Bipolar is what I have, not who I am. While growing up, my friends and family used to joke around stating that, "I was as moody as a women suffering from PMS". This went on until I was about 19, when one evening my mom asked if I had ever thought about killing myself. I couldn't lie, I told her, "YES, more than I’d like to admit," and she realized how serious I was. Over the next 6 years, I saw 6-7 different doctors (not one a Psychologist) who always asked me the same question, “Do you feel normal?” What the hell does normal feel like? The real question should be, when driving, do you feel like jerking the steering wheel, crashing head into a tree? I know for myself, I have no idea what “normal” is or feels like. Is it normal to get so depressed and upset that you punch a hole in the wall, then 10 minutes later you are as happy as you were on your 16 birthday. Does a normal person burst into tears for no reason? Is it normal to decide in one day, that you are going to pack all of your things into garbage bags, drop out of a well-known university, and follow your girlfriend to Chicago, having never been to Chicago before and not having a job.
 
At the age of 25, my crazy life came to ahead. While attending and working at the Chicago School of Massage Therapy and secretly living with the President of the school, I was forcibly thrown out of my house and threatened to be kicked out of school. This was because I leaked an affair that the President of the school was having with the married Educational Director. Throughout this horrific year, there was always one constant, my now bestfriend, savior, and wife. When I didn't have the energy to care for myself, she stepped up and took charge, she found me a place to live, she left work to drive me to the train station so that I could spend time with my family during the holiday. She even confronted her traditional Polish mother and convinced her to let me stay the night, so that I had a place to sleep, other than in my truck, which was nearly out of gas. She is and always will be my living guardian angel.

 
While she was in the process of resuscitating my life, we came to realize that we had more in common than we thought. She too was Bipolar. Being ob both bipolar spectrums, bipolar I, we had a perfound understanding what eachother goes through. The fact that she knew what I was going though was a key proponent that pulled me out of my severe episode. Throughout courting and our 6 years of marriage, thus far, we have come to realize that our disorders play a part in every aspect of our lives, and we are and always will be each other’s advocate towards mental health.