Where does my UPC code go????

Today has been one of those stable but on the edge of up or down.  Do you ever feel like that.  You know the stable mood, the calm productive one is about to go.  It begins with an anxious feeling.  That doesn't really tell you... and then you begin.  Sometimes it only lays waiting for a trigger.

I like the rollercoaster analogy.  Truly, I find it fits... this is that curve in space mountain where you aren't sure if you are about to pludge or are you moving upward. I think I must have be at the beginning of the hill, because suddenly the words coming out of a strangers mouth made me feel downright hateful!

So, to begin with... I label myself because for the past 20 years I have had this label... Its not a crutch its not and excuse though sometimes it is an explaination.  IT ISN'T WHO I am but it does inform the person I am.  Would I be here otherwise?  What I CAN'T stand is to hear people in the media actually clumping together three seperate incidents of three very different people as if being bipolar was the entire reason for their actions.  The poor misinformed woman who had the gall to say "well can't they medicate them".

THEM????

Wow

Them??

hrmmm

Wait!!!  I am PART of that THEM and I am one in estimated 2.5 million people.  YES, bipolar can be devastating.  YES, people are more likely to act on impulses.  But people who are SUFFERING with this- coping with this- are no less human.  Obviously, I was still in "calm" mode because my filter worked and I didn't give her a piece of my mind.  I don't have a label.  I feel sometimes like it would make others more comfortable if I wore a DSM-IV

code tatooed to my forehead. 

Anyone else ever want to say, "Hi, I AM bipolar- I AM Manic-Depressive, nice to meet you... oh and I must say ignorance becomes you..."  ?

Like it or not, we get labelled, coded and clumped together by people who neither care enough nor are willing enough to even try compassion or understanding.  I know I want to say: LISTEN, Ms. Whoeveryouare, I will never seduce your son because I am manic, I won't kill you in your sleep and actually by statistics am more likely to harm myself.  You failed to recognize that there was more to those three people... they were self-medicating with alcohol or other drugs. They were not seeking treatment.  They had become isolated with no one close enough to help them help themselves.  Maybe they didn't want help... maybe they did...Do you even know the story behind it.  Its not an excuse but its might be an explaination."    

Somedays, the label is heavier than the "disorder".  I am really sorry for the rant, but sometimes people JUST annoy me.