Your Stories

Cole Max’s Story

I started to begin this by saying that having Bipolar Disorder has changed my life, but actually I don’t remember my life ever changing I have just been ME my whole life. I would say I really started to feeling depressed, and cut off from emotion when I was five years old. My oldest brother was just born and there was no longer room for me on my mom’s lap. I can remember every night for what seemed like years crying myself to sleep thinking I was completely unloved and utterly alone is this great big world. That was the end of my childhood as far as I am concerned; because I don’t think any child should have to face the every day battle of wanting to want to stay alive. Every day Bipolar Disorder tells me life isn’t worth living and I have to fight back with all my strength to say that I am worth it.

There have been times in my life when I didn’t even have the strength to pick up a fork, and my dad would have to carry me to my bed and I would just lay there completely numb, unable to move or think rationally. By the time I hit 18 I had lost all control over my life, I turned to worldly things trying to find in them the medication I so desperately needed. Those were some of the happiest times of my life, and some of the most miserable too. Finally after years of telling my parents I need help I just laid it all out on the table and told them they had to help me or else it was done trying to stay alive. My mom took me to our family doctor thinking she would prescribe some miracle drug and everyone could get on with their lives.When the doctor said I needed to be evaluated by the behavioral center she broke out in tears finally realizing how serious my situation was. Oddly this made me smile because for the first time in probably 13 years I felt loved. The behavioral center was a joke I couldn’t even tell them my story, or convey the way I really felt because I could tell they didn’t care. They referred me to a class A quack who put me on a medicine that sent me spiraling deeper into depression than I had ever been before. Finally in the end I ended up in Minirth Clinic in Richardson TX and actually got a foot in the door on my way to hope. After that life was a roller coaster of extreme emotions to say the least, I went through many medications and treatments, but the thing that really got me through was something I learned from Dr. Minirth’s book called “Happiness Is A Choice” and it was just that that you have to make a conscious effort to be happy. I still feel like I am in the midst of a war within myself daily, but with the help of family, medication, knowledge and most importantly God I have been able to to win all of the major battles up to this second. So to all you other Bipolar Survivors keep up the fight and spread the word that happiness is a choice and that Bipolar Disorder is as real as you and me. We are soldiers fighting a battle often no one else can even see.