the stereotype

so as those of us with bipolar disorder or any type of mental illness know, there is a stigma. there's a huge stigma attached to this. in fact, this stigma is the sole reason i'm doing this blog anonymously. i honestly don't care if people know my business. i really don't. people's opinions are mostly irrelevant to me unless it's someone i really care about, and even then, me caring is pretty damn rare. don't like my outfit? oh well, i'm wearing it. i look trashy when i go out to bars and clubs? lucky for you i don't care. i'm weird? yeah, okay. i cuss too much? fuck you mind your own business. honestly i don't care when it comes to most things, especially if i'm in a mood. i care about my mom, my sisters, my very best friends, and a couple other people's opinions. and that's it. even then, i consider their opinions and then i go my own way. that being said, potential employers determine my future. i may not care what they think either, but they do control whether or not i'm hired, and that controls my money. of course i have to care about that. i'm scared that someone will read my application and resume, look me up, link me to this website, and not hire me because i'm unstable. that's why i'm not giving my name or any solid details about my city (or even state), my schools, my job locations, etc. i don't want these personal confessions traced back to me. maybe i'll get braver and change my mind one day, but for now i'm not prepared to have this stigma overshadow me at every job i apply for.

the stigma against mental illness is intense and i feel it's even greater for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. the concepts of more talked about disorders such as depression, adhd, and anxiety are sometimes better understood; illnesses that generally don't have unpredictability and psychotic symptoms tend to get more sympathy than others. unfortunately, others, such as mine, tend to be judged and feared because people tend have so little understanding and so many misconceptions. bipolar disorder is laregly seen as simply sudden and extreme mood swings, and that's it. phrases like "this weather is so bipolar" "my girlfriend always starts yelling out of nowhere, i think she's bipolar" "i get mad easily, i might be bipolar" are thrown around all the time, and people don't seem to realize how offensive and ignorant they are. weather cannot be bipolar. if you really and truly think someone you know and care about is bipolar then maybe address it and try to get them help. if you think you're bipolar, research it and go see a doctor. bipolar disorder is not a fucking joke and everytime it gets thrown around like one it truly hurts me and it makes me cringe because it just reminds me how much no one else will ever understand unless they've personally gone through it, and people with bipolar disorder make up a pretty small portion of our population. chances are unless you're in a support group or it runs in your family, you may not run into someone else with it, or at least not anyone you know has it. i have yet to meet another friend or coworker who's shared with me that they have it. it's lonely. i got lucky with my two best friends because they both happened to major in psychology and one of them works with me (our job requires us to have knowledge/an understanding of trauma and mental illness and addiction and things that) while the other is getting her masters degree in social work. they both understand me as much as i feel anyone without the disorder could, and they're both extremely patient and helpful when it comes to everything i go through. neither of them judge me or are taken aback when i have a breakdown and confess i've been suicidal, or when i ask them questions about the voices in my head and if i should be worried, or when i have to cancel plans because i'm feeling anxious and can't be around people. they have an understanding because they each have a background in psychology and have jobs that more or less have to do with people similar to me. sometimes when i talk to one of them about certain things i feel like she's analyzing me (this is the one who's getting her masters in social work) but it doesn't bother me. i figure it's all out of love and she always laughs when i tell her i feel like i'm being analyzed. this is a minor speech about how amazing my best friends are and that's not where i was trying to go with this, sorry! my purpose of bringing them up is that i know they don't fall for the stereotype or believe anything about the stigma of mental illness. one of my other close friends has learned a lot about bipolar disorder since we became close and she tends to point out that i'm going manic before i even realize it, but i do remember one time i blurted something about being bipolar while i was drunk and her other friend i'd just met was present, and he got a panicked expression and asked if i was about to get mad and start breaking things in his house (not in those exact words, but that's the gist of it) and i was like what? no. i'm happy, that makes no sense. and my close friend kind of stood up for me since i was drunk and not really in the mood to do it for myself. and since then her other friend has become one of my own friends and he frequently asks me questions about the disorder out of curiosity or so he can understand it more, and i appreciate that. it doesn't bother me at all because i'm pretty much an open book with those who know about it. but i've been called emo before, i've been told that i had to have a reason for being sad on days when i had absolutely no specific instance that caused that day's crippling depression, i've been told that i'd stop having episodes if i just take my medicine (i have yet to miss a single dose since the day i was diagnosed), i've been told that staying home because of a panic attack is the same as ditching my friends for no reason, i've been told that i should be able to handle this on my own without medication or therapy, i've been told that it's not a real thing and it's all in my head (that conversation caused me to have an emotional breakdown in an uber ride on the way home from my longtime "friend's" house while my best friend tried to comfort me about what the other "friend" had said. the uber driver was super sweet and did his best to help me feel better too even though he didn't even know what was wrong), i've been called selfish and blamed for causing my partner to feel insecurities while i was too depressed to want sex in a relationship, i've been told that i'm too needy because sometimes i get paranoid that my friends hate me and i double check to make sure they're not about to desert me forever, i've been told that i should find a way to hold my sometimes rampant emotions in at work because i'm a professional now, i've been told that i shouldn't have kids because this is a horrible and selfish thing to pass onto them, i've been accused of losing my composure to "get out of things" that i supposedly didn't wanna deal with, i've been told to just power through college even though it was making me wanna kill myself more and more every fucking day i had to stay. i've heard so many ignorant things coming from some of the people closest to me and it seems like it never ends. there's a constant stream of stigma and stereotypes every damn place i look. even one of my best friends called someone bipolar once while she was telling me a story, and the second she said it we both stopped walking and looked at each other and she immediately started apologizing profusely, and i forgave her because i know she didn't mean it and i know she knows better. but that just proves how rampant this misconception is in the world. my best friend of almost 15 years who has a degree in psychology and is getting a masters in social work, who works as a teacher and is studying to become a social worker and has simulated conducting therapy sessions in her classes, who's known me since 7th grade and watched me struggle with all of this since before we even knew what was wrong, the one who i always confide in and cry to when i can't handle life and need an escape and just wanna watch our favorite movies and bake cookies or brownies and drink wine and forget--even she slipped up without even realizing it and forgot that throwing that word around isn't something you should do. and this is something i have to live with every single day. it sucks. it really, really, fucking sucks. people assume they know what i go through--or that i'm not going through anything because it isn't real and i'm being dramatic--and that fucking sucks. i don't know how else to explain it. i hate this stereotype that i'll be laughing one second and then the tears of laughter become uncontrollable tears of sorrow followed by hatred and screaming and throwing things and finishing with cheerfulness and happiness and that's how i live everyday. no, it's not. i'd be lying if i said that cycle has never happened to me before, because it actually has. of course it has. i go from laughing to crying to throwing things to being happy again, sometimes within a matter of minutes. it's pretty dramatic and usually once it passes i laugh because it was so ridiculous. but that's generally not how it happens and honestly a lot of the time that only happens during my road rage. there are SO many more parts of this than the stereotype would have you believe, and i think the stigma keeps the truth from being talked about. my fear of the stigma is also keeping me from announcing who i am because if it weren't for that, i really wouldn't mind people knowing. that's just a brief description of how inconvenient and frustrating the stigma is and maybe i'll revisit this in the future, but for now i'll move onto a different topic.

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