In this powerful and moving personal story of depression and mania, Debbie Foster shows us what it's like living with bi-polar.
Navigating depression, unable to access her creative mind leaves her feeling helpless as she travels through periods of devestating lifelessness and extreme euphoria.
Through her own life experience, she has discovered the power of what she calls "Sherpas" and in this talk she introduces us all to the amazing roles Sherpas can play for someone with a bi-polar diagnosis. Debbie Foster is charismatic, compassionate and creative and feels most alive surrounded by children.

Of all her jobs (and there have been many!) teaching preschool will always be her favorite because little people are authentic, hysterical and always in-the-moment.

Being diagnosed with bi-polar and adhd at age 29 changed the trajectory of Debbie’s life. Backwards she went…from a social butterfly to a caterpillar holed up in a cocoon.

14 years, 13 prescriptions, 5 shrinks, one divorce, thousands of hours on Netflix and 8 jobs later, Debbie has become an expert in “being bi-polar” and after successfully being off all medications for 5 months, she is reemerging from her cocoon.

An intuitive friend once told her that she wasn’t going through this for nothing.

Debbie wants to help others understand the beauty of a bi-polar brain, show others with brains like hers how they can support their own families and friends (its hardest on them!) and inspire others to come out of the closet. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx