Jingle Bells and all things Festive…

Today I am feeling a little better. The sun rays have started to slowly streak through and I’ve been able to get out of bed without violently cursing.  Ok that’s a lie.  I never like getting out of bed with my usual psychiatric pill hangover… But this morning I was ok.  I got up, and suggested to my daughters that we do something different.  Get out of the house.  Go to the festive lights of the Mall, and indulge ourselves in too many Santa’s, too much tinsel, and oh so many jingle bells.

You see the start of the festive season will mean a number of things: 1) work will come to an end and I will fully be at home with my children, at least for a little bit 2) my son who lives in a another city will return home for at least a month 3) I get to eat everything festive (and indeed have begun stocking up) and 4) It’s better than doing the opposite:  not being able to get out of bed, crying at any opportunity, popping too many anxiety pills.  And I HAVE been doing that. I have been lying in a pool of pity and not wanted to get up.  I even stopped writing on my blog because I felt so bleugh – that’s blue with a big wet teary sneeze.  And the next step from that pool of pity is the depths of hospitalisation and well, this Bipolar Mom is NOT going there.  Not now.

When this Bipolar Mom is blue – her children feel it most.  They see a mother creased into overwhelming gushes of tears.  She disappears from family activity, opting instead for the safe confines of sleep and her bed.  The sleep I say always encompasses me in a safe cacoon, away from the emotion that promises to overtake me.   What I don’t realise is how this pool of pity impacts on my children – who don’t deserve this decidedly depressed someone as their mother.  I know I can’t always control it.   I do try to stay “upbeat”.  But my children should not have to live as soldiers in the war pit dodging the shrapnel of my illness.

So off we went to the mall.  And instead of firing more mental illness dodge balls in my children’s direction, I went on a festive shopping spree, satisfying that inner thriftless Bipolar me.  I bought myself pretty stationery.  I might never write in it because I love the perfectness of paper and pretty stationery.  I simply like to look at it. And notebooks with pastel coloured pens always make me happy.  A pretty pink bottle for untold amounts of refreshing ice tea, water etc.  A santa spatula and cookie cutter for cookies that will make the house smell like cinnamon and ginger in anticipation of Santa’s arrival (if only I can now muster the courage to bake).  And each of these activities, the trip to the mall, the little trinkets I have stashed have cheered me up.  And not because of the material items.

My joy was in the excitement of my children’s eyes – my youngest daughter’s eyes – as we passed aisles and aisles of candy canes, christmas trees, jingly bells, and snow spray.  Let’s pause and reflect here: snowspray in a country where it doesn’t snow?? Really?  I digress.  I am feeling better.  I am feeling more festive.  I am feeling relieved that a time in the year that is known to be terrible for people with mental illness is decidedly going to be better for me.  I’ve even asked for a therapist appointment.  This is the new, festivey me.  Be part of those who support us as opposed to those who don’t.  I am 4 M’s Bipolar Mom.

 

 

 

 

Unpredictability

Since I can first remember I’ve always prided myself on being predictable.  Ok maybe not predictable, but I am a much enjoyed creature of habit.  I like doing things the same way. Actually, I LOVE AND YEARN to have things the same way.  I take my coffee the same way every day, and every missing detail would be noticed by said creature of habit – not enough sugar, not enough milk etc.  Thus I am conceding that I am PEDANTIC about things staying the same.  Less bumpy, cushioned, same.  But unfortunately for me, this is rather silly giving that annoying thing called um, life.  Life by its very nature is not predictable.  I think that human beings have tried everything to predict life but I am yet to read THE decisive forward looking guide to life that actually works.

