Polar Extremes: From the Darkness of Bipolar Disorder to Daylight

This is the true story about Steve West, an apparently healthy individual, who learns at the age of thirty-nine that he has bipolar disorder. He spends the next fifteen years, the prime of his life, battling this mental illness. As a result of the stigma attached to this dreaded malady, he continues to encounter situations to this day where he hesitates to divulge his secret for fear of rejection. Because of this distancing, he loses key close friendships during multiple episodes. The final one involves the early onset of Parkinson's disease. Almost everyone he meets thinks he is drunk, drugged, demonized, neurotic, suffering from a brain tumor, or just plain crazy. Despite the madness, Steve maintains a gallows sense of humor as he discovers a latent disdain for authority figures dating back to his childhood. This includes a disciplinarian father figure, a pugilistic nun, and ignorant employers resulting in six job changes in as many years. Perhaps the lowlight of his adversarial encounters center on scuffles with the law. However, he continues on a spiritual odyssey seeking the ultimate positive authority figure of all, God. This book also contains sixteen "Clinical Overviews" that illuminate his journey for the reader and provide valuable insight concerning medical terminology involving bipolar disorder. These educational topics, such as suicidal and homicidal ideation, will help to remove the mystery and stigma surrounding mental illness.