Freedom to Speak

Posted on September 25, 2005 in Stigma

There exist people in the world who watch your blog for the purpose of seeing your weaknesses. You know this when distorted versions of what you have said here come back to you, not from a person who has actually read it, but from another person. It also happens in real life: a few weeks ago, for example, I learned that I was “suicidal” because I had lost my insurance coverage for the year. The truth of the matter (as my regular readers know) is that I was in mania when I received the news. Consequently, I found it very funny which is an inappropriate response.

I did not find the intentional reversal funny at all.

Some will take a bit of information such as this and twist it to damage the sufferer of bipolar illness. Worst among these are sociopaths who look for any imperfection to latch on to. The best way to deal with a sociopath is to refuse to deal with him or her. Sociopaths deal in lies and distortions as do many of the paranoid among the sane.

I have heard it said recently by some that mania makes what a person said completely false. My recent experience with men and women in mania suggests that maniacs are often confused, but they rarely make things up out of whole cloth. Slowing them down and questioning them carefully often helps them focus. If I were a predator, I would not do this. But I am interested in the truth.

An African American woman who I know from chat and blogging likes to use mental illness as a way of discrediting what her opponents say. I have seen this woman make assertions about people based on the fact that they have bipolar disorder, depression, Asperger’s Syndrome, etc. Such obsession is, of course, itself indicative at very least of a personality disorder. Because of her out and out attacks on the mentally ill, I have long ago stopped talking to her or reading her blog despite our similar politics.

In the kind of low energy mood that I feel at the moment, I get to wondering about all kinds of things beyond these obvious affairs. When you are in depression, you develop hypersensitivity. This means you start reading every tic in the face as an omen. It’s time to watch yourself closely. It is, in fact, the opposite of my laughter in the face of losing my insurance. I’ve developed this only in the last two days and I intend to practice the rest cure.

I say this fully knowing that what I say will be seen by certain predators and their codependents. And to go on in spite of that fear, to speak of what is happening to me emotionally from the inside means a lot to me. It means that I know what my feelings are: I have at least partial self awareness. Others can twist them as they please, but they can not use them to manipulate me or call me a liar. There are the moods and there is the simple, raw input of my senses. I serve myself best by making the distinction and by realizing that being bipolar does not make me or any other sufferer else someone whose word is not to be trusted just on that fact and that fact alone.