I am rather sure that I suffer from some kind of variation of Bipolarism ...so...I and earth have something in common. We both have two polars, Earth's polar are both cool and one of them are covered with penguins, while mine are there to confuse me. My mother was manic depressive and I diagnosed her (when I was 16 and studied psychology) years before she actually got the same diagnose from a psychologist. My own symptoms are fortunately not as extreme as hers was, but I do have periods full of positive and creative energy, which make me hyper and talkative altered with other periods, where I am very depressed. I have got anti-depressives from my doctor. He thinks I am _just_ depressed, since I was when I wanted help to deal with it...and it is so much easier for doctors to write a prescription with an easy solution medicine than to actually ask about the patient family history. Never mind...I don't want lithium anyway since it has severe side effects. When I feel low the feeling works very detrimental to my self esteem and make me think bad thoughts...that I am ugly, fat, lonely, unloved, worthless etc. My daughter who is very kind wanted to cheer me up last time it happened by taking pictures of me showing that I looked good (for women my age as she said :p). I am very pleased with the pictures she took and have one of them (below) as my profile pic on Facebook now, but most of all I am lucky...to have a daughter who wants her mother to feel better.