About Bipolar Girl
Bipolar Girl: My Psychotic Self relates a 28-year journey of self survival. It is also an odyssey that will touch many lives. Maricela believes bipolar disorder is an illness that can make you stronger and more resilient. Maricela sees Bipolar disorder as an illness that changes the way you think, feel and perceive. “Thoughts of death flood your mind. Suicide symbolizes escape and when you’re manic it just causes a happy high, but lethal behavior. With that are psychotic features like delusions and hallucinations. You are in another world far from sanity. At the end of the roller-coaster you’ll soon discover you were always strong enough to survive it.”
Maricela grew up the youngest of five in a poor and violent neighborhood in East Los Angeles. Raised by a widowed Mexican mother, Maricela felt completely alone most of my life. Her isolation and depression only increased as she got older. Maricela attempted suicide for the first time when she was 14. Four years after her attempt, she fell into a psychotic and delusional episode and her family had no choice but to put her in a mental hospital where she was diagnosed with bipolar.
David Likes to Play with Dolls
David Likes to Play with Dolls is a children’s book about acceptance, kindness, and unconditional love. Its important message is that children’s toys should be for everyone, and that a child’s gender shouldn’t determine what toys they must play with. 
The story was inspired by the author’s nephew David, and his childhood joy of playing with his sister Caroline’s dolls. As a bright-eyed, joyful little boy, in his heart all he wanted was to be accepted by others. Playing with dolls made him happy, because he simply didn’t like the “boy toys,” consisting of cars and trucks.
One day David’s sister can’t find her Gypsy Fairy Queen doll. Caroline looks in every room in the house, only to find that David has been playing with her dolls and toys. She becomes very upset with him, until she realizes that her brother should be able to play with any toys he enjoys.