By Aric Markl
I was diagnosed with a type of mood disorder known as cyclothymia three years ago and since middle school I’ve been treated for ADHD. I had struggled in school for most of my life, but after developing cyclothymia at the age of 20 things became a lot more difficult. I began finding it difficult to get out of bed in the morning, I would have mood swings going from hypomanic (feeling like I could do everything, taking on extra work and responsibilities) to hypodepressive (waking up in the morning and spending an hour and a half convincing myself that I could get out of bed that day). My grades suffered, I started losing friends, and this only fed the cycle. By the time the end of the semester had rolled around, I had missed about 25% of all of my classes and it was only thanks to two very forgiving professors that I even passed.