Why do I do it?

Why do I bother to tell people I have bipolar disorder? Many people are ignorant idiots. They freak out over any kind of "crazy" and make hateful comments, jokes, or worse, dismiss legitmate anger or concerts with a flippant "Oh, she's nuts, that's why".

Grr. Why would I bother opening myself up to those kinds of problems?

Information and education. I suffered for years, with an illness I didn't understand. It almost killed me. Bad thoughts ate my brain. It was horrible. No one ever explained what I had, no one could.

I remember confiding in a high school friend about the turmoil in my mind. "Maybe it's PMS" he suggested. Maybe it is.

When I was finally diagnosed, I scoured the bookstores and internet for information until I had a good grasp of my illness. OK, I am bipolar type one. I have manias and depressions. I have pretty acute manias. I go "up" very high - "Like I'm high on drugs", I'll explain.

I have mixed episodes. I can be up and down at the same time. I can be suicidal, and very anxious and angry at the same time.

I have psychotic features, because I hallucinate sounds, sights, smells, and touch. I'd see people who weren't there and hear music that doesn't exist. For a while recently, I'd smell a very strong, bitter herbal smell at odd times. If I asked people no one else smelled it, so it must have been a "Psychotic Feature".

I have a family history of mental illness, and my mother did respond to lithium. Therefore, I was able to deduce that Lithium might help. It did. It's a mainstay of my medication cocktail.

I told everyone. Why? Well, they saw me sick and I thought they had a right to know why I'd been so ill. Some days you couldn't shut me up with a cattle prod a duct tape, other days everyone pissed me off. Sometimes I was so depressed all I did was sit on a milk crate in the stockroom while my husband filled the vending machines.

Of course, it backfires. Recently a business associate cost my husband $90 because he signed for something we never got. I was upset. The associate basically blew off my "righteous" indignation by going into this whole "Boy, you're really losing it, Heather" routine I found far more insulting than the actual loss of money. All I had said was, I know how to read an invoice and your guy cost us $90. Did he major in Accounting with a 3.2 GPA? No, well then give me credit for knowing we got screwed.

I never did get that credit, and he went on for almost a month about how "I needed to see my doctor because I really lost it." This is a man, who, in a similar dispute when he felt he'd been screwed, screamed at me, trapped me in a hall, raving, and shoved me angrily. And I lost it because I said "I know how to read an invoice"?

Well, I had it coming because I admit to my mental illness. Obviously, a man who gets so angry at a business associate over the price of a granola bar has a few issues of his own, huh?

But, I figure for every butthead, I reach people who really need to know about it. I've met a couple of people who have family members with bipolar disorder, people who are truly baffled by the behavior.

I tell them things like: I'm a little bit of a zombie, but it's better than being sick. Don't drink - it messes with the medication. Don't stop the medication when you feel better - you only feel better because of the medication. You need to take medication forever. I am a better person now for taking my medication. I explain side effects and cycling, up and down. That talking constantly and spending lots of money are completely normal, manic, behaviors. That being angry can be a symptom of depression in men. That someone being restless doesn't make them bipolar, it just means they are restless. Someone can have ADD and Bipolar at the same time, and both can be managed with careful medication.

I also talk about FAS, even though I've gotten such vitrol in response my husband's convinced the "Haters" must have boozed while pregnant. I'm not sorry I'm trying to inform people, but it can certainly put me in the line of fire!

Again, I do it to inform. I suffer with FAS and it can be miserable. 80% of female FAS victims end up addicted to drugs or alcohol, and many attempt suicide. Most of the men do at least some time in jail for impulsive acts commited under the influcence of a damaged brain. Most of us need some kind of "supported living" situation, where someone can help make sure we keep the lights on. And employment? I believe that statistic said 90% had major problems retaining a job. We can't live up to our potential, and people don't know why.

That's why I talk about it. Also, unlike bipolar disorder, FAS is completely preventable! I know in my heart, no mother, knowing the horrors of FAS, would willingly curse her child with a damaged brain.

But we seem so normal, the curse of my life. I seem too good to be so broken. People are consistently shocked at the fact that I'm unable to drive, but I can't.

I'm blessed with a good life, loving husband, and supportive family. If I can make other lives better through blogging and talking about my "ailments", then I'll do it.

You can't shut me up with a cattle prod!