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After more than 4 years, I'll post a Part 2 to the story I began several years ago:
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FOREWORD

Section 1:

I open this foreword with a brief reference to two famous cases of depression. Case 1: On 3 February 2014 Ian Thorpe, Australia's famous swimming legend, was admitted to a rehabilitation clinic in Sydney Australia after neighbors found him dazed near his parents' home. Thorpe was taken to Bankstown Hospital by police before being admitted to a rehabilitation clinic. In his 2012 autobiography "This is Me", Thorpe admitted that he had at times considered suicide and confessed to drinking huge quantities of alcohol to deal with his crippling depression, a battle he had to deal with for years. In 2014 Thorpe was 31. Case 2: On 11 August 2014 Robin Williams committed suicide. He was 63. Psychologist Julie Cerel, chairperson of the board of the American Association of Suicidology, said Williams was known to have bipolar disorder, depression and problems with alcohol and drug abuse. I never had to deal with alcohol and drug abuse.

My battle, like the battle of all people who have to deal with clinical depression and/or bipolar disorder, and any one of the many forms and types of mental health disorders, is different to Thorpe's and Williams'. Both of these men and I had the black-dog hit us in our teens. I did not have to deal with alcohol, though, as Thorpe and Williams did. My life-narrative took a different course with depression. My journey through the several stages in the lifespan dealing with mental health problems, after they first hit me more than 50 years ago in my late teens in 1963, has been a circuitous route to say the least.

We know from Roland Barthes that beginning my story 50 years ago is a "chronological illusion." The illusion is created because the story really begins with the ending, with my present situation as I write these words. Roland Barthes(1915-1980) was a French literary theorist, philosopher, linguist, critic, and semiotician. Barthes' ideas explored a diverse range of fields and he influenced the development of schools of theory including structuralism, semiotics, social theory, anthropology and post-structuralism. More than fifty years later, in this sixth month after my 71st year, I still battle mental health issues, and they have been diagnosed several times since my teens. My story is found below; I encourage readers who come to this life-narrative to skim or scan it, surf-about to those sections of personal interest.

Section 1.1:

My story is far too long for the Facebook-oriented, twitter enthusiasts, the quick-hit, folk who prefer their print in the smallest does possible. In our world of print and image-glut lengthy accounts like the one below are primarily of use to those with a special interest in mental health issues or, arguably, any one of a number of other traumatic experiences that individuals have to deal with in life. In addition, my style of writing may only appeal to some. Writers only connect with a coterie of the 7.4 billion inhabitants on Earth less than half of whom are still unconnected to the world-wide-web. People who want short and pithy, compact and concise, terse and cogent, curt and crisp, stories and analyses need to look elsewhere in cyberspace's many literary fields. I write this especially for those who have mental health issues to face in their life but, since there are now literally 100s of sites with help for others, this is but one of many sources of help. I write, as I say, for a coterie of a coterie.

My lengthy story is now a 110,000 word(270 page, font-14; 350 page, font-16) longitudinal, retrospective and prospective account of my experience with bipolar disorder, as well as several other mental health problems over more than 70 years: from October 1943 to December 2014. This is a personal, clinical, and idiosyncratic study of what some life-study students call 'a chaos narrative'. This study focuses on an aspect of my life involving several mental health issues, but mainly bipolar 1 disorder. This account is now in the 3rd draft of its 14th edition. In my retirement, beginning in the first year of the 3rd millennium, 2001, I have revised the account each yeari) to add the changes in my medications and life experience, and (ii) to update the information base in relation to the relevant knowledge about mental health, and especially about BPD and several other disorders, as that base of information became available, for the most part, in cyberspace. The writer's job, among his or her many jobs, is to turn life into material so that others can find comfort in their own suffering and, better, so that others can find the courage to tell their own stories and, if not to tell their stories, at least find the courage to live them.

For more of my story Google the words: RonPrice BPD