More often than I probably realize, my disorder starts to show. It could be through tearfulness, through irrational anger, through awkward things I say, through unprovoked bouts of sadness, basically anything that seems odd, chances are it's my disorder peeking through.
There was one time when I had just bought a new printer and laptop, and I was taking the train from my home city back to school. There wasn't room in the seat for my newly purchased printer to stay by my side, so I caused a huge scene about how I needed to keep my printer right beside me. It was in a box and clearly a printer, but the rack the employee had asked me store it on was within clear eyesight from my seat. I easily could have set the printer down and gone to my seat. But something strange came over me; I was mad, I was fidgety, I refused to sit down, and I was causing an absolute scene to the point where people around me were staring in discomfort and some of them seemed downright scared. This was about a year before I was diagnosed. I honestly don't remember how this all panned out because I'm pretty sure I was in the midst of some type of episode--whether it was manic, mixed, or something else I'm unaware of, I'm not sure. What I do know is it wasn't normal behavior and I was completely oblivious to that fact in the moment.
There are other times when people kind of chuckle when I'm having what appears to be an irrational reaction to something mundane. For example, I was cooking pasta at my sister's apartment a few years ago. I had the noodles, sauce, veggie meat, and vegetables all going at the same time while trying to open a can of olives. I'd seen my sister multitask this exact combination multiple times and I was determined to do the same. But something came over me and I had a complete meltdown. I started turning from one pot to the other, to the pan, to the other pan, to the bowl I wanted to get those damn olives that would not open into, and I started to cry. Just unprompted random ugly tears. My sister was doing something nearby (I think dancing to 80s music and singing to me while I tried to focus?) and she immediately noticed my freakout and came over to help. She kind of chuckled at my overreaction, which I can't blame her for because honestly it was comical, and took over to finish cooking the meal while I tried to calm down.
I'm not proud to say the same damn thing happened last month, this time while I was trying to cook veggies and pasta for my boyfriend. He smiled his adorable smile and kinda nudged me aside to take over, which I appreciated because honestly I was getting really flustered over trying to multitask the noodles and broccoli. Why? No one knows. Everything was mellow, he wasn't rushing me, nothing was boiling over or burning, I just... panicked.
I've had people randomly tell me to calm down when I didn't realize I was getting irrationally angry over something unimportant. People have commented that I'm the most emotional person they've ever met. I've had friends admit they keep things from me (simple harmless things, like spotting a bug earlier in the day) so I won't freak out and get overly emotional or stressed over essentially nothing. I get apprehensive looks in public sometimes (I guess I come off as aggressive when annoyed). I have a good friend/former coworker who told me not long ago that when we used to work together she would often see me animatedly conversing with myself--or sometimes thin air--and knew I was hallucinating at work, but she never told me because she thought I was aware of it. I was not. The list goes on, and majority of the time it's the disorder poking its ugly head out to play.
The thing is, I'm usually not aware it's happening. I don't realize symptoms are peeking through during what I consider regular interactions. Sometimes I realize it after the fact and feel mortified. Sometimes I realize it in the midst of what's happening and freak out even worse. I have a constant fear that people will figure me out. That my emotions will spill over one day and someone--maybe a coworker, maybe a new friend I haven't confided in yet--will shout "I get it, you're bipolar! No wonder you're acting crazy right now"
This makes me second guess myself constantly. I don't want it to show, but it's impossible to keep it from ever showing. I live with this daily. If someone had a physical ailment it would undoubtedly show from time to time. Someone with a cold is noticeably sick, someone in a cast is obviously injured. Someone with mental illness is expected to keep it under wraps and go about each and every day pretending to be fine. Shoving symptoms down and putting on a happy face. Dealing with potential triggers because they're a part of daily life. Censoring their life experience so they won't make others uncomfortable. We suffer in silence with the hopes that it won't show. But sometimes it does. Sometimes it bursts out, obvious as all hell, and people know something is going on mentally. Other times it barely peeks out, and people wonder if we're okay. Sometimes it remains in the background and lets us go about our day without incident. It's unpredictable, and a lot of the time so are we.
My big fear is that someone who knows will pull me aside one day to say my bipolar disorder is showing, and there won't be a thing I can do to stop it.