Maybe it's when you have nothing left to live for that you are finally free to do anything. It came to the point to where I was either to just die or fade away or break free from the chains which bound me. Because you see, I was chained in the before life. I was diagnosed with a mental illness and suddenly my world was colored in those shades. My mind broke as did my life. I could not always tell the difference between real and fantasy. When I was manic, the world was my oyster. I was popular, supremely intelligent, head strong, bold, courageous and completely out of my mind. Sometimes when I was manic good things happened. Like I would treat autism like no other therapist and make monumental gains with children. I would get involved in awesome research projects or I became a leading advocate for those will mental illness and landed TV gigs. Or, as the alley incident shows, I could believe the world was against me and I had to protect myself. I could believe in things that weren't there or weren't real. I thought I had abilities that I did not. And when I was depressed, nothing good that I ever did was good enough. No matter what happened in my life, I was a complete and utter failure. And as a result I should die. And the voices. Oh the voices. Sometimes they came when manic, other times depressed. When I was manic, they tended to be good. Depressed was another story. They berated and made me hate myself more than anybody could hate anything. Sometimes they were whispers, other times their shouts overrode any other auditory sounds. And from the time I was just a teenager to my twenties, 95% of the time, I was either manic or depressed, with and without meds and therapy. No one it seemed could get the medication and therapy combination right. So I was shackled to whatever my mind dealt with me.

Did I have control back then? That's up for discussion to some people. Clearly, my brain cells were misfiring, to produce the hallucinations and delusions and the manic mood and depressions. But my life was also shrouded in chaos. I thrived on it because that is all I ever knew since I was a child. Just pain and lots of it. So I modeled my life style after my trials and tribulations of childhood. I lived fast and hard. And so, sometimes I was on meds, sometimes I said fuck 'em. Sometimes I had lists and plans of actions and sometimes I said fuck 'em. Sometimes I lived a holistic, healthy life like my counselor wanted and sometimes I didn't. It was all just a lot of chaos. I was shackled. Chained to what my mind hath wrought.

Until one day I was pretty low. Other people were beginning to try to take control of my future. And I suddenly saw my future the way they saw it: bleak. Group homes, residential communities, mindless, meaningless jobs, mental health professions constantly around. My life was to be lived on survival only. To just get by without disrupting the people around me. I was going to be put away so I was less of a burden on the world with my moods and lifestyle. I had never really seen myself as disabled or handicapped. I had accomplished so much from working with the children to research to my advocacy work. Sometimes I was a force to be reckoned with. The community in which I lived knew who I was and most people knew my past. Some had heard about me through the wonderful work I did when I was well or hypomanic and others heard about the antics when I was too manic or depressed. And going home to my mother or my father wasn't an option. My mother didn't want me near her new family and I had already tried eight months with my father. And that only brought me a couple month state hospitalization and a wild manic episode in which I left in the middle of the night on a harrowing corss country journey which of course ended with...the hospital.

So there I stood at the end of a path. I had taken all kinds of roads and paths to stand at the end of that road. And it pointed to that bleak future where others could decide my fate. My mother was months away from getting the courts to intervene and have me placed. I was at the end of the road where I was the driver. And I got to that end of the road and I looked and looked and suddenly knew that I had taken the wrong road. This was not the place I wanted to be in. Sure death was an option of course. But I had come to really understand death and all it's finality. I knew it wasn't peace and that I would never feel another thing as long as I lived. And I would leave those behind with a sour taste. But yeah, death was there on the table. But so was another option. To back up and take another road. Find another path. Sure, it may just be a circle and maybe my future was meant to be bleak and only for survival. I had tried and exhausted pretty much every other option. I had gone to college, I had gotten a career (or two), I had lived on my own, I had lived with parents, I had basically sometimes lived in the hospital. Where else could I go.

I spoke about this on my support group. The thing with my support group is I had become close to a few people. And often I had invited people to come stay with me if they needed a place to go. A few people had lived with me for the summer. I got them jobs and housing and food to eat and my good company of course. So when one friend heard of my plight, Jen (who I've spoken about and you know that ending), and offered me one final option.

