Sammy, your life story is truely inspiring and your living by the "golden rule" proves thewisdomof those ancient words. If I could ask any question it would be how do you do it long term? Without blowingmyown trumpet, I try hard to make others the focus of my attention and gve of myself to others, my wife has chron's disease and I am very involved in my religion and helping the needy. But I still after all these years have not learned how to stop giving or say no I order to prevent a deep depressive cycle. I can and do say yes to everyone when I am manic or even just on a high, and that might last 2-6 months. Bu that will always and I mean always lead inevitably to becoming overwhelmed, followed by anxiety attacks, then having to ungraciously let everyone down. Most people know around me have bipolar, and I found about 4 years ago that letting that cat out of the bag was one of the best things I ever did.
But the crash, the letting people down, the having to hide from society, not able to answerthephone, the door, and others although knowing labelling me as unreliable....it just kills me inside and kills any desire to climb back out of the hole- everyone knows sooner or later Ill be back there again.
How do you overcome that? Joy is derived from pleasing others but how do you derive that joy when other leave you feeling disappointed with yourself, or pity you. As I said I really really admire your innner strength, I wish I had it, but I dont, I have always needed the apporval of others.....what do you do if you are just weak and pathetic always needing reassurances from others to function?