When People Invalidate You Because of Your Bipolar Disorder
Hi. I’m in a bad mood — a murderous mood in fact.
Call it being moody, call it irritable, call it stress; for me, it’s cyclothymia or bipolar III disorder. A mood disorder, whichever name you know it by.
• What is Bipolar disorder?
This title earns me the privilege of — when stating my grievance — to be asked almost by rote, “Have you taken your medication? How much did you sleep last night?” This is instead of the human response to such, by asking, “What’s wrong?”
Does the fact that part of me is defined by a diagnostic manual remove my attributes from being purely human? When I reprimand someone, does that person get to ignore the admonishment because “it must be your disorder speaking?”
Can one not simply follow what I say without my words being referenced in comparison to see if it is “normal?” Tell me, have I lost my humanity by virtue of a label?
I’m still me. I’m the same girl I was before my diagnosis, before the years of “madness” sucked me into its whirlpool. I may be confused, sad and depressed.
I may be high in elation.
Unsplash photo via Victoria Heath