Hey CCL, I won't feign surprise that you reconsidered leaving the forums, but without any pretense, I can sure tell you I'm glad that you did.

I've read quite a few of your many posts, and indeed, you have opened up here. The feeling of vulnerability you mention is very familiar to me. Maybe it's just a feeling though. It seems to have become my forever goal to see the difference between how I feel and who I am. The two are seldom the same it seems at times. I suspect that is true for most people, but possibly more so for (I think the medical term is nutcases) those of us affected by bipolar.

As I read your account of the day at the amusement park, I couldn't help projecting myself into your story. If I indulge my manic bouts I experience a corresponding backlash of depression to follow. I didn't notice the dates between the amusement park, and your door slam post, but i'm guessing they are mirror image events. One as low as the other was high.

It really sounds like you are rapid cycling, also part of my psychiatric cocktail. The depakote may help with that. Unfortunately, that is one that takes some time to begin to work and then more time to titrate to a level that is ideal for you. Most of the drugs are like that. However I was given alonzopine once for a crisis mental state, and was amazed that it worked within an hour to restore calm inside. You might talk with your doc about long term and crisis type meds. It's going to take some patience on your part though for sure.

Not to dress bp up in a hallmark card disguise or anything, but there is a gift in all of this. You, like me, like anyone confronting any mental "illness," are forced into a level of awareness of self vs feeling that everyone in the world would benefit enourmously from, but which the "undiagnosed" may never encounter in their meanderings through this maze of life. Sure, I'm a nutcase, but that insight has come to mean so much to me that I wouldn't trade my "disorder" for the return of my former level of ignorance.

So, CCL, glad you're still here. Feel free to slam the door as often as you need to. Call it a coping skill. No one here will freak out. Sheesh, look around you, its an epidemic here.

Peace.