living la vida bipolar

[teldannen]

I decided to start writing this because people keep asking me what it's like to be bipolar. I guess this is going to be a combination of prose & poetry mostly because I can frequently express myself better with poetry. I don't know if anyone will ever read this but if it helps one person to understand bipolar & mental illness will be worth it (boy

Comments

[leahree]

You're one of the bravest women I know, hon. I'm proud of you.

Do you mind if I link to this on my journal? I don't have many readers and you may still get no responses, but if you would like a slightly wider audience than just me, you deserve to have it.

[teldannen]

That would be cool. I tagged this under bipolar, mental illness & manic depression so any one searching would find it. I found a couple of interesting bipolar blogs when I searched a while ago. Thanks for thinking I'm brave, I don't think so, I'm just trying to get my brain to make sense & just hoping I can help someone else out while I do so.

[teldannen]

Thanks for replying!

I'm lucky in a lot of ways, lucky that there are good meds for one thing. My Mom had to go 20 years mostly un-medicated because there were no really effective meds then. I'm also lucky to have seen how bad bipolar can be when untreated. Being scared into being sensible is not necessarily a bad thing. :) I did go off my meds once, not too long after I was diagnosed. I thought I couldn't afford them and now that I knew I was bipolar I could control the symptoms. Fortunately I had a discussion with a friend about priorities & consequences (thanks Leahree!) that made a big impression on me & I've never gone off my meds since. There have been a couple of times in the past where I've had to not pay other bills or borrow money for meds but for me my medication always comes before anything else.

I don't think it's selfish to wish someone was not mentally ill - I'd say it's pretty normal. I wish that for myself and anyone who has to deal with mental illness.