When I was eight, the school psychiatrist decreed that I was "Clinically Depressed." Okay. But that label never got me treatment or meds or anything that made me even marginally better. It always seemed that my world was just somehow a bit "off" from the rest of the world. Time passes. Three more psychiatrists have cause to declare me, "Clinically Depressed." More time goes by. Life happens. I am sixty-three. Another psychiatrist considers my history & says, "Not depressed. Bi-Polar 2!"

My antidepressant is continued, but a mood-stabilizer is added. A good eighty percent of everything that had ever been a problem for me in my day-to-day life seems to solve itself. I coast in a little bit of heaven for two years. Then: a shattering depression, far worse than any I have known before, spreads through me. Unlike other times, it is connected to no event whatever, however inconsequential. Other drugs have been added, not helped, removed; added, not helped, removed; added, not helped, removed--etc. Now the original pair seem to be doing nothing. Life is terrible, certainly not worth getting up for. I can't figure how I got here & I don't know where to take it now.

My doctor gave me this website. He thought it might help.