32 people came to hear me speak!

I was thrilled when Sister Gerri Fitzpatrick of Holy Redeemer Counseling Center called me several months ago and asked me to speak again on "Understanding Bipolar Disorder and Depression."

I said nothing about my because the doctor hadn't set a date for it.

Now I'm six weeks post-transplant and feeling great again so the timing worked out perfectly.

My friend Noam Levine picked me up so he could help me carry in numerous cartons filled with information. Our support group, New Directions, of which I'm the director, publishes an outstanding magazine The Compass, so we put that on the handout table along with other material.

Although the talk was from 7 to 8:30 pm, people arrived early, so I began talking right away.

Why waste valuable time, I said to Sister Gerri when she came in to introduce me.

I asked people what they wanted to talk about and wrote it on an easel. Here are a few things they mentioned: mania, hypomania, how to get a proper diagnosis, denial, how to get organized, self-medication with drugs and alcohol.

When all of us were together it was like a New Directions meeting. Nearly every person in the room talked about their own situation which was extremely helpful to each person there.

They learned from each other!

When it was 8:15, I announced to the group: We have 15 minutes left.

It's important to end on time.

I told them I was selling my Yes I Can booklet, 40 pages of my life and my keys to recovery. I apologized for charging them but said I used my own money ($200) to have 100 copies printed.

One woman wanted my autograph.

Dear "Ellen" I wrote.

Best of luck to a great mom.

Ellen has cycles of depression and can't always be "fully present" with her two children, 12 and 9. We briefly discussed strategies during the talk on how to be with them when you're down. Ellen watches movies with the kids and orders out food since cooking is too difficult.

You can always hug them, I said, and show them you love them. Do tell them it's not their fault that mom is sad, it's just something that happens to her but she'll be better soon.

Another woman, "Monique," had been to my talk at the counseling center when I first gave it two years ago. She wanted to hear it again! She spoke about her psychiatrist who had not returned her call.

It's a man who's on our Top Doc list. I was shocked!

She is weaning off some of her ineffective medication and needs to hear from him.

She suggested to the group she go off the meds herself.

I told the group about when I went off lithium because it harmed my kidneys. My own psychiatrist, who should have known better, didn't wean me off but, instead, took me off cold turkey.

I should've known better myself. I went into a downward spiral after that and was suicidally depressed nearly 8 months.

We don't really want to kill ourselves, I told the group, but our brain has a mind of its own.

I exhorted Monique not to wean off her meds herself. All med changes must be done with your doctor.

She will call him tomorrow and schedule an appointment with him.

I rarely plan my talks in advance. But while I was eating lunch today, I leafed through my Yes I Can book and saw my poem "302." I briefly read it.

Why, it touches on everything the group needs to know, I thought. I'll begin by reading the poem. And did, striding across the front of the room.

At group's end, people came up to thank me for the presentation. One man said he missed his hypomanias (or excessively energetic periods) when he'd be up until 4 in the morning writing computer programs.

Many people told me they'd see me at our group.

Perhaps most moving of all was a woman who wanted help for her 37-year-old son who is not doing well. He can't find a good psychiatrist and his medicine does nothing for him.

Oh, I said, we'll find you a good psychiatrist. We specialize in this. Send me an email and I'll get back to you.

She was so happy she was crying. We hugged one another.

Then I came home, took my 14 antirejection bedtime drugs, shot up my evening insulin (the drugs caused diabetes) and finished the evening off with one of the small mini-meals recommended by Mary Ann Moylan, dietician at the Willow Grove Giant Supermarket.

If you don't mind, I'm gonna help myself to another bowl of cashews.