Bipolar disorder exists on both sides of my family. It has been regarded with great shame and secrecy. When I was fifteen I was sent to a school counselor. The counselor sent my to a psychiatrist. I was diagnosed with manis depression. I ran away and lived on the streets for two years. I spent the next twenty years of my life trying to keep my illness a secret. I lived in denial. There were moments it was hard to deny something was wrong. One morning I shaved my head, quit my job, dragged all my belongings out onto the front lawn and then I headed out to the rain forest on a vision quest. I returned a week later homeless. I found myself living in a an abandoned airplane hanger with a group of junkies. They played in a band called Endorphin. It was winter in the northwest. There were holes in the ceiling. We tried to cover the holes with big sheets of plastic. I remember lying there one morning just before dawn. I was lying on a concrete slab huddled between the bodies of two junkies trying to keep warm, wrapped in dirty blankets. The sheets of plastic had fallen down. They were waving in the morning breeze like ghosts. I lay there watching my breath crystallize in the cold wondering what happened. I never took drugs yet I was living a lifestyle surrounded by drug addicts. After two suicide attempts in the last year I decided to try medication and cognitive behavioral therapy. I am still struggling with acceptance and the mood swings. I would like to hear how others have arrived at a place of acceptance. I struggle with my routines. I am stable for a while and then a tornado builds up inside of me and I want to break free. I tear down the structures that keep me stable and the mania returns.