Hey, y’all –
Well, here I am on vacation in Florida seeing my parents. I just needed to get a break from it all — you know, living in the bipolar world, working for bipolarcentral.com, researching about bipolar disorder, writing about bipolar, thinking about bipolar, living with it… it felt like I was just getting overwhelmed by bipolar disorder.
Besides, it was about time to go visit my mom, anyway. It’s that time of year — the anniversary of my sister’s death is April 15th — when both my mom and me start to get a little down. (For those who just joined this blog, my sister killed herself after going off her bipolar medication.)
Anyway, so my husband and I drive down to FL a couple days ago to “get away from it all” (meaning, primarily, the bipolar disorder). I mean, we’re stable and all, so it wasn’t like trying to run away from an episode or anything, or being in a manic episode and impulsively running away. So…here we are.
But ya know — wherever you go, there you are!
Would you believe this? My parents live in a condo complex. Turns out, the neighbor across the street and her son both have bipolar disorder. The man next door to them also has the disorder. The couple next door? The wife has bipolar disorder, and she believes that her son who killed himself had undiagnosed BP.
The point of all this? If you think you’re alone, you’re not.
There are so many people out there who have bipolar disorder. Many more than you would think. Just look how many in just this small vicinity of my parents’ condo have it! Oh, and I didn’t even include me, my husband, and my mom in that little scenario! That’s a bunch of people all with BP.
Many people with the disorder feel stigmatized. They feel like now that they’ve been labeled with this disorder that they are somehow different than other people. But if you feel this way, I’m here to tell you that you are not! It’s not YOU that is different, but just your BRAIN that is different!
There are millions and millions (and probably even millions more than that) of people in this country with bipolar disorder. You are only one of them.
If you start to open up about it, you will be surprised how many people close to you — friends, friends of friends, neighbors, grocery clerks, bank tellers, pharmacy clerks, department store check-out people, other shoppers, strangers you run into and start conversations with… that either they or someone in their family or someone they know have bipolar disorder.
Remember, YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
Has that ever happened to you? When you’re talking to someone and the subject of bipolar disorder comes up and you find out that either the person, someone in their family, or someone they know has bipolar disorder?
I’d love to hear what happened.
Wishing you peace and stability,
Remember God loves you and so do I,
Michele
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