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One Year On - A Personal Essay - Page 2

© John McManamy

Someone there had posted ten reasons you know you're bipolar. Reason number ten, as I recall, was you know you're bipolar if you think Robin Williams should stop being so laid-back.

Somehow I knew I had found a home of sorts.

A few weeks later came a cryptic posting calling for writers. I was a writer. I replied. It turned out the person who ran the board happened to be the mental health editor here as well as the bipolar editor, Colleen Sullivan. She was looking for someone to write on depression. I told her I was good for maybe four articles.

Unbelievably she did not break off the correspondence.

So I sat down at the keyboard and typed:

"Depression isn't the word for it," I wrote. "We're talking about a condition that can take over your mind, rob you of your dignity, deprive you of all the joyful offerings of life, and leave you nose down in two inches of water, feeling totally abandoned by man and God."

Next thing I know, I was the Suite's Depression editor.

I would write as I learned, I decided, one article at a time. It would all be tied into my recovery. In the space of one week, I banged out three articles, then another three in another week, all backed up and waiting to go. There was no question in my mind now - I would have plenty to write about.

Writing is what helped bring me back from the dead. For me, it is a healing activity. If I were a basketball player I'd be shooting hoops, if I were a gardener I would be out with the petunias. Healing is about finding something that makes you feel alive and doing it. When I'm in full flight there is no time and space. The sun takes its leave, booming music falls mute, and the steaming hot cup of tea by my side is stone cold when I pick it up a minute later.

After six months in the land of the living dead, I was writing again, and really writing. I was still writing in the shadow of depression, but I was writing. I was reclaiming my life, one article at a time.

For three free issues of my depression and bipolar newsletter, mailto:jmcmanamy@snet.net and put "Newsletter" in the subject line and your email in the body.

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