Social Security disability and trying to figure out where to go from here. My hair is beginning to turn grey, but I am reluctant to color it. I have fought like hell to survive as long as I have and have earned every grey hair I have.

The rest has yet to be written....