Today's blog post is brought to you by a huge lack of sleep, constant crying, and a huge feeling of misunderstanding. I know that not everyone understands what it means to suffer, and yes I mean SUFFER from Bipolar Disorder, especially when one suffers from BPSII(Bipolar Disorder II) instead of BPD (Bipolar Disorder I). No one ever seems to talk about the ups and downs, and how high the highs can be, without being too high. Or the lows that seem to be the depths of utter despair. How there sometimes feels as if there is not a middle ground. How quickly things can escalate from a high to a low, even overnight. There aren't true signs, sometimes you don't even know what triggers them. The feelings that life would be so much better without you, the idealization of suicide one day, and feelings of indescribable happiness the next. Sometimes there just aren't words to describe the roller coaster that daily life is.
For me, the Las Vegas shooting has been a major trigger. Not just at the horror that such a senseless act could be and was committed, but that mental illness is the first place people go to "explain" why someone would do something so awful. I have a mental illness, I still manage to NOT shoot up anything. In fact, I am scared shitless of guns. That said, I support anyone's right to exercise their 2nd amendment right to own one.
Why do we always blame the horrendous on the mentally ill? For me this is the burning question. How can we change the stigma that is attached to acknowledging you even have a mental illness? Are we expected to hide away, and never speak about it?
I know that not everyone is educated in the matter, and perhaps therein lies part of the problem. The question remains, how do we educate the masses when they don't appear to want to be educated? I know that I will remain using whatever platform I have to educate, express, and share what life is like with a mental illness. I will speak to what I know, what life is like for someone who lives everyday with BPD II.
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