Free Living Bipolar by Landon Sessions

into neurotoxicity multiple times.
    With all the med changes I started wetting the bed around seventeen. The next year when I went off to college I wet the bed once, and I was so embarrassed. It wasn’t my fault at all, because the doctors had me on so many pills. I was probably on four or five meds, and it was hard. It was hard adjusting.
    College was just lots and lots of drugs. During college my drug use went up a lot because it was a lot easier stomaching drugs to control my moods than the actual medicines that were supposed to help me. I could smoke a joint before bed and I could fall asleep. But if I took my meds I would have a stomach ache, I would be ill, and I wouldn’t get a good night's sleep. Also, I could take ecstasy and it would make me happy.
    When I came to Florida for treatment it was really hard. I had a manic episode once a month. It was really difficult because I would have the episode the third week of the month, and the second week of the month I would get ready for my manic episode. The third week of the month I would have the manic episode, and the fourth week of the month I would be dealing with repercussions of my manic episode. It was terrible.
    My mental illness is definitely related to my menstrual cycle. And I didn’t have a menstrual cycle one when I was using, and I didn’t have one when I first got clean. This through me off (my body) a lot. I had a manic episode once a month, and it was terrible. Because I hadn’t learned to deal with the episodes yet. I’d eat like a whole week's worth of pixie sticks, and then I wonder why my manic episode was so bad. I wasn’t being good to my illness during this time. I would go shopping and go on psychotic shopping sprees. My eating was bad. It was mostly sugar and coffee and things like that.
    I think a large part of my mental illness is taking care of myself. That’s the biggest thing. I wasn’t taking care of myself for a while. I was twenty when I came to treatment in August of 1999. For the first couple of years down here…I don’t consider life…they weren’t good years. I wasn’t taking care of myself, and I don’t think I was hanging out with the nicest people, and the best people.
    My therapist didn’t encourage me to eat better. But when I started doing it…better eating, exercise schedule, sleeping at the exact same time, taking my meds at the exact same time…when I started doing these things my therapist said it was good. My doctor never told me to do these things either, except for the sleeping. That’s the one thing my doctors want from me is taking my meds at the same time, so I can sleep at the same time.
    I pretty much found out on my own what to do to live healthy with my mental illness. I stopped drinking coffee all together about three years ago. I drink tea, lots of tea. My sugar intake is quite low. I cook well balanced meals three times a day. Eating better is good and it makes me feel better. I work out every day. I try to do things that make me happy -- like art. Art makes me happy. So I do that.
     
    ECT Electroconvulsive therapy ( ECT), also known as electroshock, ECT is generally used in severely depressed patients for whom psychotherapy and medication are proven ineffective. Also, it may be considered as an option when there is an imminent risk of suicide, because ECT reacts much quicker than antidepressant remedies. Typically, the procedure is performed on an inpatient basis, and maintenance may be administered on an outpatient once a week.
    The patient is required to fast for 8-12 hours prior to treatment. Administration of ECT is usually done by a psychiatrist, anesthesiologist, and other medical personal. The patient is anesthetized an electrical current is then passed through the brain, inducing a grand mal seizure. The seizures generally last thirty seconds, to over a minute, and the patient does not feel any pain.
    During the seizures there are a series of changes in brain waves. Upon awakening the