Don’t Let the Feelings Choke You
by Michelle Montoro
Twenty-one years ago, I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder after a lifetime of struggling within the darkness of my own mind. It has been a disturbing history but one that I survived.
Through countless hours of therapy, endless cocktails of psychotropic medications, measureless pools of tears, and unfathomable depths of darkness for more than a decade of my life, I somehow found my way to the other side, to a brighter life, to the life I had always wished for. Through this process not only have I discovered myself, but I also learned some very effective coping skills.
Because I made through it the other side, I do feel an obligation to share my journey with others in the hopes that I can help make it a little bit easier for those who may also be living with Bipolar Disorder.
I am not a licensed counselor but I also am not naive in the world of mental illness. Quite the contrary, I am very well-versed…having lived it and then moved on to study it. I do know quite a bit about the struggle that is mental illness, but I also know quite a bit about the power that lies within each and every person to help themselves through the darkness. I think sometimes, however, we get so lost in the forest that we simply cannot see the tree of knowledge. So I am going to share some of the leaves from said…
