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I was diagnosed as having bipolar mood disorder roughly ten years ago. In the beginning I was totally out of control. While manic, I left my apartment and friends to wander the countryside while suffering fits of quasi-religious delusions. While depressed, I lacked even the energy to watch TV; it simply required too much concentration. Suicidal thoughts were an every day occurrence as I envisioned blood dripping from my body in flowing streams.

There were many reasons why I survived this ordeal: loving family and friends, among them. However, I wish to focus on the four crucial strategies (three of which, I used regularly) needed to fight mental illness: self advocating, dealing with health professionals, use of medications, and lastly, long-term patience.
First, one must learn the value of self advocating. Self advocation is essentially being able to speak up for yourself and your feelings, and being involved in your own treatment. The best way to do this is to learn as much as you can about your illness and your medications. Knowledge is power, and it is up to you to gain it. In this day and age, the Internet provides you a very powerful tool with a wealth of information at your fingertips. Also, only you know how you are feeling. And it is these feelings that can offer a litmus test for your current condition.
Secondly, you will have to get guidance from Health Professionals. Any mentally ill person should have, at one point or another, a therapist and a doctor (psychiatrist). Both are instrumental in confronting your disease. The therapist provides you with someone to talk to who can offer perspective. He provides a psychological sounding board, and a means of keeping yourself grounded. A psychiatrist is someone who can guide your treatment. She sets the dosages for your medications and keeps track of the progress or regress of your illness. She is also needed during relapses to get you back to "normal" and, once there, to keep you there.
Thirdly, most mentally ill individuals need medication. The medication offers day-to-day treatment. It helps suppress the symptoms of the disease and allows you to lead a normal life. It is important to recognize that current psychiatric medications are not cure-alls.
The last strategy is time. This may seem contrary to the notion of self advocating, but it is important. Don't expect to be cured overnight (in fact, for most mental illness, there is no cure; mental illness is a lifelong disease). Be patient. That is how I dealt with my illness. In order to survive, I focused on improvements that occurred on a weekly basis. Usually, I could not tell a difference on a day-to-day basis. But, when I let a week go by, I became conscious of the improvement in my condition however slight. That small granule of hope kept me going. I learned that I couldn't think of recovery in terms of weeks or months. Instead, I had to focus on periods of a year, or five years, or even ten. It has been nearly ten years now, and the improvement has been immeasurable.
In summary, then, medication and therapy provide short term relief from symptoms; they get you through the day, or the week, or maybe even the month. But I believe, the real progress is made by my body's own natural healing processes that simply require time.
In my case, I have gone from not being able to watch TV to holding a part-time job, while seeking to further a writing career. I have a life now. Ten years ago, I really didn't.

Learn more about this author, Matthew Ryan.
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