Dear Daniel

Dear Daniel,

 I just saw a fellow author sharing his struggles with being diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Of how he didn’t mind the label but perhaps feared being ‘fixed’ or ‘medicated’. It’s been awhile since I’ve address this issue directly if I ever have.

When I was placed on medication my life was in such chaos that I craved a solution. My mind was such I couldn’t write. I was sleeping one hour a night. I heard my name being called and what sounded like fingertips tapping on glass.

My thoughts raced like on a race track. I could practically see them like streaks of neon light on an oval course. I couldn’t take care of myself. I may not have been quite bat crap crazy at the time but I sure as hell could see the road signs from there.

I was horrible, just wretched to my best friend and partner in crime Missy Goodman. I threw things, I threatened her. And yet, I begged her not to hospitalize me. I was a whore to her. A bitch. The worst of the worst. And yet when I reached out for help she didn’t reject me she helped me find the support I so desperately needed.

Texas wasn’t ideal for this breakdown but there was some help to be had and she drove me there, in the kind of neighborhood that perhaps you shouldn’t be in that kind of night all to help me.

They placed me on Lithium at first and while ultimately they took me off of it the medicine literally saved my life and my sanity. Over the course of the next year there were bumps along the way that would test both of these things.

I had to move back to Kentucky where, honestly I would get better mental health treatment. A better drug cocktail that would lead to my breakthrough in treatment. In the course of 15 years I’ve gone from someone who has not been to care for herself to a woman who tours the Con circuit with 12 books 28 publishing contracts, will be premiering a documentary based upon the memoir this blog inspired and is moving into self-publishing with friends.

So to the person nervously waiting in the doctor’s office, you aren’t alone. You are brave. You are courageous. This can be done.

Sincerely,

Amy McCorkle