Ableism & Bipolar Disorder
Here is an essay I started writing in 2017, forgot about for years, and finished up last night. It’s important to me because being aware of the ableism towards people with bipolar disorder is actually one factor that got me interested in disability rights in general. Here’s the essay:
Nobody has ever explicitly said they didn’t want to be around me because I'm bipolar. It's just something I've always worried about. But not completely without reason.
I'm constantly afraid that someday I'll tell someone I'm bipolar and they won’t want to talk to me again. They’ll have these preconceived notions about what bipolar disorder is and they’ll let those ableist ideas dictate whether or not they keep me in their life. I know, forget those people, right? I don't need them or whatever. But I know it will still hurt if it happens. It already hurts. I've heard people talk about their "totally crazy bipolar exes" a million times. I've heard what other people say about us when they think none of us are listening, and I'm haunted by it all.
It hurts every time I hear someone talk about their abusive ex and say they were abusive "because they had bipolar disorder." What I hear when people tell me this is “this disorder makes you a monster and these people aren’t worth dating or even being friends with.” It doesn’t make you a monster, though. If someone with bipolar disorder is abusive, they would have turned out abusive even without the disorder, it’s part of their nature/character/whatever. Mentally ill people are more likely to be abused than they are to abuse, this is a well-documented fact, but nobody ever talks about that. If your ex was abusive, leave out the fact that they were bipolar. That's not why they were abusive. Writing off an abusive person’s behavior as the product of their bipolar disorder just contributes to the stigma.
Don’t even get me started on “crazy ex girlfriends,” the horror stories people tell to try to make dating a bipolar woman sound like it’ll always be like Single White Female or Play Misty for Me. Or every time I’ve sat there quietly after someone I trusted suddenly referred to a mentally ill person as a psycho, stunned by the realization that if I showed signs of my mental illness I couldn’t trust these people not to judge me.
The stigma hurts and causes me to want to hide my bipolar disorder. It makes it harder to tell people about it. I do anyway, but it’s really scary.
The media never helps. Sure, you have the dazzling celebrities with bipolar disorder, who are said to lessen the stigma but are actually shielded only a little bit from that stigma because of their massive amounts of privilege, power, fame, and money. Loved because of their success and powerful status and their contributions to the world of entertainment, not because society genuinely accepts people with bipolar disorder. They’re basically the bipolar version of inspiration porn: here’s who you could be if you take your medications, go to therapy, "recover." Why is your latest episode making it hard to get out of bed? For this bipolar popstar, their episode was inspiration for the album they wrote during it!
Then you have the other side of bipolar portrayal in the media. Another school shooting happens, and the news is speculating that the shooter had bipolar disorder. Now you have to worry about hearing people talk about how we need mental healthcare reform not because it's needed anyway but because they think everyone with bipolar disorder will be violent in the future if something isn't done. Now you see a million ignorant comments online about how dangerous people with bipolar disorder are. And no sign of actual progress in reducing the stigma or improving the lives of people diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
I'm so self-aware not just because I need to be in order to save myself but also because I don't want anybody to be able to tell unless I want them to. Every time I get a little more creative or energetic or happy without much reason to be, I wonder if I'm shifting into another manic episode even though that hasn't been the case in years. Every time I'm sad or thinking negative thoughts about myself I wonder if I'm headed towards depression even though these are just emotions we all feel sometimes. I don’t just worry about this for me, I worry about it because if I am depressed or manic, I'm going to have to work extra hard to hide it so nobody suspects anything.
Basically what I want everyone to know is that we hear the things you say about people with bipolar disorder or other mental illnesses, and it makes us constantly worry about the discrimination we might face if we tell you or if we unintentionally do something that makes it obvious. And you’re not better people than us just because you don’t have bipolar disorder, so you can chill with the superiority complex and treat us like human beings and maybe we’ll have an easier time trusting you, and you won’t be weighed down by negativity and we won’t be weighed down by fear and everyone could be better off for it.