Book excerpt: I Think I Need to Talk to a Doctor tells author Jason Ventre's life story-so far anyway. He shares his history for many reasons, but chief among them is the need to explain his life experiences so that others may try to avoid having them. Diagnosed with bipolar syndrome, he talks honestly about the repercussions of his decisions-mostly bad ones, when considered on a scale from moderate to devastating. He still deals with repercussions from those choices on a daily basis. From describing the funny challenges of childhood and trying to figure out what mattered and what didn't to recalling his failed relationships, Ventre paints an honest picture of a boy who was just different. Rather than trying to change who he was, he just went with whatever he felt-with unforgettable results. Now he takes those results and unapologetically turns them into lessons. Ventre reminds us that we all have pasts full of mistakes; although it might be a great thought to say that we can learn from our past, history has shown us that we're more likely to just "think" that we've learned from our mistakes as we continue to make them. I Think I Need to Talk to a Doctor shows that sometimes laughing at our irrational decisions might be the only way to grow from them and hopefully teach others not to travel down the same road of lost maturity.