And then aside from life, you have that lovely horrible mixture of mental illness that gets thrown your way.  I am sure that if you looked up mental illness in a dictionary, it would have synonyms such as unpredictability, lack of sameness, insecurity, change, etc.  And that is how I have felt over the past week – thrown, nothing is the same, and I am struggling without my sameness.   Perhaps I need things to be the same because as a person with mental illness I am distraught at the extent to which I don’t know.  I don’t know how to feel, I don’t know how I WILL feel at any given point.  I don’t know when I will cry, when it will be too much and no matter how I try – especially to be that non-mental illness person thing – STRONG – I don’t know when it will work and when it won’t.  I have measures to help me out but in reality, there is far too much I just don’t know.

Coupled with this unpredictability is the fact that mental illness is – until it’s reached its boiling point – pretty invisible.  You can seem to be ok.  I have seen so many articles of people who’ve committed suicide when the world thought they were fine.  I am angry for those very people and myself that my, our very real disability is invisible because the more I try and convey how I feel and what’s wrong with me, I don’t have a clearly visible brace, crutch or listening device.  And neither did they. And I’m sad that I / we don’t.

You see, you can move out of the way for someone covered in a brace, you can help someone with crutches or get them a wheelchair or turn up / down a listening device.  I do not mean to make light of those suffering from these afflictions – but the reality is that I am tired of being afflicted by something no-one can see.   I am tired of being affected by something that no-one thinks is serious until you’re dead.  Because recently people in my life don’t even care if I cry.

Perhaps it’s not true that mental illness is invisible – they see your disability when you are at melting point (when there are so many other stages before this) – they do not realise that prior to a tearful breakdown – your heart and mind have experienced several breakdowns or washes before reaching melting point.  And whether we like it or not, we are judged for melting.  For not keeping it together. For not being predictable.   And I wish I could scream back HELLO I LIVE AND BREATHE UNPREDICTABLE. I want to be the same, I want to feel the same, I want to know how to pre-feel before being caught off guard.   And most of all, I don’t want to be judged for being “rocky”.  I didn’t plan to be like this.  I didn’t ask to be like this.  But wish I could ask for greater understanding, greater reception, and greater support for a condition that literally tips you over.  And believe you me, the biggest damage that happens is to me. Not you. Be part of those who support us as opposed to those who don’t.  I am 4 M’s Bipolar Mom.

The Masks of Bipolar

Have you noticed that when talking about people with Bipolar – often the happy sad theatrical masks are used as a Bipolar logo.  Our personal brand.  Not only is this brand far too sinister looking for my liking (ok, I think differently at 2 am in the morning) it is not befitting for the daily or ongoing experience of a person with Bipolar.  I wish it were as simple as flipping between a good or a bad mood.    From a smile to a frown.  Nope.  I experience the mush in-between that sometimes is mushily undefined and uncomfortable and this means that people around me – those I love and those I like less – experience this mask to mushy me.

What is appropriate about the masks is that often I – and I suppose other people with mental illness – use different masks to get through difficult times in the day, situations and people.  There are a couple of problems with masks though.  They aren’t always reliable.  The even biggest problem is that they usually reveal something scarred – damaged, something that shouldn’t be seen, that the prettier facade had covered.  This has in many ways happened to me.  I lost my professional mask at work when I succumbed to a screaming match with my beastly boss in a puddle of of un-ending tears.  People are now afraid of making me cry.  Perhaps I should be happy this happened – I do want to be treated that I’d like to cry at the drop of a hat (there’s a good chance that I would about SOMETHING) but I digress.

Further my psychiatrist, like a well meaning parent of a gay child, pushed me out of the Bipolar “closet” at work.  In a big fat flamboyant font, she declared that I suffered from Chronic Bipolar Disorder and that I was currently experiencing a depressive episode.  I’d love to have been welcomed like the Bipolar Queen that I am on a good day, but truth be told my psychiatrist outed me at work, when I never wanted this mask to be removed.  Am I ashamed?  I don’t know.  But it was another mask I would have preferred to not be moved.

