You will need to keep working at finding the right doctor...one who believes that with help YOU can manage your cycles. You may need some medication to assist you if you highs are way too hard to handle on your own.

Mostly, I believe you need understanding. You need to really understand what is happening to you and this takes place when after you have read the book you begin to study your patterns...(the book helps to point out what to watch for in yourself and how to handle that particular phase). After you have studied your patterns then there is a period of adjustment required where you will need to look at the way that you have been making decisions on your careers, your relationships and even your hobbies to determine what was really what you wanted and what was created from the "up" ride.

If you have anyone close to you that will read the book, do have them read it as well because I have been told by many people without bi-polar tendencies that it really helped them to understand what is going on through the sampling of what it feels like to be "up" and then to be suddenly tossed "down".

This is a new way to look at depression so do not be surprised when you come across resistance because the old way is all some people know. Someone who has never experienced depression has a really tough time imagining what it might be like and why it is so difficult for us to just "get over it".

There will always be people who will think of people who ride the waves as having "something wrong" because they just do not understand. We are working on letting people know that it is okay and can actually be wonderful to be us! We simply have not know how to handle the high energy and creativity that we have been given.

In the end it will be best when they witness your change rather than you telling them in words. Many people have told readers that they sense a calm in them without the reader having to say a word. This is because a calm is developed when you realize you have the tools to know yourself and know your needs.

I would guess that we ALL have felt like not trying any more. But please know that this is created from not knowing why you are tossed around the way you are. The depression robs you (actually I believe your "up" exhausts you and robs you throwing you into depression) of your "happy" chemicals which tells your mind to play the "everything is wrong with me video" but it is a shield over your real life. A negative delusion. The wrong movie. Just as the "up" time can be a positive delusion... too happy, too fast, too optimistic...The wrong movie again..

The real you lies in the middle place where it is neither boring, anxious or depressing... it is a joy that bathes the cells with vibrating energy...it is a wondrous place. It is where the real you lies you simply need to be introduced because as wave riders we have rarely stayed in the middle. We have worshipped the "up" us and created careers and relationships in the high.... then burnt out and fallen into the pits bypassing the middle all together, quitting jobs and breaking up with partners. Or sometimes we have stayed in the middle but not felt the joy because we thought we were supposed to be the person we are when we are "up"...not so... you are exactly who you are supposed to be...just you as you are.... We all have things to learn. Learning how to ride our waves is just one of them.

I hope this helps.
Take care
Indigo