Your Not Really Sick

[blacksoul004]

okay, heres something thats REALLY been bugging me... when i tell people im Bipolar and they say "You seem just fine to me, are you sure?" it drives me insane! mainly when i have an episode and they cant seem to figure out whats wrong with me.. they ask "why are you acting like that, whats wrong with you?" or when im trying my very best to contain a manic or depressive outburst and i try to explain myself but they tell me oh everyone has those problems.

what do i do? i had an outburst and told my boyfriend... "for god sakes should i just go ahead and freak out on everyone constantly, breaking my hard work, just to prove to you whats going on inside me!?!?" how so i get people to try and understand whats happening with me? i feel like im facing an NFL football team and i have no other players on my side of the field. :(

Heidi

[blacksoul004]

true on the creative aspects. im an artist myelf and i think my BP has pushed my brain to think farther into my crevices. my art is much better when im not on meds too lol.

Heidi

[Xila31]

When you think about it, at one point it was probably us folks with bipolar, schizophrenia, and schizo-affective that were considered the wise ones of the tribe, connected directly to the gods. Who else could hear or see things that no one else could?

I agree we all have to stick together. Even if our moods make it hard for us.

[Tink70]

Ya' know, people haven't change all that much from back in the 1800s and early 1900s about mental illness.  Yes, we have had lots of breakthroughs on meds and gotten more support from the government and such but on the whole, personal opinion in the private sector hasnt changed.  Long ago, BPs were thought to be "demon possessed" and locked away.  And I'm sure there are alot of people that still believe something similar.  And in fact, I have found that people with BP, Schiz, Schizoaffective, etc, etc do tend to be more closely connected to both the divine forces and demonic forces of this world.  We simply have use of a part of our brain and deficiency of brain chemicals that lend themselves to those kinds of things. There wouldn't be so many brilliant and creative artists and writers and actors and comdieans that are afflicted with BP if that were not so, in my opinion.  But regardless, people who have never had to deal with what we deal with have a very hard time understanding it.  My response to people like that is usually along the same lines as paranoid_cataclysm's desire.  I just tell people, "Yep, I'm perfectly fine and I choose to take powerful, psychotrophic drugs that can damage my internal organs and cause my diabetes to be worse cause I'm lying to all everyone!"  Heck, my own father doesn't believe there is anything wrong with me and I have been hospitalized more times then I care to remember!  You will always find people who just can't accept it.  As for "going to Jesus": Well, I did and have and am proud to call him my Saviour but He hasn't taken the BP, OCD and Major Depression away.  Maybe He isn't supposed to!  These deficiencies are a total pain in the butt but if I didn't have them, I wouldn't be ME!  Try to find friends in your community that have the same condtions.  Visit your local hospitals and see if they have support groups.  They can be a source of comfort and fellowship and good friends.  Some of the best friends I have are people I met while inpatient at psyche hospitals! LOL  Kinda like the old saying "It takes one to know one!"
Take Care

[bpchrisb]

I don't have an issue with anyone's religion, nor their beliefs. Until they're pushed upon me; then there is a firm warning. I tell them that if they want to continue the conversation, then so be it, but it will probably not be a pleasant one.

This is especially true with mental illness and ANYONE'S ignorance; religious or not. I have had it out with a family member about this before. They just don't get it, so I don't talk to them about it. If it comes up, I cut the portion of the conversation short.

I have probably posted this before, but disclosing the fact that I was BP had a detrimental effect on a job I held. I was a manager at a retail store; I have many years of managerial experience under my belt as that is what I did for a job during college. I was good at it; I showed up for work, and did my job the best I could. When I was hospitalized with the BP issues and they wanted medical documentation, everything went downhill. Even after I got back up and running, I went from forty hours a week to less than twenty and they just kept getting cut lower. The manager above me had told folks that she didn't 'believe in mental illness', but it wasn't anything that I could prove. Also, other people were having their hours cut, but no where near as drastically as mine. I wanted to take them to court, but didn't have enough evidence showing that they'd done me wrong.

[blacksoul004]

yea... i can relate to the coming to god bit. when i told my dad he sent me to the Catholic priest insted of getting me medical help saying "it ehat i needed and cheap". the priest was just as bad... told me i just needed to learn to listen an behave, bunch of bull none of them understood. the solution... go to confessions youll feel much better. i wanna scream!

Heidi

[bpchrisb]

I had a friend's mother tell me once that my younger brother, who struggles with mental illness, just needed to come to Jesus and pray and he'd be fine. I jumped her for it and I wasn't polite about it; it was a very ignorant comment.

Funny thing was, several years later, her oldest son was diagnosed as BP and has been torn apart by it since. He's not med compliant, abuses drugs and is going downhill in a hurry. His mother's response; take him to a Christian psychologist. The psychologist told her the same thing she had been spouting and it just infuriated her. Now she actually has to deal with the seriousness of what is a physiological imbalance and realized that there was a whole lot more to it than faith.

Honestly, you can head off a lot of problems by just keeping your BP disorder under lock and key. Avoid telling people because most of them are just ignorant about it and judgmental to boot. It just makes things worse; I don't talk to my best friend about it; he just doesn't get it and doesn't want to. It's pretty easy to tag BP folks as 'just moody'; it's ridiculous. If you have a cold, someone can't tell you to stop sneezing or that you're 'just fine', you obviously have total control over your runny nose.

[bernie40]

Even sitting them down and sticking a dvd on explaining BP wouldn't change their opinions because each of us are so different and unless you are severe BP with psychotic episodes who do mad and dangerous things then they don't think it applies to you.  It annoys me how people make comparisons all the time, if I do say that I have BP I've had people say "well I know someone with BP and she's really ill, been hospitalised xyz times and is dosed up on meds - you seem ok to me", grrrrrrr.

