You may have heard the expression, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you!” Well, sometimes you can be too sensitive with your bipolar disorder as well, and think that people are looking at you and judging you, or stigmatizing you just because you have it, when that may not be the case at all.
I’ve thought that before. I also have ADHD, and I used to teach English in a private Christian school, so I had really small classes. Sometimes I would go off on tangents, and sometimes I would go really out there! I could tell, after awhile, that I had done this by the looks on my students’ faces.
They would kind of cock their heads, with this look of puzzlement on their faces, all scrunched up-like, and they would look at me real funny. Then I would realize that I’d done it – I’d gone way off topic and gone into ADHD-ville again!
I know I couldn’t help it, because it’s just a learning disorder that I have, but still, I could have taken their looks as sitting in judgment against me and taken it personally.
Then I could have gotten hurt or angry by it. Instead, I usually made a joke about it like, “Oops, I did it again, didn’t I?” which would make them laugh.
That was my choice, though. Because I didn’t want to be stigmatized. I didn’t want to make a big issue out of my learning disability, so I made it humorous.
However, I can’t find anything humorous about bipolar disorder. I take it way too seriously. What I can do, however, is make the same choice not to let it stigmatize me – not to let other people judge me for it, and not to be too sensitive to other people’s opinions of it or me because I have it.
I am very open about the fact that I have bipolar disorder. I have written a book about it, and I talk about it all the time. Usually, I get a good reception.
In fact, usually I find that either the person I’m talking to has it themselves or has a family member or loved one with the disorder. At the very least, they know someone who has it. So most people are at least now familiar with bipolar.
That helps with some of the stigma of old. With knowledge, the fear of us is lessened. It used to be that people were afraid of catching our bipolar like you can catch the flu. But people are more knowledgeable now, and not as afraid.
As long as we’re not symptomatic, the more usual comments we might get would be, ”I wouldn’t have known you had bipolar disorder if you hadn’t told me.” At least that’s what I get. Most people are surprised when I tell them. That’s because I am so stable.
I think the more confident we are in ourselves, the more sure we are of ourselves, and the more stable we are, the better a picture we present of a person with a mental illness in general and of bipolar disorder specifically.
The most important thing is stability – we have to take care of ourselves and manage our disorder so that we can be stable and symptom-free. Not just because of what other people might think, but for our own sakes.
Wishing you peace and stability,
Remember God loves you and so do I,
Michele
