It's funny, I never thought i would write about my life as it is/was before and after my diagnosis. Then again it might well be a good thing to do.

Since this morning (I'm Hypomanic at the moment) I have felt the need to write this. I often wonder why it took so long to get a diagnosis. It makes me really mad that a lot of people in the psyche business think you should treat the symptom and not the illness. From what i have read its 50/50 split of people who cope better/worse after a proper diagnosis.

I fall into the former category. As soon as i was diagnosed with BiPolar2 I went and found out as much as I could. people who know me said it was the teacher in me that did it. I knew differently. Since i was very young i have had a thirst for knowledge. If I didn't understand something i was driven to find out more.

The funny thing about that was I went to a very strict catholic secondary school and of all people it was my RE teacher that taught me to follow my intuition and ask questions, which I did. Questions about another question, about another and so on. I was very proud of my free thinking nature.

Home was generally happy but there was always the threat of violence from my mother, she abused me physically and emotionally. I have a scar inside my mouth from many years back when she scratched the inside of my mouth. Nothing was ever good enough, I'd get a B grade and she would say "Why not an A?"

Her reasoning for this was I needed pushing, the thing is that I didn't, in fact quite the opposite both my younger brother and sister were encouraged. My bro outdid me on his own terms and now works as a games designer in Iceland he did it on his own terms. My sister was driven to a supposed eating disorder and never EVER sat an exam. (Truth I found out was she couldn't take the pressure of being compared to me. Yeah, I'm smart and creative Thank you BiPolar). Her grades never did match mine but even if they did, I EARNED mine.

I went to Uni and truly learned to be free. Still with occasional phonecalls from my mother to try to keep her dominance. Looking back, it was during this time I showed signes of (Hypo)mania/Severe Depression and self medication. I was put on anti depressants and everything was good.

I graduated with a 2.1 BA Hons in Theatre Studies and English lit. I also studied philosophy. To me that was an escape, a chance to truly know myself.

I decided to become a teacher, met my wife to be and had my first mental breakdown. I was diagnosed Obsessive compulsive and put on (you guessed it) Anti depressants. I took time off work and I seemed to get better. (It was around this time that I started to pull my hair out, this was before i discovered blades)

I got better, I moved schools and then in quick succession I lost two members of my family that i actually gave a damn about My grandma and my aunt (She was like my second mom and I miss her every day). Then my dad had a heart attack. 4 years after my first breakdown I had my next and again I was self harming but no crisis intervention, just different anti-depressants (by this time I had tried 3 maybe 4 types) and a referral to CBT (I found out since then it is a 50/50 thing with CBT and i was asked a lot of questions that made me very uncomfortable) I was 30 at the time and at no point had anyone suggested I should see a Pdoc. I got better (Not really better just hypomania then normality for a while).

About a year and a half ago I thought we had it cracked I was put on sertraline and it made me feel better, then it just drove me nuts with waaaay too much energy. I discovered blades and have used them since.

June of last year I had a serious attempt to end my life. With that and a Doctor who said that maybe the highs were the problem, I was referred to the city crisis team. They were there visited me every day. I no longer felt alone. I was put on a low dose of Seroquel (the normal stuff not the slow release I'm on at the moment.) At first it was...

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