Andy Behrman

I couldn't sleep for nights on end, as my brain felt like there were thoughts colliding within it; I obsessed over small details, from saving pennies and polishing each one of them to washing my clothing over and over in the washing machine.

In my most psychotic stages, I imagine myself chewing on sidewalks and bulging and swallowing sunlight and clouds.

My eating habits are the only behaviour of mine that are still manic. I can't walk by a restaurant, a bakery, an ice-cream store or a candy store without making a purchase; the amount of calories I take in today are at least five times as many as I took before starting on all of this medication.

In total, I was diagnosed with depression by eight psychotherapists and psychiatrists over a period of thirteen years. Diagnosed wrong. Absolutely wrong. My accurate diagnosis was manic depression, or what we call bipolar disorder today.

After graduation in June of 1984, I moved to Manhattan. My first stop was a psychiatrist, who in less than our first fifty-minute session again diagnosed me with depression.

Manic depression is a type of depression, technically, and it's the opposite of uni-polar. Manic depression is also called bi-polar disorder. Some people don't like to call it that because they think it makes it sound too nice, when the reality is if you have manic-depression you have manic-depression.

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 angry, and I was full of rage. I wasn't lying in bed.

There are lots of people with mental health disabilities, and that's just the way their life is; it's not like you see it in the movies.

Like most manic depressives, some of my symptoms included racing thoughts that I simply had to act upon - flying from New York to Paris and taking the train to Berlin; flying to Argentina in the middle of the night; spending tens of thousands of dollars on unnecessary garments, dinners and gifts.

People accuse me of glamorizing mental illness. Looking back sometimes, that's true. But I don't feel guilty.

Money is a huge issue for manic depressives. Sometimes the problem is not nearly on the same scale as it has been for me, but nonetheless, it's difficult to deal with. Many get themselves into debt that can take years to clear up, write bad cheques, shoplift and borrow huge amounts from family and friends.

My illness is one often characterized by dramatic overspending - in my case through frenzied shopping sprees, credit card abuse, excessive hoarding of unnecessary material goods and bizarre generosity with family, friends and even strangers.