Enjoy,
Jhilmil
From: http://forums.about.com
NightandDay (KindraLH)
Posted: Apr 28 09 05:16 PM
Message: 60722.1 (1 of 11)
I'm young (and perhaps some will say "dumb" after hearing what I have to say) and bipolar.
[I should preference the following by saying that this came across as aggressive and angry and I WHOLEHEARTEDLY did not mean it that way and it is NOT in response to anything that was said or mentioned on this board, it is a little bit of a "pissy" outburst about something that I read and heard somewhere else and I just had to yell my sentiments "from the mountain top" or I thought I was going to explode!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sorry to anyone who may feel a personal attack or be offended by my harsh/cutting words or tenor. That is not my intention.
I would also suggest that if you are in a low or vulnerable state you should probably refrain from reading on. I'll probably regret the whole thing tomorrow (most likely later today); I tend to be a little hot under the collar and most definitively impulsive (imagine that!).]
I hear many people speak of the stigma surrounding it and the shame they have about this disorder. They often say that they keep it to themselves because they fear repercussions or being viewed as somehow different and “defective”. Many speak about how mental illness is not viewed on the same level as a “real” disease, something with an intrinsically physical nature and cause, and how this makes us feel a measure of disgrace that sufferers of those other diseases and illnesses do not feel.
For those of you arguing that people with cancer, heart conditions, more "tradition" physical illnesses do not feel ashamed you may want to ask one of them about that sometime. For the former beauty queen who now has to walk around with a completely bald head do you think there is no personal shame? Certainly, none should be necessary, just as with us, and she should be applauded for her courageous battle, and with “most” people she is, but, more often than not, she still feels embarrassed every time she walks outside her door and feels the breeze hit her naked head.
For my athlete friend who has spent nearly all of his adult life (he turns 70 this year) as a long distance runner and has always prided himself on his 45 beats per minute at rest heart rate, do you think he feels no embarrassment about the fact that one day, on a simple warm-up run, he had a serious heart-attack and nearly died? He could barely breathe yet insisted that everything was fine and that he didn’t need to go to the hospital. In the end (after open heart surgery) the surgeons confirmed that the ONLY reason he was still alive was his excellent physical condition. He had a strong family history of heart trouble and had done everything within his power to avoid dealing with such a situation, but that was not enough, and now he feels like a failure. He has told me more than once that he feels a distinct pang of humiliation each time he looks at his running shoes, gets his Runner’s World magazine, or hears about a local marathon. It’s a disappointment in himself and, for some foolish reason, his character that he has absolutely no reason to carry, but he does and always will.
How about the heterosexual man with HIV? “I don’t have that...it’s a “gay” disease!” How many of them do you think tell even their closest guy friends that they have it? How many tell prospective sexual partners? Unfortunately, not as many as you would hope!
Nearly everyone who has an illness feels some form of shame at some point in time; the real trouble comes when society as a whole backs this personal feeling up. Most of the time society’s ignorance plays a major role in dictating what is a shameful or “acceptable” condition. You must remember, it was not that long ago that MOST people viewed many of the widely accepted and understood illnesses of today as something to be kept hush-hush and only shared with others on a need to know basis. The simple reason that those societal views changed is that those struggling with whatever the illness may have been spoke out, told their friends, family and co-workers, demanded recognition, organized parades, spoke to congress, and did all the things that generations before them, seeking equal rights and respect, had done in order to combat stigma. As of now, mental illness is one of the last vestiges of such rampant ignorance and stigma and it will not end until we stand up with one voice and say that we may “have” this or “be” this or “am” this or “suffer from” this or be “diagnosed with” this or “deal with” this but that we are not any different than any other person who contends with ANY disease.
Many of you, especially those who have battled this cruel disease for much longer than I, gone undiagnosed for years, burned bridges at every passing, reducing your life to ash and rubble, lived through archaic treatments that often left you sicker than when you started, and confronted the uneducated paranoia of those around you simply may not have the desire or strength to fight the “stigma machine” that continually churns out a new crop of people who only garner their understanding of mental illness from sensationalized news headlines or Hollywood movies that usually focus on the worst of the worst and forget the “average” loony. I respect that and will not prod you to go any farther than you feel comfortable, you have earned the right to do what will and I have absolutely NO right to even suggest otherwise.
On the other hand, I, and many of my generation, still hold on to a hope (perhaps naively) that we can make a difference. We still have the drive to yell it from the mountain tops that we “have/are/suffer from/deal with/are diagnosed with” bipolar, or any of the more colorful terms that we may want to use. You may want to grab me before I run out into the street, but please don’t; if enough of us run out together the traffic will HAVE to stop! I won’t ask anyone else to do it, so I’ll take the risk and be the first “lemming” off the cliff.
In this vein, I should say, that I already do many activist things. The first (and most effective in my opinion) of which is speaking with nearly 2,000 college students in an academic year. I am young enough that they see me as a peer, someone who could be their sister, dorm mate, girlfriend, cousin, classmate, or any other girl walking down the street who may share their interests, lifestyle, hopes, dreams, and experiences. They could easily be standing right next to me in the fruit isle and ask me how to tell if a melon is ripe and they would have NO idea that I have spent months in the “puzzle house”, seen, heard, and felt things that were absolutely NOT real, and done, thought, and experienced things that they could never imagine. I am a “real” person who leads a “real” life and I am a perfect example of the “reality” of people with a mental illness.
I can articulate what it’s like to stare down the barrel of a gun and pray with all your might that it will NOT misfire, to scream and thrash about and let out the basest guttural cry of desolation about waking up and finding yourself still alive, to find yourself a month or two later incarcerated against your will and being held by people wearing hospital uniforms and talking in hushed voices, but whose faces seem strangely distorted and who you just know, no feel, are planning something against you, who won’t make any sense, and who insist that there is something wrong with you, that you must take these pills, that if you don’t you won’t ever be normal and you won’t ever go home. I know what it’s like to be pumped full of so much medication that a horse would not be able to stand and still look the orderlies defiantly in the eye, yelling obscenities, and daring them to come get you while wielding a chair, to have a pile of daily medication so deep that you can’t actually see your own hand when holding it, to spend $10,000 in the course of a day and have absolutely nothing to show for it except a credit card bill that you can’t pay.
I’ve seen the terror on my friends’ faces as they watch me break onto the roof of a building and attempt to jump off and the disappointment in my parents’ eyes as all my hopes and dreams (their hopes and dreams for me) slip between my fingers. I’ve watched the tears stream down my mother’s cheeks and my father’s resolute stare as long term hospitalization and commitment is suggested, resisted, and then discussed. I know this, I’ve lived this, and I have absolutely no qualms telling anyone about this.
I won’t ever escape these horrors of my past or the uncertainty of my future, but they are something that I do have to offer to others who will never, by God’s grace, have to face them and who may take my story and watch the man living under the bridge, washing car windows for spare change, or pushing a cart full of cans down the street and know that someone like me, someone who for all intents and purposes looks and acts mostly normal most of the time, is just one hair’s breath away from being that person. I tell them that, although I was sick I was not THAT sick, until I was a freshman in college. In the matter of a month I went from someone with an emotional problem, perhaps a little moody, someone a little chaotic but mostly dependable, together, and fun to be around, to an unrecognizable mess of psychotic frenzy. I want them to know, however scary the thought may be, that they, or the person sitting next to them, could be me and not even know it.
Bipolar I w/psychosis: Abilify 45mg, Depakote ER 2500mg, Lamictal 200mg, Seroquel XR 600mg
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. Robert Frost
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