EVEN THOUGH I THINK my manic depression symptoms probably go back to my high school days, I start my story a few years ago when noticeable problems began appearing.

I have a great job with Eli Lilly and Company working in their systems area since 1990. But I just knew I could do more or do things better by making my own decisions. My wife and I had just finished having a very nice custom home built. After seeing what the general contractor did I decided that I could do a much better job than he could. I could be my own boss and make extra money. So I decided to start my own construction company.

This seemed like an innocent decision at first. I would keep my position at Lilly and do the construction on the side. The first problem was that I was on a major project at work and I played a key role. We were building a 17 million dollar state-of-the-art distribution system. Instead of building one house at a time I came up with a great marketing plan and had sold three houses even though I had never built one before. I kept thinking I could do more and nothing could stop me. In the meantime, the construction business was losing money and I was getting in trouble at work. My wife, Judy was getting tired of me trying to conquer the world and dragging her along with me. If I would have said yes, Judy, would have divorced me. During all this, we also found out that she could not have kids, which did not make the situation any better.

I think you can start to see where this is going. Well, Judy and I were getting in more-and-more arguments. I decided that we would go to a counselor and he could help HER open up and get HER frustrations out in the open. Then the counselor could help us work through HER problems. I explained to the counselor what we had been doing so he could understand some of HER frustrations. After I had talked for about five minutes he looked at me and said "You are manic depressive". To say the least this threw me back. I was off that weekend to Borders Bookstore to do research. As I read books describing what manic depression was, I found myself checking off symptom lists as I compared them to my current situation and past decisions.

Around this same time, things came to a head at work. The construction business had interfered with my work to the point where my project leader and manager had to put me on probation. They had given me plenty of opportunities before getting to this point to get things straightened up. They really had ample evidence to fire me. But, I think because people like the manic side of my personality and the fact that I had been getting work done and putting in an effort at work, I was spared getting fired.

At this point, I was also physically, mentally and emotionally burnt out. During all this, we had also been blessed to have adopted a new born baby girl Hanna. While this was a great blessing, it also added pressure to the existing situation. I knew that something had to change or things were going to get a lot worse than they already were. I decided the only way I was going to survive was to simplify my life. I shutdown the construction business cold, selling off existing projects even though it cost me a lot of money. I went to my family doctor to further confirm and figure out what to do about manic depression.

I really had to examine why I had made some of the decisions I had in my life. I also struggled with what really made me the person I am. Was I in control of my life or were the chemicals in my brain in charge? It has been over three years since I have been diagnosed and my life is much simpler and things are going great, but I still at times wonder in the back of my head who is in charge. But I feel I must take responsibility for my situation and actions and use the knowledge that I have gained about my condition to make sound decisions in my life.