“Sometimes I'm so high I could almost touch the sky.
       Sometimes I'm so low it's as if a dark cloud has set in over me.”

pamela filip

:: Pamela Allen Filip is no stranger to the stage and camera. She is also no stranger to bipolar disorder and other mental illnesses that each year affect more than 2 million Americans like her. ::

Undiagnosed most of her life, she has often blamed herself for her unruly behaviors that played themselves out over periods of time. One illness sends her on destructive highs and hopeless lows with periods of normalcy in between. Another allows her to hear a symphony of voices when no one is there. A third plagues her with ritual obsessions.

Battling her own demons, she learned all she could about the health care system and began to understand her illnesses when she worked at the state hospital in Austin, Texas. This was the very institution where her mother had been a patient on several occasions in the early ’60s. Now, Filip’s regimen of medications helps her control her disorders.

She has written articles about mental illness and her manuscript, which have appeared in the community newspapers African-American News & Issues and The Villager. She appeared on Oprah once several years ago.

Pamela Filip has presented lectures on both mental illness and this book for the nursing and adiministrative staff at the state hospital. In 2006, she worked with Travis County MHMR to videotape a lecture on mental illnesses to medical professionals. The 40-minute CD of this session is available to any medical professionals as CEU credit in this field. The cost is $10 per CD.  $5 of the actual sales go towards Travis County MHMR. Contact Pamela to get your copy.

In addition, she has served as a volunteer court advocate for SafePlace, a women’s shelter in Austin, TX, where she lives with her family.