The next mask I lost was in an intimate relationship where I was reminded of the many things that had scarred me in the past.  The things that made me ugly.  The things I never wanted revealed.  This was huge and has left me jettisoned after a tidal tsunami hit me, when this mask was moved to allow the storm in.  For a long time I had pretended the flip side of the mask wasn’t there.  That the mask was up and protected me.  Maybe it wasn’t to protect me.  Maybe it was to hide the scars that I think are still there.  That I believe are burned branded into my flesh in a criss cross banner across my mind and body.  The kind of burns you don’t forget.

I have already spoken about in earlier blogs that I am not taking care of myself.  That I am engaging in behavior that is not good for mental health and yearning for crutches that will just make me sicker.  I’m more needy.   I’m distrustful.  I am feeling exposed on all fronts and I so desperately want to feel covered, supported, cared for even as the real scarred me.  I’ve even snapped at my children one too many times as my prettier facade has slowly been falling apart. What am I going to do about it?

I am going to be better to me.  I am going to go to bed on time.  I am going to ensure that I eat when I’m supposed to, and not go hungry which makes my blood sugar drop and makes me feel more desperate.  I am going to walk – and try and do things to make me feel better.  I am going to make a gratitude list.  I am going to love the simple things.  Because by taking these small steps I plan not to try and put back up a pretty facade.  Rather, I am going to learn to accept the scarred me but still beautiful me.  I read once that the Japanese use gold to fill cracks in broken bowls and the result is a new item, celebrating the journey of the bowl.  That’s what I plan to do for me.  To polish and shine the damaged but oh so titillating me.  Goodbye Bipolar Brand.  Goodbye Masks and all the sh*t you bring with you.  Be part of those who support us as opposed to those who don’t.  I am 4 M’s Bipolar Mom.

 

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The Loneliness of Mental Illness

Perhaps blogging when you are depressed is similar to dialing drunk.  In both instances you are likely to do a few things:  1) yell profanities at the world, yell about how you’ve been wronged.   About how you are the victim. About how things should change to your benefit.  2) You rant inaudibly about everything else, including how inconvenient it is to have lost your balance for a while. In both instances, these attempts are not very useful, and in my experience, met with curious or laughing eyes at your slurred attempts to right those oh so irksome wrongs.  But I’m not drunk, and I don’t drink. But I am feeling wronged.  I am feeling alone. Because the reality of mental illness is that it’s lonely. Very lonely.  Loneliness and wrongedness make for a fiery combination that leave this Bipolar woman spewing splatterings of emotion at all in her path.

Part of the depressions is that I am grappling with my diagnosis.  I am grappling with this daily experience of aloneness which I try to articulate in this blog.   The sea of emotion I regularly confront with my usually unequipped dinghy, hoping and praying finally to receive a rope of ‘sanity’ to haul me back to the big ship where all are as happy as can be.   Because I believe there is another way to live.  A way free from these constant flows that discomfort you, calm you, happy you, sad you.  My medication helps.  It makes sure that the ebbs and flows aren’t THAT violent.  On a Richter scale of 10, I’m now mild I think at an approximate 3.  But I am tired of being thought of as moody, tired, mad, you name it.  I’m tired.  Can’t they see that I go through enough on my own?  That I feel alone all the time, especially in the early hours of the morning when I am deserted by the restful snores around me.

A person close to me suggested that I don’t have Bipolar.  That I am just a creative thinker.  That I just feel intensively.  Let’s not comment on this particular suggestion other than to say, live in my shoes for a day and let’s see how you do.  Let’s see how you  like the long dark lonely halls of emotion you have to walk through.  The waves of emotion that wash over you.   How I wish I pretended these real, gut wrenching feelings. How I wish I could simply unfeel them.  Be happy. Be ok.

So for now I choose to close up.  To close the inner flesh of me.  There is no-one to hold you, craddle you, be your crutches when you can’t walk.  Because the reality of mental illness is that there is no-one patient enough in the world to understand that you don’t know how you will feel when you wake up, when someone shouts at you, that flip flap of a sea of emotion.  You don’t know.  And in my experience they get tired.  And they get tired all too quickly, all too soon.  So I am a sad lonely 4 M’s Bipolar Mom.

