Swings

By Camilla Del

To most people on the outside looking in, it appears that Camilla is the girl who has it all. What they dont see, is her struggle with a debilitating mental illness over the last ten years. From facing depressed lows so extreme that in-patient hospitalization as a result of suicidal behavior was needed, to mania so frighteningly fast paced that she married a man after knowing him only three months and divorced two years later, Camillas bipolar renders her life anything but easy or by the book, which is why she chose to write one.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 20, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496944894

Camilla Del

Camilla Curran is a model, fashion designer, brand ambassador, and ballet dancer and teacher. In addition to her work in fashion and the performing arts, Miss Curran attended art school at the acclaimed Memphis College of Art to study drawing, and even manages her own image consulting company, Curran Consulting. In her spare time, Camilla enjoys reading about archaeology, psychology, and fashion history, salsa dancing and people watching. She uses her colorful experiences amidst her varied social scene as inspiration for her lighter writing, while her journey growing up with Bipolar I inspires her heavier work. Curran was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 17, and has since learned to live and thrive despite the constant ups and downs, the swings, of life with a mental illness. She credits her supportive family and strong faith in God for both the success she has achieved and her survival during the darkest times.

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2014 Camilla Del. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/16/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-4490-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-4489-4 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Foreword

Section I My Home, My Heart

Thank You

Burdens

Dear Dad

Flyer

From Mom to Me: The Choice Is Yours

From Mom to Me: This Too Shall Pass

My Guardian Angel

Gone Away

On My Own?

The Proof Is Me

Section II Of Sun and Shade

Biased Eyes

Confines

Dancing Flames

Even the Birds Grow Silent

Hatred’s Beating Drum

I and Me

Mask

Night’s Noon

Optimism

Plains of Glass

What Man Is

All You Need to Know

Section III It’s A Wonderful Life’

Contentment

Daizy

Look Upward to the Sky

Normal’s Duller Edge

Ocean’s Sunset

Our Mighty Flag

The Lone Stallion

There’s More

Waiting Room

Wonderful Life

Section IV On Lust and Love

A Prince?

Chance

Do I ask too much?

First Love

Illusion

Only Pretty Face?

Shore of Sea

Surrender?

The Black Swan Chose

Would You Like to Know Me?

Toward Wisdom’s Joyful End, I

Toward Wisdom’s Joyful End II

Section V To My Lord

A Far Famed Poet

Allowing Pain

Freedom

He Just as Much Loves Me

I Am Like Peter

I Bend to Wash His Feet

I Rise From Earthly Ashes

If God is Love

In that very moment

Lines

Look Around

Looking Up

Love

Unseen Ends

Dancing, Just God and I

God’s Answer

How Green Is the Grass

My Reach Exceeds My Grasp

To The Reader

This volume I dedicate to my parents.

Mom, from you I have learned not just to see, but to seek the good and beautiful in all things.

Dad, you are now and always my ideal of a godly man.

Thank you both for loving me when I’m unloveable, for seeing past my prickles and for praying me back to the feet of my Savior.

I love you.

Foreword

In This Mirror

In this mirror, see yourself! But look with open eyes! Drop your ruse, lay down your mask, put off your proud disguise.

Those who always hide their face, may dance at times with ease, but how much love can live between a mirror and a dream?

No heart if left alone too long, will know a joyous life; thus you and I must learn to share our hearts with truth, in time.

Please give your heart some hope this day! Throw out your shallow schemes! In this mirror, see yourself, take off your mask-be free!

SECTION I

My Home, My Heart

Thank You

To see your child flounder, fall must require strength of God,

not to rush to save the day, remove all harm and pave her way.

To let your heart know hurt and strain proves joy takes time, to love means pain.

You see her glance down Death’s bleak road, instinct says, Go! Seize her load!

Yet Heart, though broken, intercedes-says, "She, herself