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.

rubber duckie

5/14/09 10:38am

my mother tells me i am crazy/acting crazy. it seems no matter the age and how many time you say you don't like being called that, it still happens.

 

the few people that i personally told don't seem to be very trustworthy. they bring it up in open conversations. one of my teachers and a whole class knows because someone didn't keep it to themselves.

 

there has only been one person that could tell but only because his sister is also bipolar. he asked in a very polite way and then there was no more talk of it. i don't so much mind people knowing, but i want to tell them myself when i'm ready.

 

the normal thing. i have been telling my mother that for years. each time we are on the way to my doc and i am unhappy about, she will say come on don't you want to go? they are trying to help you feel normal.

sometimes i think part of this is for her. i think she has a hard time accepting the fact that i am bipolar and that i dont need to feel "normal" i'm ok with being myself not what everyone else wants. she is always trying to diagnose me with something else or something new to add to my list. it's very irritating. i tend to tell her "mom, leave it to the proffesionsals. they will figure it out. you just tell them any of your concernse."

she really bothers me at the doc. she changes stories to make what happened seem worse and that it was only me. basically she tells crative lies. when she isn't doing that she is trying to speak for me.  

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5/18/09 8:14pm

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