 

 

Lose the Battle, Win the War

I have commenced what is deemed my mental health holiday.  Unfortunately, it’s much less festive than it sounds as I continue to slowly sink deeper and deeper into a depressive episode.  I’m standing on my Bipolar beach and the emotional tides are gushing over me.  Sometimes I stand. Sometimes I fall into a salty mouthed scare, as the water overcomes me.  I’ve learnt that sometimes it’s best to “swim” your way through it.  But there is no one tactic that works – it depends on you, the day, other people.  Sometimes the waves are too big and sometimes, you just stand as best you can until the tide recedes.

My holiday was brought about by a classic relapse recipe: over-committing, working long hours, travel, and an onslaught of unrealistic requests and abusive treatment by a beastly boss.  I stood in these waves for as long as I could, but tumbled into tears when it became too much.  Recoiled into my supposedly self protecting shell in an effort to cope.  And other people saw that tumble.  When you’re having a tumble you are not aware of the too much gushing of your tears, too much sniveling in pain or recoil from prickly remarks, the situation just being too much.   So while I am on ‘holiday’ I am anxious about what will happen when I have to contend with the people’s stares, where they remember your too much.  I have experienced those kind of burning stares before.

You see, in the current situation, I am within my rights to claim that they have treated me badly.  That they have discriminated against me in tangible ways. That would be option one, would be legally costly and leave me without an income for a while.  Nope, my family needs my income.

Option two: now that I have disclosed that I have Bipolar, according to South African labour law, I can ask for reasonable accommodation.  South Africa is also a signatory to, and has ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD).  This offers a definition of “reasonable accommodation” as “necessary and appropriate modification and adjustment, not imposing a disproportionate or undue burden, where needed in a particular case, to ensure to persons with disabilities the enjoyment or exercise on an equal basis with others of all human rights and fundamental freedoms.   That sounds lovely but I’m puzzled about what this will mean.

For example could I ask them to please be nice to me because I have anxiety and a wish wash of moods which meanness doesn’t help as an accommodation?  Could I ask them to not place undue pressure or stress on me as it may lead to a manic episode I don’t want to experience? And, since I’m likely to be discriminated against anyways, I might as well throw it in , could I ask that beastly bosses and general idiots only communicate with me via email?  Not as simple as printing books in braille.

I fully plan and am working on an initiative that will change this for people with mental illness, that will give us more than these two shit*y options.   That will not have to mean that we actually end up demeaning ourselves even further?  We should scream, we should fight and we should stand up for any person with mental illness and their rights if they are being infringed upon.

What am I going to do though?  There’s a third option I didn’t mention.  This option will mean that I will smile through the anxiety and the meanness, and the general day of work and people I have to contend with.  I will cope.  Is this a cop out?  You decide. What I have decided in the meantime is that I will work on my own organisation / campaign that will help people like me.  Because right now I’m one.  Right now legislation and law and practice are not synonymous.  Because my children have to eat. In the short term though, I will try to rest more, heal more over my mental health holiday. Be part of those who support us as opposed to those who don’t. I am 4M’s Bipolar Mom.

 

 

Slippery slopes and shells

Today I feel like a shucked oyster, a tortoise shaken out of its shell – a hermit crab pried from its recluse. Ive mentioned in previous blogs that my diagnosis has been revealed to people who will not be kind about it and truthfully, I’m scared.  This fear brings about irritability, confusion, desperation with those I love most. Those I feel safe with and I thought, people who were safe with me. 

I dont mean to create the impression that I or people with mental illness are a minute from “really” being found out. However, what is true though is that if you don’t have a mental illness, you have no cooking clue what it takes to get through each day. 

My daughter explained my Bipolar as a slope with gradual ups and downs. She emphasised gradual, but I have never experienced it like that. Rather, it has been like falling gracefully – and sometimes not – down a ski slope. My medication are like the ski’s that guide my slips and slops  down life’s slopes.  

Lately though I have both had my naked Bipolarness exposed, my shell washed away by tears. No-one understands this nakedness, the fear and anxiety it brings of potential bites at your all too tender underflesh. You’re in attack mode, without a shell to rely on. 

To tie the analogies together, I close by saying that I am not skiing straight and my shell is ver much missing. I have my skis on, but I am proceeding with my hands in front of my eyes. Trying to protect myself from any obstacles that would come my way. Trying to climb back into a space where I feel protected. Where I feel safe just for being me.

I need some time to recover. Time to find a new shell or at least a thicker skin, garnering energy to again face a new slope. Because perhaps then the bumps and bruises the real world brings would hurt less. Damage less. Knock you out your shell and off your skis less. I will be. Be part of those who support us as opposed to those who don’t. I am 4M’s Bipolar Mom.

 

Be Strong

On announcing that I had been prescribed and would be taking a mental health holiday, many of the responses ranged from you’re fine, to you will be ok, to my personal gripe: be strong.  Strong.  Now that is something I contend with everyday.  Being strong.  Strong enough to not cry when there are so many darning things that make you want to, strong enough to be vulnerable with others and actually trust them, strong enough well, to blo*dy wake UP some mornings!  I am and know what being strong means.

My current prescribed holiday was brought about by an out pour of tears from every orifice (ears, ears and nose), a feeling of being overwhelmed, and if I’m honest, because I let my mental illness show to ALL AT THE OFFICE.  I could not cover my fragility, I could not cover that I did not know when it would strike next, could not cover that I do not digest feelings in the way others do.   The out pour had been brought about by an onslaught of accusations and inferences well, that pretend-to-be-well-me wasn’t well enough.  Wasn’t good enough.  When I already don’t think too much of me.  And it wasn’t the first time.  And it wasn’t because I was paranoid.  It was because I am, and treated as if I chose, Bipolar.

Now there are laws against discrimination in the work place in South Africa.  Heck, there are laws against discrimination in communities and society here.  But it all means very little when you’re on the receiving end of an attack.  I again I say: would you ask a blind man to see?  Would you ask a deaf man to hear?  A wheelchair bound child to walk? Why would you ask those questions when those are the things that those affected people want the most?  They want to photograph with their eyes, sing along to the melody in their ears, and jump and skip while they walk.  They want what many many others take for granted.  Me too.  Ha! A mental illness me too campaign.  Me too I don’t want to experience anxiety, me too I don’t want to experience depression, me too I don’t want to take 1,000’s of milligrams of medication.

I am torn between telling the world that I have Bipolar, I didn’t choose it – but we’re trying to get along.  I am becoming more and more aware of the dangers of my illness and most recently, the boundaries beyond which I cannot go.  But I don’t need attacks in the meantime.  I don’t need a poke in my all too feeling under-flesh. So I will enjoy my holiday, I will toast with my non-alcoholic drink to the beginning of the me too mental illness campaign for me.  Because crying when you need to is strong.  I am strong when I need to be.  But right now, most importantly, I need to be me.  Be part of those who support us as opposed to those who don’t.  I am 4 M’s Bipolar Mom.

Bipolar Exposed

Today I have been exposed.  My Bipolar armour has been stripped and my mental illness is shining through.  I am tearful, I am tired, don’t want to eat and sleep intermittently.  And my employer now knows that I suffer, as elegantly scrawled by my psychiatrist on my sick note, from chronic bipolar mood disorder, and that I am currently experiencing  a depressive episode.   This brings me to question whether I am afraid of declaring that I have Bipolar, and indeed the reasons why I would be afraid.   There is obvious stigma, but there is much much more than that.

