This is my father’s mother… She was very kooky… She would actually wear her
bathing suit and high-heeled sandals in her seniors’ apartment in the winter. She
also had like her complete likes switch at times she was violent towards my
Grandfather. She was only diagnosed near the
end of her life. My cousin has bipolar disorder,
my uncle has it, my brother is three years older.
He's also diagnosed with bipolar disorder type 2.
I would say as a child I did have a switch. So I'd either be in like a good
mood and then all of a sudden it would just snap. And when I got angry I used to
like bang my head on walls.
I think it was at the beginning of grade 11. I started having lots of panic attacks.
My heart would start racing, I felt like fainting, I would hide alcohol in my room
and drink. So I couldn't go to school.
[Music] I did like end up pushing away a lot of
my friends. A bunch of ups and downs destroyed a lot of my friendships and
relationships. Same thing with my family, I kind of lost their trust for a while. If
your friends don't really get it they might kind of step back, you know
push away from you. Eventually I did start thinking of ways to kill myself.
[Music]
I didn't know why I was having the panic attacks so it made me depressed that I
couldn't go out and socialize and go to School. And then I think that kind of led
into the whole suicidal thoughts.
So I'd say when I was going through that really low point, the suicidal thoughts,
having my brother talked to me I knew that he had those same feelings that I'm
not alone in this. That he has strategies and what helps him, he could actually
help me out here. [Music]
So during that time he did come in and you know, comfort me and kind of relate
to me of how I was feeling, you know, ‘This will get better.’ ‘Go get
help for it.’ [Music]
And then like ‘I'll be here on the way.’ [Music]
It did gradually get better as soon as I started taking the mood stabilizers and then
kind of reached a point where it was just completely mid-mid ground like
not happy, not depressed because my anxiety factor just completely, well I
still have it day to day but it's a lot less than what I did have before. For me
I think my biggest fear is if something does happen, if someone does die, if I
lose my job, if because I don't know how I'm gonna react I don't know if it's
gonna be a trigger for me. If I do have like slight bumps like I'm feeling
depressed today I could talk about it like with my fiancé.
[Music] I have a more positive outlook on life
and so I'm able to have friendships, I could have a job now. Before it was
complete just all over the place roller coaster.
[Music]