After an online friend posted a meme about all his girlfriend being "bi", bipolar that is, I went off a bit. I tagged him in a post I shared from a woman I follow that struggles horribly with bipolar with the comment “The struggle is real.”
Man:
When I say I'm bipolar I mean I deal with hypersexuality, stealing stuff from people. I know what it's like. When I'm depressed... I know that I'm depressed. Because like now for example. I don't wanna leave bed because at least my bed is safe. I don't have to worry about fucking someone else's life up in bed. I don't have to deal with people, I don't have to worry about dying. I know. You know. We all know.
Me:
I get it. That’s classic bipolar. I struggle with it moment by moment. I’m up this morning only because I’m out of town visiting friends. If I were home, I’d roll over and sleep more. Because it’s easier to sleep than live. I fight that feeling but am not always successful.
But I don’t want my ex-boyfriends making jokes about me on Facebook for being bat shit crazy. It’s demoralizing and dehumanizing. It’s already too fucking hard to live like this. To be ostracized, to be marginalized for an illness that has stolen decades from my life, is deadly. I sit here with tears streaming. Even to write this is wrenching. It takes all my strength every day to push on.
I’ll take my handful of meds now and in an hour, I won’t be crying and perhaps I will have the strength necessary to get up and to get out and to enjoy my time here with friends. If I don’t have that strength, I will put a smile on my face and pretend. Because that’s what I do. I Persevere.
Man:
I don't really sweat the bat shit crazy. Look, being bipolar is one thing. Being a psycho bitch is another.
Me:
Actually, sometimes they are one and the same. They are both components of the unimaginable horrors of this horrible disease.
I don’t know why I picked you and your message to react to so strongly. I guess sometimes it just hurts so much to see this condition treated like a joke. It’s just so hard to live like this, and you got the torrent of the backlash I feel towards people that minimize this issue. For that, I am sorry. You don’t deserve my wrath nor condemnation for attempting to put a lighter face on such a serious condition.
Sometimes I just have to speak out and share what it’s like to fight these demons.