About three months ago I was hospitalised with a severe episode and the medications I was taking were changed, added to and then decreased.  I have said in other blogs how sensitive one is when in hospital, but perhaps not emphasised as much how terribly unprotected you are when having to confront the real world.  You can’t cry when you feel like it, scream at people who scream at you, or show any signs of ‘weakness’.  Philosophically, I am opposed to this.  I oppose that we – I – have to live in a world where mental illness is not accepted and that we be treated like we’ve grown another head – the lepers of modern day society.  But we are and do experience this, and every jibe at our oh-so-tender under-flesh eventually takes its toll.

Over the last two weeks – year even – I have worked tirelessly to achieve the aims set forth by my superiors even though they have not been clear, and have constantly shifted the goal posts.  I have accommodated an ever increasing workload, hours and treatment from some of my superiors and even been called ineffective and incompetent.  Initially, I smiled through the complaints, I explained through the challenges, I negotiated relationships which had been dubbed as being at an impasse.  But I can’t anymore, and whilst I now feel “exposed”, I have to stop.  I have to put me first.  I have to rest.  I have to take my medication and give myself a chance to heal from the constant attacks that have left me emotionally fragile.

Most importantly I need to give myself a chance to more clearly accept that I have Bipolar, that I need to be treated in a certain way, and by golly, that I deserve not to be treated as a lesser being merely on account of my diagnosis.  Because really, it’s hard enough living every day with a mental illness.  It’s hard enough constantly swimming against the tide, with washes of fear, depression and anxiety. It’s hard enough feeling alone and being drowned by tsunami’s of emotion whose tides recede leaving me – a person with mental illness – washed out.  Those who wish to cast me away – or any other person with mental illness – should be held to account.  We should name and shame those who cast us out.  Because whilst I may be emotionally at sea, I am still me.  I am still a person, a feeling, seeing, touching human being and I don’t deserve to be treated as anything less.

Often people who do not have mental illness do not understand this.  They don’t understand the burn of stigma, the pokes at your under-flesh, the constant attempts to tip you off your podium of well-being.  Without undermining the challenges experienced by others, I wonder how physically disabled people would feel if they were simply told to walk – run even – how the blind would feel being told to simply see – and the deaf simply to hear the beautiful sound their minds only imagine each day.  Because its the same.  The feeling is the same.  Sometimes I can’t walk, sometimes I can’t see, and sometimes I can’t hear.  For me, sometimes I feel too much.  That doesn’t make us lesser people – in fact, it makes us the very people who should be protected by that not understanding we.

I do not have the energy to fight now.  And my most important priority is to protect me.  To protect my under-flesh which has been badly scalded.   But again I will get up.  Again I will try.  And no matter how hard they try to knock me down, I have always, always gotten back up.  This time will be no different.  Be part of those who support us as opposed to those who don’t.  I am 4 M’s Bipolar Mom.

Blogless

Im blogged out. I am blogless / blooged? Blooged is like the depression of a blog. You want to write, you think you should write but you just feel BLOOGED.  Thats what’s happened to me and I know precisely why.

Over the last two weeks I have literally been working day and night on a project my boss deemed mission critical. A drop everything and save the day request complete with fighting stakeholders, impossible deadlines and my personal fav: way out of my job description and not something I would be evaluated on. Blooger (that’s code for depressed blog swearing). But because I work in a space where I care about what I do and the people’s lives it changes, I don’t mind. 

The truth is though that these people, my boss have not acted in a way that demonstrates they care. When coming out of hospital their first question was how will you cope? The stress won’t be reduced? Loving souls aren’t they? 

And I am repeating the very same work pattern I employed before last being hospitalised. Too little sleep, dangerous deadlines, multiple demands, even forgetting to take medication (!). Failing to calm down, failing to take care of me. Maybe its not just my blog that’s blooged. I think I’m blooging me. 

Any good professional Bipolar will tell you that you should never sacrifice your mental health. Your peace. Your time. Your mood. But slipping down deep happens. Usually when you least expect it. Actually I take that back. It can be preventable. You should never sell your inner self. But its that very part of me that’s so appealing to everyone else.

