I think that I have had manic depressive symptoms since before high school. I was always the funny one in class and would purposely get in trouble for being funny. People always liked me and I kind of rode the fence between being one of the smart kids and one of the kids who would get in trouble. I was into sports but also drank and experimented with drugs. I can remember meeting up with some of the "partiers" before school, smoking a joint and then going to take a test in physics class. At the same time that most people would see me as an outgoing and funny guy, but I could also be distant and a loner. I think growing up I would really frustrate my mom by showing very little emotion when she would get upset with my actions.

I am in my late thirties now and I think since high school my manic depressive symptoms have slowly showed themselves more. In talking with my doctor, he thinks it is not so much that the disease or its effects have gotten worse, but the body's resistance to it goes down with age. This seems to make sense to me.

I would now like to cover some of my experiences with my physical health and manic depression. For several years prior to ever knowing about my manic depression, I was feeling run down. I could still function and work, but went through periods where I felt run down. I would be physically tired at times and at others times I would feel great. I never thought about this being associated with any type of mental illness. I assumed it must be physical. So I talked to my doctor and we would head down the path of testing for things such a diabetes and thyroid problems without much success. Initially, we never talked about any type of mental illness.

Then, as I created the environment I described above, my health worsened. Some days, I felt like I could do a million things, and on others I felt the million of things I had started were coming crashing down around me. One day, I would start up some new project and on the next, I would have to stay to myself, perhaps sleep all day just to cope with the environment I had created. I would have to take what I called "mental health days" from work to regain my strength. At the time, I did not realize how true the phrase "mental health day" was.

As the situation I was creating was getting more and more out of control I had times where I just did not seem to have the energy to handle everything. However, I think too many of those around me I appeared as someone who was ambitious, intelligent and just trying to get ahead in life and perhaps a little out of control. Many of my actions fit in with the American idea of someone who is trying grab the brass ring. Any one of my projects I had started had merit, but trying to tackle all this was starting to wear me out. At this point, instead of cutting back, I thought that if I could physically just feel better I could handle all the projects I had started.

This was about the same time that Prozac's image had changed from the devil's drug that made depressed people go on killing rampages to the pill doctors were popping out of PEZ dispensers to yuppies to help them be supermen at work and home. So I thought that if I could convince my doctor to give me Prozac I could handle this world I had created.