Weekly $25,000 shopping binges at Barney's and "high end" boutiques for clothes I barely wore were the norm. So were lavish meals with friends where ….

Like Sylvia Plath, Natalie Jeanne Champagne invites you so close to the pain and agony of her life of mental illness and addiction, which leaves you ….

My manic depression was ravaging my life, but because nobody could see it, many people thought it was a figment of my imagination..

As no one knew much about my mental illness, a lot of people had the attitude that I had the capability to 'kick it' and get better instantly. This w….

The guilt I felt for having a mental illness was horrible. I prayed for a broken bone that would heal in six weeks. But that never happened. I was cu….

I am a rapid-cycling manic-depressive, bi-polar one disorder, which means I can have thirty or forty episodes a year, and I used to have thirty to fo….

The little depression I experienced during my manic-depression was not like depression as anyone else had ever described it. It was very violent and ….

When I'm manic, I'm so awake and alert, that my eyelashes fluttering on the pillow sound like thunder..

Most nights, I'm good for only four or five hours of sleep. That leaves the other 20. I have to fill them some way..