just felt like putting them out there

Hi, my name is Michelle, 46, very youthful, dealing with Bipolar since 1997.

My advice for you is, don't be worried about what others may think.

It really isn't any one's business about your personal issues.

To those friends, family that know you and have love and  compassion, that's what matters.

When making new friends, look for the qualities I mentioned, compassionate, sincere, God-fearing and kind.

I wish you well.

God Bless,

Michelle

My teenage daughter, just a small bit younger than you, knows that I have Bipolar.  She has known since she was wee tiny that her momma had "sad sick" spells.  In fact, she was the one who called my very depressive episodes "sad sickness" because she understood being sick and in that I was very tearful and rarely smiled at times, I was therefore - "sick with sadness" like sick with a cold.  They would come and go, like colds.

She now knows though, because she is older, that it is called Bipolar.  Now instead of being referred to as 'sad sick" she just plain looks at me and says "you are crazy or you are having one of your crazy spells."  I didn't teach her crazy, she learned that from school and she says it in a most condescending manner.

I've told her over and over that it is wrong and inappropriate and I won't have her call me that.  Still, in arguments - this is what I get.  I can only imagine what she may tell her friends at school in that a lot of her friends I know of from having worked for our local county MH center as an administrative person (not clinical). 

Several of her classmates, I've known since they were very little but in another way and they - in turn - know me.  I never discuss them to her though they've told her they know me via that center.  Some of them still know me via that center because that is now where I now go to receive services.  It's complicated.

As far as me letting anyone else know - I don't.  I never tell a soul, not a soul.  If I see a new doctor that doesn't know me, I do not tell them and yet when meds are listed - they typically guess and/or question.  Still, a lot of the meds prescribed are prescribed for other things not related to Bipolar like Seizures, Migraines, Restless Leg, Fibromylgia, etc.. so, even meds are no longer a dead give away. 

Otherwise, not one soul do I tell.  It's my business, it's my life and unless you are willing to share it with me one on one and I'm having to fully rely on you to be there - thus trusting you to not hurt or betray me - you simply have no need to know.

In that; "others" never know, nor do they guess.  I am as you say - look and for the most part, unless very symptomatic, act like everyone else.  Even symptomatic, unless I'm way off the beam (which is rare these days) I'm just considered moody or hyper by my peers because I've been years and years mastering this and I hide myself very well (me old).

I like what you said about being normal.  I wholeheartedly agree.  Normal is all "relative" to each individual.  There is no cookie cutter outline of what "normal" is considered as.  If so, there would be no diversity in this world and the world would be an absolute boring and uneffectual spinning piece of rock.

I am a mother of a Bipolar 1 daughter.   I belieive reading others stories has helped both her and myself.   Mostly by learning to cope, accept and finding a sense of commradery with others going through what we are ..just gave us a sense that we are not alone.  The lastest book we have read is a new one out written by a mother and her daughter who has Bipolar.  It gave me great hope and encouragement ... just seeing all the things they went through and seeing the simularities or our situation has inspired me to hang in there....   If anyone is interested , it's called    " I just want my daughter back"  (found it on Amazon ) 

People often forget that when someone is Bipolar  ... it  affects the whole family..