do you like looking back to things that happened to you before diagnoses?

does it depress you- knowing that you are not that person anymore, do you enjoy telling stories of what you used to do and the things you got up to?

I love talking about my childhood. while a lot of it was full of abuse and uncertainty, I do have a lot of fond memories that make me smile (for example the rafting memory I just posted in BP questions!)

you?

I should add that I think some of my past memories are what help me keep going..

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!

I try not to look back on things. I guess I just feel awful about myself whenever I do that because I get upset with how "good" things were in my childhood, and how everything started going downhill around 14 y.o. and life was never the same after that, but that's just me personally.

I partially addressed this in therapy by writing a note to my therapist and handing it to her. She kinda gets where I'm coming from, but she and another psychologist think I had the beginnings of BP around 14 y.o., possibly even 12 y.o..

Indifferent. It was what it was, water under the bridge.

[Fuzzybear]

Interesting post and responses

There was good, there was bad...

Originally Posted by spikes

There was good, there was bad...

and ugly?

lol sorry I had to

you know the saying, right?. the good the bad and the ugly?