Are you bipolar or do you live with bipolar or have bipolar disorder. 2 fairly definitive choices.
So what's this all about.
First."I am bipolar". Some folks think this is simply the truth and also grammatically correct. (I'm not sure how grammar got in there). I think some people believe that it's a large and perhaps wasted effort to change society's labels.
They accept this mostly with the proviso that is the least of the things we should worry about. I'm willing to go along with this argument. I'm much more concerned with how society treats rather than what it calls me.
Second. Don't call me bipolar. I have bipolar disorder, which I live with and cope with. I am not a disease. It is incredibly reductive and dismissive.
This argument is compelling. If you refer to me as bipolar it immediately overrides the many other things I am. I am much more than that.
To me, living with bipolar disorder is much more accurate. People have predispositions about mental illness, calling me bipolar is an immediate if unthinking judgement. It's a dismissive term with cold connotations. I'd prefer being called crazy - it sounds more fun.
Words have power. I think that calling someone bipolar is too easy. It's reflects a lazy sort of thought process, the kind that uses stereotypes as reality. That's unfortunate because, in my experiences, bipolar is generally not used in kind or understanding way.
I obviously don't like being called bipolar. I use to launch into some rant about how you don't call someone cancer, they have cancer. Which didn't help my argument.
Mostly, I think it reflects a terrible deficit of understanding or worse, it reflects, an unwillingness to understand.
But I don't know how much I care these days. I don't like being called bipolar but if others don't have a problem this. That's fine. But we should give it some thought.
