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Chapter 1

HOPE

Are you feeling depressed? Do you suffer from bipolar disorder—once called manic depression or bipolar depression? If so, take heart. I know it is a terrible way to feel, so I will not make light of it. However, there is hope! There is light at the end of the tunnel. Recovery from this darkness is possible. I assure you, for I am experiencing it now, after living with and working through my own bipolar depression. For over a decade, I am in recovery and am in control, rather than an illness or disease controlling me. I prefer to call it a dis-ease. I also have family members who have struggled with the same disease. I have experienced both sides: what it is like to suffer from the disease itself and what it is like having family members who have the problem.

So why say, "take heart"? Without the rain, can there be a rainbow? Without the night, can we appreciate the dawn?

Did you know that many great people have struggled with depression or bipolar? Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Theodore Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Ernest Hemingway and Saint Francis of Assisi are a few of these. Are you a great person? Yes, you are. We all are. It's often just a matter of breaking through the surface stuff, to get through to the greatness that is in us all. We must get to the real person. We must get to the person behind the mask which many of us wear, the person that is who we are, the unique person who has a special place in the Master’s plan which only he or she can fill, the person who has a reason to live, a purpose in life.

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