Barbara Bohm

There are two author's of the Bohm Book: Barbara and Elsie Bohm. Elsie and Barbara Bohm are mother and daughter. Elsie Bohm is a retired widow and great-grandmother who has achieved most of her life's goals and is a devote Christian.

Barbara Bohm is bipolar. My first bipolar episode occurred when I was 29, on my way to enlist in the Nuclear Navy to teach at the Nuclear Navy School as women could not serve on nuclear subs as they were combat vessels. The Navy immediately lost interest in me after my breakdown. My doctor told me not even to consider going on to get my Master's in Nuclear Engineering as I would have another breakdown. Well, I went anyway. He was right. I DID have another breakdown, but I also finished my degree. So I got my Master's in Nuclear Engineering Against Medical Advice! I got a job at a shut down for repairs nuclear plant, had another breakdown, and then became unemployable. I had a total of 7 hospital stays. The final one was in 1990. At that time I was very overweight, a life-long problem. A kindly social worker told me I should go to Overeater's Anonymous as it was "cheap" and might help. I dismissed it. But I had the choice of remaining longer in the hospital or staying in a Topeka, KS group home-- I could not just go straight home to my folks this time. The first Saturday, I was told I either had to watch cartoons or have a "legitimate destination". I am a snob. I have a Master's degree. i do NOT watch cartoons! So off I went. as soon as I set foot in the meeting, a feeling of "coming home" washed over me. and i was so very homesick! It was due to O.A. that I came to God. Before that, I had the silly idea that as a"good scientist" I could not be a Believer. and i very much wanted to be a "good scientist'. But, in O.A.,it says you have to have a Higher Power. To me, that Higher Power has to be the Christian TRinity.

You may wonder why I had 7 hspital stays. Did the doctors have trouble diagnosing me or choosing my medicine? No, that was not really the problem. The problem was really a problem of acceptance. I just didn't want to believe I was really mentally ill and needed my medicine. So I did not really come to terms with being bipolar until I went to O.A. because the first thing I noticed about the Twelve Steps which are read at the start of every meeting is that they are a "road map" on how I could change myself. That got me to thinking. I had been acting like I was a "broken car". When you take a "broken car" in to be "fixed" , all the "broken car" has to do is show up! It does nothing else. Now I am active, working with my treatment team and I am much better. I joke about being a "mad scientist", sometimes