Setting the Stage

Fourteen years ago an internist diagnosed me with chronic depression and prescribed anti-depressants. After two years of only minimal improvement, I went to a psychiatrist who re-diagnosed me as bipolar, and prescribed lithium.

I had to leave that doctor shortly after I began to work with him, because I took a new job in another state. But before I left him, he gave me two very valuable tools: proper medication, and an understanding that my perceptions define my life. With those tools I began to rebuild.

In that dozen years I've read a lot of books about change, more about constructive living, more about organization, still more about Buddhism. I bought (and sold) a house, married (and divorced) a husband, and buried my mother. I hope that by writing a blog, I can keep myself aware and moving, not get too comfortable on my mental sofa. After all, life is good now; it would be easy to just stop here.

My earliest memory of "the blues" dates from when I was five or six. I was diagnosed at 38. That's a lot of years of depression, and a lot of warped perception to work on when the meds kick in. This blog will probably help me; it would be terrific if it helped someone else as well.