by Eden Gardner

Created on: March 01, 2009   Last Updated: March 06, 2009

I can debate both sides of the "Bipolar Disorder: Illness or Excuse," argument because I've been there, I'm still there, I'll always be there and I agree that there is truth to both perspectives. However, I voted for "illness," because I'm practically an authority on the subject. You see, I was diagnosed Bipolar I, severe, with rapid cycling and mixed states. I was hospitalized and diagnosed in February 2007 at the ripe old age of 32. I have to admit that although I've always known I have quite a different kind of personlality than ANYONE I've ever known, I realize now, that I couldn't have been using my illness as an excuse; I wasn't aware I was ill.

As a child, I was extremely abused by every male I've ever encountered save my grandfather-God bless his soul. Partly as a result, I was what you could refer to as several cards short of a full deck. I was a very pretty young woman, highly promiscuous, had an addictive personality (which I still do), hung out with all the wrong people, often found myself in dangerous situations, made really bad choices and was completely out of control most of the time. I was a good girl, and received excellent grades as a small child, but by my teenage years, I was riding on a fast track to nowhere and cannot comprehend now how I had survived.

I had my first child at the age of twenty (although I had gotten pregnant at fifteen, but lost the baby to a drunkard boyfriend who beat me and threw me down a flight of stairs). I became obsessed with being a perfect parent and often found that my perfectionist personality was causing undue stress to my precious baby boy. I struggled through those first years trying to find myself, while desperately attempting to give my son what I never had; a normal family. However, my education once again became an obsession as well (it always was with me) and I began a slow and painful decline into my method of madness. The stress was too much; I hated the baby's father (who I am still married to today after 16 long years), fought with him constantly and eventually broke up my entire household. I left him after seven years, threw him out and slept with one of my employees (I was a supervisor and cook for a nursing home), drank until I couldn't stand, never paid my bills, lost my job and was eventually homeless because our habits never allowed us to pay the rent. My son's father and I did get back together eventually and I married him. But we spent the next eight months jumping from one relative's house

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