Your Book Helped me Transform my Life, Thank You.

Dear Ms. Curtiss,

I have been wanting to write you for many years to thank you for your book "Depression is a Choice." It has helped me to transform my life. I am a 44 year old woman, mother of two of 2 teenagers. I have always had a tendency towards depression, especially after I started my first period, but my family and friends, sports and the beauty of the Canadian west coast always kept me so busy I had no time for it to settle in.

It wasn't till after my daughters birth at the age of 34, being married, and on the other side of the country after my husband had completed 3 degrees and was starting his University Career, that I fell into a deep postpartum depression.

Several factors contributed to its depths: an emotionally absent husband, severe dieting and exercise while still nursing, as well as a lack of a network of friends and family after moving to a new city. So there I was, 34, uneducated with a new baby and one day as I sat on the couch nursing her, the walls seemed to close in on me and I knew I couldn't continue my life this way. I went to the Doctor and because I was nursing I didn't want to take meds so I took out every book on postpartum depression in the library and began the struggle to pull myself out of the depression.

I felt hopeless and thoughts of death swirled around me constantly. I would go to a workout class and all I saw were a bunch of woman fighting their mortality. But despite all this I went back to work in my retail job, went back to University to restart the degree I had abandoned at the age of 21, and continued to care for my children and run the household while my husband worked non-stop to get Tenure.

By the time my daughter was 2 I knew the marriage was over. I was no longer depressed but was a nervous wreck from our constant fighting, and I was now going out partying-dancing and drinking with a new friend I had met at the gym. I grew up always being the good girl, listening to my parents, church and husband, but now I yearned for the excitement of the bars and meeting new people and looking very young for my age of 37.

I loved the attention of the men that I met when I went out. I left my husband when I was 38 and hooked up with a guy who I thought was Mr.Wonderful, but who proceeded to constantly cheat on me. I stayed with him for 2 1/2 years and by this time I had gone through a round of medication and had proceeded to become wilder and more anxiety ridden.

Within 2 years I was diagnosed as bipolar and started on Lithium and shortly after, Di-Valproic Acid.

As the relationship with my boyfriend was dissolving I decided to go back to school. I had completed the course I had taken 2 years earlier with an A despite the turmoil in my life at that time, and I decided that even if I didn't feel like I could do it I was going to because nothing up this point in my life was working anyways. So now, alone again, I started full time at University while still working and taking care of my kids.

At this point I was still very Manic. My Doctor was trying to find the right dose, and I often left the Studio in tears because I couldn't focus. I was still partying and drinking as much as I could on the days the kids were with their Dad, and I would often work on projects in the middle of the night on a manic high.

After the first year despite all my self- destructive behavior I came away with almost all A's and 1 high B, and I knew I had to stop spinning my wheels. But it is hard to stop the momentum of destructive behavior, and by now on a sexual rampage that was as much sexual exploration as payback for the abuse and neglect I felt I had suffered from, first my husband, and then my boyfriend. I used men for sex and comfort to feed my sense of inadequacy and lack of self esteem.

However, school began to give me a sense of self worth and I continued to do well, making the Dean's Honor Roll in my second year. I made awesome friendships with people half my age who continue to be my friends, and I had incredible professors who supported and encouraged me. One in particular, who had made me cry the first year several times turned out to be my mentor, and eventually shared with me that she was also Bipolar and had suffered a postpartum depression and the break-up of her marriage as well. Yet she was accomplished and never allowed me to feel sorry for myself, but taught me to work despite the pain.

After making the honors role again in my third year I was beginning to slow down on my partying, and was now dating guys instead of just sleeping with them. A friend of mine who was also bipolar had also told me about a bipolar support group meeting she had gone to where the speaker had talked about Omega 3.

I began to do research online about it also realized that during my 20's when I had been very stable and successful in my job on the west coast, my diet had been very healthy because of training for long distance runs. But, in particular, the diet had included at least 2 meals with salmon every week. I had always wondered what was the key to my lack of mood swings at that time and through my research I discovered a book called "the Natural Way to beat Depression" by Dr. Basant K. Puri and Hilary Boyd and I began to follow their recommendations for doses of vitamins and minerals as well as the high doses of EPA.

By the end of the summer I was feeling calmer. One day when I took my kids to an outdoor pool to swim, I had taken a book to read, and I got totally wrapped up in it and read for 2 hours straight as the kids swam and played. What struck me was that for the first time since my daughter’s birth, I was able to sit and read a book for longer than an hour. Immediately after her birth I had not been able to focus on any reading at all and for six months couldn't even pick up a newspaper. Any reading I did was in fits and starts which made doing research papers a challenge. And then it hit me... something was different.

I was now doing my honors year and continued to feel more focused than I had been for years but still felt the overwhelming hopelessness that had plagued me for years and countered it by continued manic behavior. One day in early January I went to this book warehouse with a friend, and found your book, and bought it. My friend laughed at me because I was constantly looking for “answers” and would often get excited about some new "solution".

But after buying your book and reading it I knew I was on the right path. I knew you understood that my depression wasn't something that I had made up, but that I also could fight it. Counselors were often amazed at my stubborness and ability to come up with my own strategies to deal with my depression. But through your book I began to also be able to control my manic behavior. I was beginning to make the right choices instead of allowing myself to spiral out of control.

I became more and more focused on my honors project staying home on nights I didn't have the kids instead of going out partying. Up till then if I was alone for long periods my mind would start racing and I would become agitated but now I focused instead on my project or got movies and kept my mind occupied instead of allowing myself to fall into my hopeless and lonely thoughts.

By the spring I had my Honors Exhibit. I had completed my degree with a first class standing and I knew it was time to wean myself of the Di-Valproic Acid. I knew the key to controlling my manic behavior lay in my own mind and not in drugs as I had been just as reckless and manic on meds anyways.

After a month of slowly cutting my dose I finally got up my nerve to go to my Doctor to tell her what I was doing. Though alarmed and concerned, she instructed me on the proper method to wean myself off and within a month I was off completely. Since then I have hads ups and downs but I am continuing to feel stronger and stronger. Close friends of mine have also noticed this strength in me.

I have been able to end unhealthy relationships quicker, and have also noticed my sexual boundaries with men have returned for which I am so relieved. I no longer feel like a victim of this disease and feel I have the tools to control it. I have been teaching my daughter who suffers from a lot of anxiety how to mood bust, and this year she seems more happy and well adjusted.

Last night I shared your book with a young friend who has struggled with depression for years and she now wants to get a copy too. I am not where I want to be yet, I am still struggling with my financial situation and with what direction to take in my life, but it no longer overwhelms me-I allow myself my feelings but don't let them rule me. I have shared my story with you because I want you to know that your book has really helped me. Day by day I am becoming the person I want to be. Day by day I am finding the person I lost. Thank-you. A. R.

Dear A. R.

Thank you for your letter. You have come on the same long journey that many of us have to take who were not blessed with wise parenting as children, and therefore wandered into some bad coping mechanisms to make our way. Congratulations on your success. If you have any questions, I will be glad to answer them. A. B. Curtiss