I am blooging. And will be for a while. Be part of those who support us as opposed to those who don’t. I am 4’Ms Bipolar Mom. 

Psychotic

Today I am confronted by a psychotic. Wait, what? I’m not sure how to articulate it.  I would hate to describe a person who is mentally ill as psychotic.  The dictionary says that psychotic (sounds like sʌɪˈkɒtɪk) is an ADJECTIVE, relating to, denoting, or suffering from a psychosis. “a psychotic disturbance”.  Related synonyms are listed as:  severely mentally ill, insane, mad, certifiable, deranged, demented, of unsound mind, out of one’s mind, not in one’s right mind, not together, crazed, lunatic unbalanced, unhinged. I highlighted my personal favs. I stopped there. There was a longer list in my dictionary and I just thought no. Enough.  It’s time we develop a new vocabulary.

The person I confronted was emotional, was scared, tearful, fluctuating from state to state.  He needed comfort, a listening ear, someone to talk to, someone to wipe a tear.  He switched from this into a spanner wielding someone, saying that there were many after him. Paranoid about where he was and his safety.  I still consoled, I still listened, and suggested we not play with the spanner.  I let him speak, I let him be, and didn’t need to quieten some of the more embroidered thinking he fashioned off.  And fortunately he listened to me.    There are other people – me – that become inconsolable, that refuse to put the proverbial spanner down.  And most times we hurt ourselves more than we would ever imagine hurting anyone else.

I directed him to doing something he enjoyed – and gave him a little routine for the day.  It involved: breakfast, leisure time, clean the kitchen, nap time (and meds in-between).  Now I am NOT running my own psychiatric clinic nor do I profess to be a medical anything.  But I know that when you are in what I would term a difficult state, you do not want to be forced to follow society’s routine.  One just can’t handle that in a fragile state.  I am very critical of psychiatric facilities that force people with mental illness to be active when they really just need a cry, a hug, food, rest.  I’m not saying forever.  BUT there are times you cannot do getting up, cannot do shower, cannot even do eat (hard for me).  But you aren’t deranged I don’t think? I am so conflicted in wanting to find a new way to describe people who are supposedly “psychotic” because I’m sorry, the dictionary’s definitions are not only discriminatory, they push people with mental illness into the unhinged category. Creative, weird (and possibly stinky) perhaps. But not the ugly words they used.

The reality is that I don’t have a problem with ALREADY believing that I am ugly.  Confidence is not a symptom of mental illness.  It’s more an anxious twist in my stomach since I worry about, think through, feel and see ugliness.  Although I’m easing into being Bipolar, five years after being diagnosed, I still feel the stigma, the stares, the you’ve grown another head look, the ‘ugliness’ of being mentally ill.  I wish I could wave this off as me being anxious or paranoid again, but there are tangible, tangible, person breaking forms of discrimination.  And my question is WHY.  Why poke at the under flesh of a person who feels so intently? Or who is so vulnerable? Is that not the worst crime humanity can commit?  To attack its vulnerable?  Don’t give me circle of life bullshit.  We’re quite passed that stage.

SO, when a person is ‘psychotic’. Please please don’t call them deranged.  Don’t treat them as though they’re mentally ill.  Don’t talk about them in front of them. Don’t wink, or gesture without the “psychotic” seeing it.  Because we do, we feel it, you don’t, so don’t do it. Going to tear the psychotic page out of my dictionary.  After that I will swear appropriately, but without my children hearing me. And I am going to play cards with the person I spoke to this morning.  ‘Cause even though he’s psychotic, he’ll probably teach me a thing or two about humility.  About being in a difficult place and trying just to deal with it one step at a time. Perhaps the rest of the world should follow suit. Be part of those who support us as opposed to those who don’t.  I am 4 M’s Bipolar Mom.