I've given up trying to explain it to anyone, I no longer feel I have to justify myself and if they don't like it or don't believe me then they can just keep on walking out of my life.

The hardest bit is with authorities though.  Trying to explain to some clerk on the end of the phone why I haven't filled in an important form on time or why I've made a mistake on it - just because on the day that I'm talking to them I'm fully alert it sounds like I'm lying when I tell them that I was unable to do the form because I was having a bad few days and couldn't get out of bed or that my time scales were out of the window and I just hadn't realised how many weeks had gone by - I'm going through that one at the moment.

I think BP is just such a complex mental illness that it is difficult to understand even for those of us that have it.  Some people can continue working, others can't, for some a mania can be life changing whereas for others it can just mean you went on a a big spend.  For some it is the depressive end of the spectrum that hits the most ....  so many differences but the main thing that brings us all together is the fact that we have no control over our mood swings and that they always hit out of the blue and often for no obvious reason.

[blacksoul004]

thanks everyone for your input and support! I think maybe if i sat the people who didnt understand what im going through down to read up on what it means, maybe i could get some understanding. the thing is, i have no idea how to do that! it always ends up the same... the dont care enough to or they are to busy. :(

Heidi

[rogelio63]

My wife is just now starting to believe that I am ill.  But until this time, it was exactly like what you're saying.  I felt like,,should I go ahead and hang myself,,like I feel like doing, so you'll see that I'm not feeling like normal people should.  I think when we had an argument and I threw a water bottle at her (I didn't hit her, and I really wasn't trying) did she really start to believe.  She said I had the same look in my eye that I had when I punched the self-checkout screen at a local discount chain.  
Since she's accepted it, she's become more supportive and I don't feel so alone.  Our relationship has grown alot closer too.

[johnnymutt]

I understand the issue. Even my wife doesn't understand that there is an actual illness there. I have even gone as far as to tell people, stay away from me, I only have one feeling right now and it is rage. Still most people don't get it. I'm a fairly easy going, nice guy, sometimes it takes an episode of mania to let people see what it is that I am going through. Though, you are right, most just cannot see outside of what they have experienced. Just as I, imagine, could not think so narrowly.

[heyjude1]

I mark it off to the ignorance to MI.  I don't even discuss with people, they can not possibly understand what you are feeling or going thru unless they have experienced it themselves.

[starbunny]

Yeah, some people just take things too far I guess, it's stunning how many people still have a negative attitude toward mental illness, even those who don't appear immediately obvious.. For example one of my friends was very concerned that I not disclose to anyone that I had been diagnosed so I would not be vunerable to other people's negative reactions. I realised eventually, by the things that they said that it was to protect their own interests because they did not want the stigma 'by association' with me because of the 'label', so it was actually them that feared being 'exposed'.

[cirene]

Oh we wouldn't even give my brother the chance to apologize because he's such a male appendage.  

Jerk.

Glad you relate though!  lol

[starbunny]

Lol, only because I can relate to that one, my ex used to say the same to me 'selfish/spoiled' etc to the point where I even believed it and went to the doc and tried to convince him I was just one of these 'flawed people that just couldn't cope with life' and not ill at all so please could I just stop the medication because it must be me and my coping skills that were at fault. He couldn't write another prescription fast enough! :- D, he was actually a good doctor though! He has now left my local surgery :-( Yeah since then my ex has apologised and admitted he was in the wrong.

[paranoid_cataclysm]

I get this a lot, and a supervisor I told to get accommodations sometimes is like "Oh yeah you're just telling them you see things that aren't there and such" and next time they say it I'm going to say "Oh yeah, I lie to them and say this stuff so I can take a potentially dangerous medicine which would screw me up worse if I don't have mental illness."  What blows my mind is people more readily believe I'm on drugs 24/7 and haven't been arrested yet with the way I act instead of believing I have a brain disorder.  I don't know why the latter is so hard to believe.

[cirene]

When I was diagnosed, I went through some bs with my older brother.  He's a jerk enough as it is but he would say 'nothing's wrong with you - you're just spoiled.'  After some arguing over that, he starts saying how he doesn't believe in bipolar disorder - he thinks it's just a lame excuse for people who can't handle life.  There's some additional drama as well but the bottom line is we haven't spoken in over 2 years.  My parents haven't acknowledged him either.  He's a punk.  Picture an American Simon Cowell.  

%*#&#$(*%!!!!

[Xila31]

Oh yes, I know this one well.

I have a friend that every time I have a problem she says, "That happens to me sometimes too, but you just have to take a deep breath and it will be better." It drives me nuts. I know she means well, but geez. I wish it were that simple. I finally explained to her in detail about a psychotic episode I had, and that seemed to make her stop and think.

I just think you have to give up on some people. But know that you're not alone on this. I think we all deal with it. Until one of our arms falls off or our brain is physically leaking out of our ears, I think a lot of people won't understand or even try.

Also, I agree with starbunny. Since I don't have full blown "mania" in that I'm not spending all of our money and swinging from the rafters all the time, or such terrible depression that I don't sleep for a few days, some people dismiss that I have something wrong. That's the normal mentality of trying to put us all into a little box, which of course bipolar people don't like being in boxes anyway.

[starbunny]

Some people who cannot understand just end up devaluing another person's experience and it's frustrating for all concerned. They just can't seem to 'get it' even when it is painfully obvious that the illness is playing a part. It took ages for some people to accept me being bipolar - because I guess I did not fit into their preconcieved ideas of a person with mental illness.
One does need a great deal of strength and patience not to bite back at such careless remarks. I tend to be very private about who I share thoughts about my illness with due to having had similar comments. Luckily, we all understand what you are going through here.