As for me, I was diagnosed in '96
but surely bipolar longer (now there's something unique, huh?). Hospitalized
once, that was enough, hopefully. Nothing like someone walking up to you on
the psych floor and saying, "Hi!" ...and you just stand there looking blank
only to have them say, "you probably don't remember me, I've gained a lot of
weight"... and you think back to the deepest recesses of you mind only to
realize this rather rotund woman is someone you stood at the bus stop with in
grade school. I mean is nothing sacred? The psych floor, not the bus
stop....
That was in '97 and it was
defining. That I would be so mortified that someone I knew saw me there--and
that that "someone" , lets face it, was not there for the food. I spent alot
of time sorting out my feelings on stigma and decided that the best way for me
to deal with it was to be very open. So I write. As a result I have become
very unashamed of all of my sparkling thoughts. Some things deal directly
with stigma but most do not. In the end they probably all deal with
stigma because they humanize me.
I always try and write with
humor. If not a laugh-out-loud-spit-pepsi-on-your-monitor type humor, than at
least a poignant-i-know-how-you-feel-humor... it brings people together. The
only humor I tend to avoid it the titter-behind-a-gloved-hand-humor. makes
me want to gag.
