clearing the air

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/01/AR2007120101782.html?nav=rss_email/components

I am bipolar. I don't try to kill people around me, I am no more paranoid than anybody else who has been in higher education for nine years, and unless I tell people, no one ever knows that anything is amiss.

I am open about it because I want to clear some things up. People like me are not crazy. We have a chemical imbalance. You wouldn't tell a diabetic that they don't need insulin because it is all in their head. Telling somebody with mental illness to suck it up is just as stupid. I am fully aware that this kind of thing is over-diagnosed. Many people on anti-depressants don't need them - if you lost your job or your mom died you are supposed to be depressed. That's normal. If you are so upset and sad all the time that it becomes debilitating and effects your mental health, your job, or you have dangerous thoughts, you need help. If you are just dissatisfied with your life and want something external to make you happy - then you DO need to suck it up. But I am working on a dissertation, in the healthiest relationship of anyone I know, and volunteer at my church. I am, for all intents and purposes, an active and successful citizen.

Research shows that untreated mental illness, especially schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, can leave scar tissue on the brain. How do you function if your brain is constantly in a state of disrepair?

I can't speak for other people's problems, but I understand why a bipolar person wouldn't want their meds. One of the symptoms of this disease is that my mind moves at about three times the speed of a "normal" person. I could never sleep at night because it was so freakin' noisy in my head. Not hearing voices noisy - can't shut down noisy. Taking the medicine slows you down. You have to slow down or you run yourself to death and separate the rational thoughts from the irrational. That slowing down can be jarring. For many things seem unreal or fuzzy, and some experience a loss of what they think is their creative side. Which is true on some level. I am okay with somewhat diminished energy and creativity because I like being able to string together coherent sentences and being able to recognize my own paranoia.

I get so angry when people disregard mental illness. Of course, if I lose my temper, we can just chalk that up to being bipolar, right? It wouldn't have anything to do with a person's insensitivity and ignorance resulting in a personal insult. I had a professor tell our class once that bipolar people shouldn't be allowed to teach. I considered letting him have it, but I stayed quiet. In some ways, my best argument was to be his ideal student.

I grew up being told that all that "psychobabble" was nonsense and there was no such thing as depression - just weak people. Looking back, I am pretty sure the folks who told me that are the most imbalanced people I know. This sort of thing is genetic, after all.