The Family That Should Not Be

I would like to introduce: The family that should not be...

This is my beautiful family, my wife and four kids. Seems normal enough, but there is an underlying story that makes it an amazing thing. I was bipolar and crazy. At least I felt and acted crazy. The thick of it was at age fourteen. I was medicated heavily with Lithium. My father wanted to avoid harsher medications, and believed that a doctor somewhere would have an answer for us.

My moods would cycle from the highest highs to the depths of despair, many times throughout the day. I was disfunctional. Feeling elated with the distorted reality that I could do anything, during a high. Anything short of death during the depressed state. I was extremely violent at times. I tried to hurt many people, individuals in the community and my family too. I was a danger to myself. To think clearly was but a dream. I thought it was normal to go outside at night and pick fights with strangers. My family was very frightened of me and what I was capable of doing. All of this, made it very hard to live in a small town environment.The prospect of having a normal life was out of the question.

Over time my father had taken me to many doctors and none of them offered any hope whatsoever. At one point we even went to a specialist in Calgary. After the initial meeting, she asked me to step out into the hall and wait there. She told my father to expect me to be heavily medicated/institutionalized, and that I would likely suicide as a result of the bipolar. There was no hope for someone like myself in the medical system. This would not do....