Good topic, ragingvortex!

My exact answer was not represented. I answered "It's fun to look back", but I have gained insight into periods I thought were all great, but realized were wrought with less desirable bipolar behavior.

There were indeed times/situations during my childhood and adult youth that were distressing and even traumatic, to varying degrees. However, back then I was more easily able/apt to put them behind me. That was a bit of a "stuffing" of pain and stress, actually. I thought it all rolled off my back, like Teflon, for the most part. However, stuff seeped through cracks and built up over time, like how a small foreign body in us can grow a tumor around it. Then it can't be ignored.

This and something I thought about a few months ago, reminded me of the children's book "Pierre: A Cautionary Tale in Five Chapters". Does anyone else know this book? I remember that the first time I heard it (the teacher played an audio book), I didn't understand why Pierre kept saying "I don't care." It goes on and on with him saying that. In the end, he was eaten by a lion. Even then, he repeated "I don't care". But he eventually learned to care and value many things, once he spent some time in the stomach of the lion. He even befriended the lion in the end. Though I haven't exactly befriended "my lion", I've come to peace with it, and we're amicable, to a degree. What an important chlldren's book that was to me!