I have been lurking around on this site for a while before I decided to join...and questions like this one was one of the main reasons. I’m mainly here to learn but I’m also here to help.

Raven, if I may call you that...you have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to be ashamed of! Before I was diagnosed, I lived over fifty years as a person with serious issues, one of them being bipolar 1. If I could remember how many times I struck out on my own only to burst into bright orange flames and come back to the folks with whatever I could fit into whatever beater I was driving, it would be in the double digits and most likely past 15. The Uber shameful, self esteem destroying part is the last several of those returns included two little people who couldn’t understand why their mom was so messed up. There is no measure for how low that felt.

The important thing is that I kept going, I kept trying and I never stopped in my quest to figure out if I was the one who was nuts or was it every body else. I read, I researched and I quested towards any pure feeling light I could find until I discovered the, then, (I’m old), theory of Mindfulness. It was my research into that way of thinking that led to me relearning how to not hate myself which turned into slowly losing enough self loathing to gain confidence to really figure this out. I made sooo many mistakes. It’s actually a bit comical looking back. I’m in the process of structuring a bio of the entire journey, but...anyway, the thing is, this is who you are. You are a person no better or worse than anyone else, and right now, you’ve become self aware enough to know you need a bit of help. Do you know how awesome you are for taking that kind of responsibility for your self care?! Well, you are. Nothing in this life or even this physical plane is permanent. You are not the person you were yesterday. Hell, you aren’t even the person you were when you started reading this babbling, too long reply. We change constantly. It’s unavoidable. Every second, every breath you take is like a completely new chance to be better...to yourself and for yourself. So, don’t ever feel shame for doing whatever you need to do to be better for yourself. Ok? Ok. It does get brighter. If I can get to a place of suedo mental stability doing what I love to do, being creative, and have people pay me to read what I write and purchase the art I create, then anybody can. I’ve had nothing so many times but I always kept holding on to hope. Don’t sweat it. Rock on! Or throw rocks...at ponds...not people...they tend to frown on that.