It is important to be honest with yourself and your life. It is important to share your truth so that we can all learn from one another.- Linea Johnson

When all else is in turn oil honesty is the key that will bring you back to life with your parents. Friends are important and from my personal experience dealing with my own mental illness and the mental illness of my younger brother both of us found friends that supported us through our darkest days and greatest achievements. Even though my brother has gone I always remembered that he fought hard to survive his own demons. He too had bipolar disorder and self-medicated with what he chose. If I remembered anything from the life of my younger brother it was that honesty and unflinching support and not judging and forgiving really helped him and I became his rock during the last few months of his life. To sick siblings supporting each other in the last few months of me in school and him dealing with his bipolar issues. I smile in my heart and live with joy knowing that I did the best I could for my younger brother and that me being schizophrenic as he was bipolar is not a shame. Speak up me speak out about your illness.

It is not a shame. ( )

Mother and daughter tell the story of the daughter, Linea's, bipolar onset. Because of the social stigma around mental illness, there is surprisingly little around of this type of truly open accounting of what families go through when it happens. Linea went from being a highly achieving motivated person to being suicidal with alarming speed. Only the intervention of friends and family kept her alive. Mother and daughter trade turns recounting the events and their emotional reactions and states during that first year when Linea was fighting for her life. We watch both of them work their way through to acceptance and more than that, recognition that with responsible management, life can go on , no differently from anyone managing a chronic physical illness. Someone in my family has had difficulties this past year; nothing approaching this level of gravity, I am glad to say, but nonetheless much of what I experienced is described accurately here, which is reassuring to me. If someone in your friendship or family orbit is bipolar (and, believe me, more than one somebody you know is, it is much more common than anyone admits, and much less scary) it would be a good idea to read Perfect Chaos. It is an honest, sensible, reassuring and above all, positive (without being stupidly so) book. ***** ( )