Stigma

Content Warning: Mental Health, Bullying

If you have bipolar disorder, or know someone personally that has bipolar disorder, you must of read the title of this blog and cringed. Mental health stigma- I honestly can believe is one of the major reasons why people with depression kill themselves or harm themselves. To those of you who are pondering over what mental health stigma is, I’ll explain it.
  You have bipolar disorder and you are sitting at the break table with your co-workers. Its about ten minutes before you leave for home and you’re just sitting there minding your own business. Not much to say. From what seemed out of nowhere to you because you are in your own little world, you hear your co-workers laughing. Wondering what the hype is all about, you listen to the video they are watching on You-tube. Its a video mocking a person who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. To match it all up to the uproar of laughter that really just should not be happening, one of the coworkers replies, “Well it actually makes sense because hes actually bipolar. Hes a whack.” That is an example of mental health stigma and it wasn’t you sitting at the table. It was me. This literally happened at 10 pm last night in front of me.
   I leave work virtually pissed off and depressed at the same time. How nice it must be for those two morons to head inside of their lovely cars, go home and not have to worry about possibly not sleeping for the whole night or worrying about the next day endlessly for no reason. It must be nice not having to take medications with food late at night and to struggle with self-esteem due to side effects. It must also be nice not having to remain upset over something for hours on end and not being able to get over it. And they were laughing at this. They were having just, a grand ole good time.   As I’m standing in the shower just absolutely reddened with anger and sadness, I almost took the razor and slashed my wrists. But I didn’t. And the only reason I didn’t was because I love my family and it would hurt them if I did. Plus, I knew I would come to regret it (especially if I died).
   Mental health stigma is basically when people talk and laugh about something they don’t understand. Its no different than using difficult and immoral terms to describe someone that struggles with cognitive functions of any kind.  Since I have bipolar disorder, I’ll start a list of the things I hear:

• -Suck it up buttercup-
• You just need to live a little-
• Exercise and dieting can really enhance your mood, you should try it-
• Just get over it, its not that big of a deal-
• You’re young and hormonal-
• Your period is coming, I can tell-
• Did you cut your hair short from a manic episode? (I have a bowlcut and no, I did it because I like it)-
• You seem to be moving a bit slow today-
• Oh look at her, shes moving fast for attention-
• Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed?-
• Bipolar people can’t make their own decisions or make up their own minds-
• So and so is bipolar which explains A LOT-
• Bipolar disorder doesn’t work that way, you don’t have it.-
• Have you tried smoking weed? I think you’re not bipolar you just need weed.-
• You lack simple coping skills, that’s all-Your “episodes” don’t exist –
• Your opinion isn’t valid because you’re mentally ill

Yeah. That’s all of the crap people say to me over my disorder. Why do people say these things? I don’t have a single clue. Only a spineless, heartless person would say these things and accentuate that bipolar disorder either doesn’t exist or isn’t my problem. Yet, so many people out there say things like this. I can come up a few reasons why.

• 1. They’re unhappy with their lives and don’t know what to do about it.   What better way to feel better about yourself than to make others feel shitty. A lot of people do this, and I sincerely don’t understand why. If I made someone feel like crap, I would feel worse about myself, but hey, this cup of tea isn’t for everyone. Sometimes a person is a cup of piss and they refuse to change that or don’t know how to.
• 2. They don’t have any understanding to what they are talking about.   Some people just sincerely don’t know what they are laughing about and think it is funny. Some people are just that stupid. There really isn’t a compatible explanation for this one.
• 3. They follow what others have told them.    The things I listed above are not just said by one person. A lot of people make these consequential remarks and possibly, the two jackasses at the break table laughing about my demise could of heard those “funny” remarks from their parents, grandparents, friends, etc. (Its a cruel world we live in)
• 4. Jealously.    Believe it or not, but people are actually jealous of my problems. Why? Because they can’t seem to handle their own problems and when they see me getting and hustling without issue to my problems, they can’t help but feel a tad jealous that I am handling my life better than they are handling their self-esteem. Thus, I get a little extra attention because of my issues and people who are attention hogs hate that. Lastly, what better way to get back at your rival than to make them feel like shit?

So what do we do about these people? How do we handle situations where people make remarks that are rude and uncanny? My solution: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. If you give those people any hint of a reaction, it will give them satisfaction and satisfaction is the last thing we want to give to those heartless bastards. Acknowledge in the moment that you are blessed with factual information about your disorder and that you don’t need anyone to validate your way of handling it. Reminding yourself this will make the remark become a puny little ant that is merely crawling on your leg. Lastly, don’t argue with them. Arguments in my experience of having bipolar disorder usually lead to manic rage, and I definitely don’t want to give them that much satisfaction. However, if it becomes too much and you need to say something, have at it. But I am going to remind you that they are going to find any means to justify what they said or they are going to say even worse remarks than what was originally said. So enter the argument table at your own discretion.

-This post was shared from Samantha’s personal blog: Bipolar Chic @ howdoifuckingnamethisblog.blogspot.com. Thank you. –