I wrote a blog a couple of weeks ago-- "Mental Illness--Acting on Impulse!"--but this post is different. I am not focusing on impulsive behavior such as overspending, abusing drugs and alcohol and self-medicating moods. I want to talk about acting on emotions.

First, let me pull out my Thesaurus (I have not done this for. . .a month? Two? Long overdue?) to define the word impulse and then we'll narrow it down a bit--a lot. We'll apply it to mental illness and shake the word up a bit.

In my last post The Experience of Depression: The Flip-Side of Mania I focused on both depression and, you guessed it, mania. I have a secret: I'm not feeling so great. I am clinically depressed.

The title of this post suggests that I am focusing exclusively on bipolar disorder and this might be true in content, but the symptoms and the experience described below are common within the spectrum of all chronic mental illness. It is a shared experience among those who are diagnosed--and not just with with bipolar disorder--highs and lows, in part, define mental illness.

Because I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at a very young age, a whopping twelve years old, I have a hard time remembering a life before the diagnosis—before I was told, “Natalie, you have Bipolar Disorder.” The only thing I understood was that I missed the Halloween dance at school; that I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. But I remember being a little girl. A little girl who did not take medication. I remember long nights when I could not sleep; even longer days when I was crazed and manic. I recall my mother’s eyes, frightened, and my father's hands hugging me, telling me to calm down. That I would be okay. I can visualize in flashes my siblings; younger than I. Talking to them from the hospital. But it ends there. Life after the diagnosis has captured the rest of my life. At the age of twenty-six, the word ‘after’ lingers.

Let's pull out the good old thesaurus to attempt to define a feeling that is so prominent when you are diagnosed with mental illness: > Singleness >Alienation >Isolation Now, I usually pepper these definitions with a large amount of sarcasm because, usually, they are bloody ridiculous. Having said this, the above definitions make sense on my end. Mental Illness has alienated me, isolated me, and made me feel singular--not the same as others. That's what I want to explore in this blog: mental illness can make us feel terribly lonely and in order to recover we need to work to understand that while mental illness can make us feel isolated, we can move past it. Mental Illness is a Lonely Disease

This blog, Recovering from Mental Illness, allows me to explore many different topics. This post, "Visualizing Mental Illness" might be a bit tough to delve into, but I believe it's an important, albeit confusing, issue. Let's give it a fair shot.

Let me stress this: Do Not Self-Medicate Mental Illness. This is obvious, right? It should be simple. Why make things more complicated? Being diagnosed with mental illness is crazy enough, so why do a large portion of people, statistically, abuse drugs and alcohol? I'm human and sometimes I hurt. Just like you do. A few years ago: I have not slept in three days, maybe four. Sheets hang on my windows. The light stings my dilated eyes. I wince, even among the relative darkness I have created. I have not eaten in days; I drink water tainted with vitamins hoping that's enough.It's been days of drugs and of alcohol. I am surprised I have not died yet. For many years, that was my life. That was my way of dealing with the diagnosis. I hid behind drugs and alcohol because, in my mind, I would rather be an addict and alcoholic than to be bipolar.

It would be lovely if the diagnosis of mental illness came with a prescription for recovery that was given to all of us. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder? take this pill, you will be fine. You will be recovered! That would be nice, perfect, what a fantastic dream! Then you wake up. You take your medication. That's the reality. Recovery is different for all of this: treatment is never the same. Some of us, once diagnosed and treated, experience no symptoms of all. On the flip side, some of us struggle on a day to day basis.

Curing mental illness is simply not possible--despite limited controversy. That's the cold and hard truth. On the flip side, we can become well and experience very little, or no symptoms at all. That is the goal. How can we pursue it?