One of my boilerplate college application essays. I highly recommend writing at least four to anyone planning on applying to as many as they can fill the paperwork out for. Ask your counselor-type critter about common application essay topics and questions, or do as I do, and ask someone in college admissions. They're inordinately helpful people BEFORE you get into that mess.
Imagine living in a dark room transparent to you but opaque to the world, feeling alone, misunderstood and afraid of yourself. Suddenly it becomes as completely light as it was dark - the room clear to all - and you feel motivated, focused, passionate, and brave. Living at either extreme lasts for weeks, and is clinically known as bipolar disorder. It has been an aspect of me for so long I could not imagine living life less passionately, lest I lose my perspective of the world, or more importantly, myself.
I nearly lost my self-perspective in April 1996 when a well-meaning psychiatrist prescribed lithium to control my swings. It worked, in a way. I lacked motivation to do anything, my only emotion was anger and I blindly lashed out at everything.
Kay Redfield Jamison, author of Touched with Fire, states that "useful intervention must control the extremes of depression and psychosis without sacrificing crucial human emotions and experiences." I currently choose to forgo medicine and temper the extremes of my swings through diet and meditation.
I often desire to hide from people for a time from fear they could see me as unstable while depressed. I sit on the floor and rock while attempting to understand humankind; I sit on rock outcroppings to ponder ineffable problems that irritate me. It may be irrational, but the benefits of bipolar disorder far outweigh the adverse effects by giving me the gifts of creativity, passion, and a drive to succeed in making my life the best it can be.