It happened again. This really truly is the only place where I can discuss the true experience of mental illness in the sense that it truly is an illness.
Bipolar Disorder.
It's hard. It happened last night. I am seeing someone new, a longtime friend, and I spent the night at his house. He was just rolling over and going to sleep, like a normal person. And it was embarassing because it was dead silent, no noise, and I didn't have my medications. I proceeded to panic a little bit and he woke up to me kind of tapping my foot, nervously... asked what was wrong and I let it out that it was frustrating to have to take medication when no one else does. And a little embarrassing to have to keep re-evaluating and questioning my own need for medication when I compare myself to other ppl who can just wake up, go through the day, go to sleep... He meant well but the conversation got to the point where all of a sudden I snapped. He didn't mean to be rude or insensitive and I actually made him cry, because I am a brutal defensive person.
He was basically saying that everyone has things they have to deal with, it's ok, I'm not sick, I don't have to worry that I am diferent. Missing the point, but I could have handled that and let it go.
Then he went on to talk about depression and his teenage suicidal ideation, and said that he'd been through the mental illness and decided to just use "mind over matter"
So I made him cry when I snapped that he has no fucking clue what a serious genetic mental illness is, what its like to be sick in the head from day 1 and why comparing it to situational depression or depressive episodes is not the goddamn same thing at all.
So sick of the stigma and the misunderstanding, and the viewpoint that it's a celebrity excuse for drugs and attention. The insensitivityI is a reason to not know people so well, really... just keep it to yourself. So I went on to say how chronologically I have been medicated and functional, unmedicated and in the mental hospital, medicated and through college, unmedicated and catatonic depressive. People really need to learn more about this. I'm going to have this illness for the rest of my life and I don't need to be reminded that some people can work through periods of mood change whereas Ineed goddamn mysterious epilepsy drugs to sit in class or have a job.
