Recently, I've received a few messages from people beginning bipolar medication treatment and going through the terrors of medication auditions and, um, the displeasure of the side-effects of bipolar medication. In this video, I try to set expectations with regards to how long it takes medications for bipolar disorder to work, and how long side-effects will last.

I mentioned what remission means for a mental illness in a clinical setting: reduction in specific, empirical symptoms by a given amount. In other words, you are given a depression “score” and remission means reducing that score by a given number. But does that number mean anything at all to the patient in question? If you achieved it, are you "better"? If you suffer from mental illness, what does remission really mean?

As a seriously ill person, I can honestly say that I have given up. Many times. I have lain on my floor praying that someone would kill me. I have taken too many pills hoping that I would die. And yes, I have even cut into myself hoping that I would bleed out. We give up. After years of trying. Years of bipolar medication. Years of side-effects. Years of therapy. Years of doctors. Years of hospitals. We give up. We’re done. But what happens if in one of these moments your doctor gives up too?

I can feel suicide flicking at the edges of my consciousness. This morning I woke up wanting to die. Before my eyelids fluttered and my logic circuits sparked I knew it was going to be a horrible day.

Once you’re on a magical medication cocktail, see doctors regularly, have done years of talk therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), tried shock therapy (ECT), exercise, have social contacts, a support network, a support group, eat well, tried light therapy, dark therapy, and a series of awful tasting herbs and you find yourself still unwell; the question must be asked: If I’m doing everything right, why am I still sick?

Adventures in Bipolar Diagnosis continued from part one... Lamictal was indeed a miracle for me. It allowed me to finish my bachelor’s degree, get a job in my field, and even become a skydiver. In retrospect, it was an amazing time to be me, to be in remission. Everything was good, until it wasn’t. I felt myself slipping about two years into the Lamictal treatment. For no known reason, the medication simply stopped working. This is a common problem with psychotropic meds and something else no one likes to mention.

In late 1998, I knew that something was wrong with me. My life was going well; I was in university, on my way to a computer science degree, in the co-op program and had completed an eight-month job in Calgary. I had been contented and grateful since leaving my mother’s house and moving to a new town. I was more happy than I had been in years. But little by little, I found myself increasingly sad and life became peppered with bouts of meaningless, spontaneously crying. I was unreasonably moved by the foretold unfolding of TV plots and commercials. In November 1998, I found myself in a pitch-black room, unable to get out of bed for an entire day. I was in the south of Spain, a ten minute walk from white sandy beaches and half-naked women. That was the moment I truly realized I was broken: I was in heaven and yet crushed with sadness.