A lot of what I have been dealing with lately has to do with differentiating my personality from the bipolar. Looking back on my life I see some very specific things that are related to my bipolar. This is the first time I have openly spoken about any of this, and I am at the point where if someone judges me for these things I could care less.

It all started when I bought a condo. I had a great job, I was healthy and doing things I loved. From the outside it looked like everything was great. I had never been so lonely in my life, and little did I know it was about to get a lot worse.

I started dating a lot of guys. I wasn't sleeping with all of them, but I was sleeping with a lot. It wasn't relationship sex either. It was one night stand sex. I would meet guys in bars and online and never see them again. I usually didn't want to see them again. One guy I wanted to see again because the sex was so good, but that was all. Then I met a guy who was a complete work of art.

After meeting this guy things started going crazy. I knew something was not right and started seeing a psychologist. My primary doc put me on some anti-depressants to help me stop smoking. Things just got worse. Now I know it was mania.

After knowing this guy for 6 months he moved into my condo. It was crazy from day one. We had incredible sex, but he was also very abusive. Our relationship was twisted and so in a sexual way. I did things with him I would never do again, and hadn't done before I met him. As with anything this insane something had to break.

I found out by putting some spyware on my computer that he was cheating on me. I saw it and was able to play it back to him. There was no denying anything. It was pretty funny actually- to see his stupid face when he was busted with video of what he was doing. It was stupid for me to stay in that relationship, and I think god was about to let me know how stupid.

The day after I confronted him about cheating on me we went snowboarding. I had a conscious thought on the way up there that I was feeling particularly suicidal. I started hitting the jumps hard early that day. By my third run I was going 40-45mph and I was having so much fun. I was hitting the drop offs that are only there in the early part of the season. I was flying! Then I crashed...hard.

I ended up breaking my leg and ankle. Oh the pain. The pain alone was enough to drive a person mad. I remember the pain meds they gave me were never effective. The dilaudid they gave me in the hospital was. After I stopped taking the percocet I had a serious wall-climbing experience. I ended up in the hospital, because I was very suicidal. Every time I have become suicidal I was depressed and then had one of these intense manic episodes.

I was in the hospital and the docs asked me if I thought I might be bipolar. I said no. I didn't really know why I was feeling the way I was, and I was not even accepting what was really going on. I got out of the sin bin and I got blood clots in both lungs.

The guy I was dating was still in the picture. I needed someone to take care of me, bc I couldn't do it myself. He actually did, but again he was abusive. My mother made me so very angry at this time in my life. She wasn't around, I felt like an inconvenience to her life. I also felt like my problems were so big that she could not effectively mother me at that time.

After I almost died and got out of the hospital I was over the edge. I had lost my mind. I came very close to dying and was told how lucky I was to be alive all week. They sent me home with lovenox and other meds. I had to give myself injections in my stomach.

They also sent me home with dilaudid. I remember sitting in my bathroom thinking how I could inject my medication. I took some classes when I first graduated high school where I learned phlebotomy. I knew how to hit a vein. What the fuck I was thinking I still can't say. What the fuck I was thinking that I did this for a very long time is beyond me. What the fuck was my bf at that time thinking to do it with me? I had become an iv drug user. All the while my performance in school appeared unaffected, in fact my artwork was gaining praise at school during this time.

Eventually I threw the guy I was dating out of my house. I was having a bone removed from my ankle, and had a doctor appointment. He took my jeep and was nowhere to be found. I had to call my mom to take me. I left his belongings for him when I went to my appointment, and he was leaving when I got home. That was the best thing I could have ever done for myself.

While this was a good thing for me, I had to find a way to support myself. I had no income. The insurance company I had my long term disability insurance through decided a week before I had surgery that I was not disabled. This put me in a tricky predicament. I was still very sick. I was too sick to be taking care of myself. I started prostituting myself.

How did my life get to this place? All the while I was in school. I couldn't stop going to school. It wasn't work, it was therapy. I was a college student prostitute. What the hell? I have a history of working in the adult entertainment industry, but it was a very technical history. I never thought I would do what I have done. When faced with not eating or not affording coumadin, prostitution was the only way for me to survive. I also sold me artwork, and in the short-term made a lot more money doing that. Neither was enough.

This all went on until I lost my condo. I left there and was homeless for two months. I stayed with friends and in hotels/motels. I finally got my disability case settled and paid the school I graduated from the $13,000 I owed them. I was elated to be able to go back to finish my degree. I got an apartment. I ended up getting a massive scholarship that allowed me to pay for my senior year. I don't think I have ever been that excited in my life.

I stopped taking opiate pain killers June of 2007. It sucked so hard. It hurt, I wanted to go crazy, but I did it. I took a lot of klonopin and smoked a lot of weed. I would rather smoke weed than take opiates.

My job stability has been very poor. I was able to work a part-time job effectively, but when it comes to full-time work I don't know. I get too anxious. I get nervous and nauseated before working. All I can think of when I am there too long is how I can get out of there. This is something I have noticed being so since my accident. I don't quite understand where the threshold lies.

So there it is. The bad, dark days of Angela. I wish is was as simple as it is to read about, but it was full of misery.