I took out a map and realized that the answer to the question, where else could I go, was right in front of me. I could go anywhere. I knew how to be homeless and survive and did get myself out of it. I had kickass survival skills. So would it be such a leap for me to just pick up and move and start out somewhere fresh where no one knew my name or my past. Of course I still wondered if I would be shackled. Would my mind continue to break? Would I continue to see the things not there and hear the voices? Would I continue my manic and depression? Well, they could follow me, after all my mind was coming with me. But at the same time, I could do some things differently. At present I was living in hell. I was jobless, living in hell with a woman as crazy as I was, carless and every other kind of 'less. I had nothing. If I moved, I would have a place to stay and a means to get to work. From that kind of starting point, I could build a life. Or at least I thought I could. Only time would tell how my mind would make the journey. But, I looked at the options and thought, what the hell.

I spun that globe and stopped it on Arizona. My new destination. And in a few short weeks I summoned all of my courage and strength and I stepped onto that plane that would take me away from a place with so many memories, both good and bad. And when I arrived in Arizona, my after life began. Still to this day, I can't explain what happened on that plane. I got off a different and changed woman. Sure, I carried a broken brain, but every day I spend in this new place, my brain gets rebuilt. I did things I had never done before, like rely on freinds for once, even when it turned sour. I just did things differently, I guess as part of riding on this new road. Some how I was able to change my life's course with this one decision. Somehow I was able to unshackle myself. Maybe it was that I had lost everything and I broke myself as far down as you can get. Maybe death was not the only way to kill myself. Maybe I had already killed off the things inside of me and I was hollow and empty. But when I made that decision to change, when I went to a different road, I began to rebuild my foundation and how I view and lived life.

When I go to treat a child with autism I make a lot of evaluations. Most importantly I have to assess their foundations of language and social interaction. I have to find where they are weak and where their foundations are shaky. And that is what I then concentrate on- rebuilding their foundation so it's strong. And from there they can accomplish anything. So maybe I did that to myself. I took my foundation and found where it lacked and worked on rebuilding and now I'm living the after effects of that. I'm in the after life rebuilding my foundation, and from there I can accomplish anything.

Maybe it wasn't the meds that were always wrong or the wrong kind of therapy. Those were always the two key points that were changed when things went wrong. Maybe some of the meds were right, but I was lacking in some fundamental life area's and had not gone back and fixed those wrong things. What have I discovered in the after life that was so wrong before? I'm not always sure. I moving away from everything I knew was part of it. I was in a rut where I lived. I had crutches- like I knew the local mental health hospital and it's staff inside and out. When things went wrong, that's where I would go running to. I had people that watched over me carefully and offered their advice or intervened sometimes on my behalf when maybe I should have just let go. And, I was always alone. I was alone as a child and as I grew into an adult. I didn't trust and I never relied on another person to help me out. I didn't accept help very easily- I thought I could do it all on my own. When I moved I HAD to rely on help- for housing and food to a ride to work. I guess I learned proper social interaction to a degree. I let people help me up- even if it didn't work out in the end. And I worked hard. I found a job right away and I worked hard. I saved and saved my money so I could get on my feet. I mean, I always did work hard, but I took the first job that came my way and went to work every day even when I didn't feel like it. I made phone calls and all kinds of stuff I had never done before. I just did them because I had to. I took my meds every day, just like I was always supposed to. I ate meals. I slept eight hours. I went back to basics. Before, I would just kind of dance around the basics, do a little here, do a little there. But after I moved, since I was already on ground zero, I started with the basics. And starting from the basics and working your way back to the basics are two different things. When I started with the basics I could plug up any holes along the way because I was starting from the beginning, learning. Before, I was going back trying to find the holes and plug them, but I always missed something.

So when I moved, I was a shell of myself. My purpose in the beginning was to just start at the beginning, which I guess is what most people do starting from childhood. But with my childhood being what it was and then the way my mind bent and broke later...I wasn't afforded starting at the basics. I grew into an adult when I was just a child. And then as an adult I was experiencing an adolescence and it was all just mixed up. Whe I moved, it was just about the basics.

When I read other's accounts about the after life, I never did understand how they got there. It's just like at the end of the book or movie the person would have some big revelation and the all would be well, or at least that is what they wanted you to think. But I found that there were so many revelations. The day I finally whispered yes I had been sexually abused or the day the doctor looked at me and said I had bipolar disorder. The day I realized that I forgave my father and then my mother for what happened when I was a child. And I forgave my cousin for the innocense he took. Those were major revelations. Even the revelation that my future was bleak- some books or movies would have ended there, with me on that flight and getting off the plane in Arizona. That would have been IT. But it's not, I still have revelations. Like I trusted pretty easily when I first arrived here, but then my heart was broken by friends sometimes. And I realized that hey, it's okay to trust and have that trust broken. It doesn't mean that I should never trust again to make sure my trust is never broken again. It's just something you get sad over and mourn and then move on. That's life and that's people. I didn't get that revelation until the after life.

