Bipolar Disorder & OCD!

I consider myself very lucky that I get accepted for who I am at my swimmingclub and at my riding school. All those people take me for who I am and don't look at all the prejudices that come with my disorder. They always cheer me up when I feel down or depressed about my life. They keep telling me that I'm a great person no matter what. When I feel insecure I can always remember I shouldn't be, that I can be who I am!

Im so glad that as young as you all are your working to work thew your problems and not let them limit you in your life, I to spent years not going out my door..I was to the point that muscles had
started to go to weak, took me a year to be albe to walk again.I had no one.I was alone.I called my daughter to bring food and water.
She was on drugs at that time and did not care about nothing else.
I lived next door to my brother, and never saw him or his wife.
All my family lived within miles, no one cared.I feel so bad for evey one that is homebound, and pray for them to be able to get the help they need, mental or physical.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/essexdebs/5711613801/" title="For a friend by EssexDebs, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2411/5711613801_5d9e3c3a22_z.jpg" width="640" height="474" alt="For a friend"></a>

Although I've never talked to a doc about it I know I suffer from depression. It started mostly in middle school. I hated myself and my life and my family so much and I would get so depressed that I would think about killing myself. I've written a few letters to my family but I've never given them out. I don't know why but for a few years after middle school I felt better, it was like a veil had suddenly been lifted and I started to smile more and I started learning how to play the guitar and I would talk more and joke more and people around me started saying things like "oh my god, you're hilarious! I never knew you were so funny. Why were you always so quiet?" My mom noticed the change as well and commented on how I was less closed off from the world but for the past couple years it has come back. Now stronger than ever. I don't think about killing myself anymore but I'm just so mad at myself for everything. I'm sad about everything. I cry at TV shows when things are sad. But I cry even more when they're really happy and I think it's because I'm so jealous of that. Even writing this right now is making me cry. I cry all the time when I'm alone so I try to lose myself in things like poetry or crafting or silly computer games.

I never told anyone this but I have pretty serious abandonment issues. I've had them all my life starting really young. I would never want to go to school and I hated being there so much where my body would make itself sick by thowing up because it would get me sent home. It got so bad that I had been missing so many days that they wouldn't send me home if I got sick anymore. I remember my dad dropping me off at school and I remember crying so hard and begging to leave that a female teacher grabbed me by the shirt and kind of picked me up a bit I also remember that no one at the school believed me when I told them because the teacher was supposedly a nice one who always helped everyone. I also remember another teacher saying it never happened and saying that she was there the whole time and I was lying. I think that's what sparked my hatred with school. I've always been a very good student and I always tested very well and far above average but I hated going to that damn place. Middle school was the worst. That place was hell. I actually missed 80 days of school in one year which is far above the amount of days allowed but no one did anything because I was getting all A's and I graduated with a model student award and an excellence award.

I know I've been going on for a very long time now but I've never told anyone this and it's very freeing. It's just that I know that I'm caught in a viscious cycle but I can't seem to break free. I didn't do well in post-secondary because of my anxiety/abandonment issues/depression and because I didn't do very well and decided to stop I'm so dissapointed with myself and mad and it has only caused my issues to get worse. I know I had to stop going to school and get out of that situation because I started not being able to sleep to the point that I would stay up all night till 9AM just to pass out and wake up at four. Also my chronic anxiety made me worry about everything from deadlines to student loans and (I don't mean to be gross) but I would go to the bathroom 10-15 times a day till the point where I started bleeding and developing stomach problems. Being at that school and in that program was toxic for me but I feel like a failure now. I'm thinking of going to community college this fall because I'll be close to home and in a different program but just thinking about it I've already got anxiety and knots in my stomach. I don't know if I should seek help... Maybe a doctor would be able to help me get my life back because right now I feel like a shell of who I should be.

Wow I'm sorry for going on for this long but I've just been carrying this around for so long. It sucks to know you're sick when no one else can really see it because it makes you feel even more closed off from the world.