[justired]

Hello,

My name is Debbie and this is a brief explanation of why I'm here:

I had a very unhappy childhood, some things happened I won't go into. Not to mention a mother who was verbally abusive and so I did not have a safe person to turn to.

I became a young mother - 3 children now 26, 21 and 20. Married 21 years to a wonderful man who can still be aggravating at times. They are the reason I am still here.

The first time I tried to commit suicide I was around 13 years old. I also tried twice in my early twenties. I battled alcoholism for many years but have now been sober over 8 years.

They thought I just suffered from depression earlier on but the anti-depressants seemed to just make me worse. When I sobered up I was finally diagnosed with severe bipolar. Since then I have been hospitalized around 8 times I think - it gets a bit foggy. Mostly put in the hospital for being suicidal and self-harm. It makes me ashamed to even write all this down.

I've been on the medicine merry-go-round for many years. Most of the time I believe I was over-medicated. Almost lost my job because I could barely function. Now I do ECT every 2 weeks along with a few medicines which don't fog my brain too much.

I recently came off my seroquel completely - it had been about a 8 month journey. I got off the depakote and topamax faster. When I quit the seroquel completely I crashed. My ECT doc thought an extra session might help. It just made me unable to thing. Couldn't remember a darn thing.

About this time I was desperate. I searched online and found you all. Now I'm back on a low dose of seroquel, Elavil and Lithium. And, still the ECT (dang it).

I'm beginning to come out of it I thing. Got so low I really wanted to give up. Like I said, my family keeps me going at times like that. Got frustrated with my husband though (won't bore you with that too).

Wow! I can't believe I said all that. I'm sorry if I bored anyone or gave too much information. But it sure felt good to get it all out.

Thank you for being here and thank you to those who thought to start this and keep it going. You helped to save my life.

Debbie