But how did I get to the after life? I guess it was a revelation. I just realized I wanted my life to be different. I suddenly saw what others saw and I didn't like it. So I could die and that would be the end of that. Or I could just try something different. I mean, death would stil be there- I could still choose death if I didn't like the new path I chose. So really, the question and answer was easy. If I died, I would have lost everything and not been able to gain anything. But at the same time, what did I have to lose by trying something different? Again, I had nothing to lose, so why the hell not and I had the added benefit that there was the possibility for gain. It was win win I figured to choose to try something different.

Like I said, when you have lost everything, you are free to do anything. That's how I got here to the after life. By freeing myself to the possibility of life and a good one at that.

I didn't just deserve death and destruction, maybe I deserved some good to come of my life. And not the mania kind of good, but just honest to goodness living. Maybe I did deserve to live a normal, healthy life and not one lived fast and hard and died young. Now, does everyone need to come to my conclusion to find their way to the after life? Probably not. I'm sure there might be an easier solution, but in a way, I think it all revolves around freeing yourself. From whatever shackles have you chained to your present life and where it is going. Maybe some people just need to change one thing like getting a different job or maybe trying some new medication or a different kind of therapy and then boom, your in the after life. But my before life was such that...well something major had to happen. A whole life kind of change, not just one thing. Like I said, I had built my life on a poor foundation and that needed to me remedied.

So here I am in this after life, living the things no one told me how to live. Well, I think maybe they pointed me in the right direction. I spent years in therapy and hospitals where they taught me how to eat healthy, learn social skills and leisure skills, how to like myself, how to organize my life, basic daily living requirements and that my worth was not tied to the things I did, but simply because I existed. But still, I needed to figure out where everything fit and where I had gone so wrong. I had to learn to temper the beasts that raged inside me and only I could do that. No one could defeat my demons for me. I had to figure that out and do it all on my own. I had to free myself to let go of them. To honestly not miss the manic moments. Do I have my moments where I think, man this would be so much easier if I could stay up all night and have endless energy or I wish some big idea would come to me to help this child...sure, I have my moments. But in my heart of hearts and deep in my soul I am so very glad not to be manic. The things I accomplished in those highs...well they were just not worth what I had to pay to get them. Besides, I have learned what I can accomplish normal and it's still a hell of a lot. I still do great work with children, I just do it while keeping me healthy. Maybe I might have inspiration sooner if I ran myself dogged, but then I might lose it all and be of no use to the child, inspriation and all. Now, inspiration might come a little slower, but I can sustain it and not take away from the child. The old addage, slow and steady wins the race. I get it now. I still love to do the things that I did manic- the kids, research, advocacy, but I just do it on a manageable level, so that I may have a life and do those things I want to do. That's the after life. I didn't have to say good bye to all those good things.

And that is what I always feared, I think. Part of what kept me chained. I was afraid of losing what I thought were the good parts of me, being able to work with the children, do research, advocacy, be extroverted and a hell of a friend etc. I thought those things belonged to just the manic side of me. And if I lost the mania to normalcy, I would lose those things too. I especially was afraid of losing my touch with the children. The whole mania being linked to creativity thing. But, one day I made a leap. I decided to risk those things being gone so I could just be normal and healthy. And a wonderful thing happened. I didn't lose those things- they were a part of ME not the mania. They just took on new meaning and had to find their own place in my new normal and healthy life. I just lost the extreme parts of those things. I don't need to work myself like a slave to reach these children, I don't have to do research that is super publishable and exhault me to the top of an intellectual pile and I don't have to be the number one advocate and find myself on Oprah. I can still reach the children by tapping into many parts of myself and not just the endless energy and time to figure things out, I don't have to be the best researcher in a field, I can just do the research because I can (like just taking research data on the kids, but not necissarily doing anything with the data right now), and I can be an advocate in my community not in the whole wide world. Everything is tempered. And the parts that are me are still there. Everything is just not in chaos or taken to the extreme.