How to Love or Torture a Bipolar

Posted on October 14, 2005 in Compassion Stigma

Most people stand in doorways between the light and the dark. People like me who see the doorway not as an arch under which to rest but as a way of getting from one room to the other annoy the “normal”. Even when we pare back our symptoms, we run into hostility. The portal-huggers resent our mobility, our being tied to shoes that make us trot back and forth, back and forth.

The DBSA conducted a survey of 3000 mood disorder sufferers. They asked what practices family and friends did that helped and what they did that hurt. In this day of obsession with politics and religion, you might not have seen these guides for human interaction:

How do your loved ones help you?

58% They listen to me talk about how I feel
50% They reassure me
47% They remind me not to be so hard on myself
46% They give me space
42% They support the idea that my illness is chemically based and not my fault

Conversely, the same respondent pool said:

What do your friends/family do that you do NOT find helpful?

49% They put demands on me
49% They act like nothing is wrong
48% They tell me to get my act together
47% They pressure me to go out and do things
45% They blame me for what I can’t help

Tom Cruise, alas, speaks for many Americans. Those around us cling to Puritan/Scientologist inflexibility and hate the experts who tell them that our mood swings are due to brain disorders. It’s just an excuse for not getting along with us.

DBSA invited the respondents to add their own original responses. Among the good advice the mentally ill population offered were:

• Recognize what I am going through
• Talk to me, help me calm down when I am keyed up or panicked. For example, if I lose something help me think of where it might be
• Praise my accomplishments
• If I become very irritable, you might need to get out of my way
• Drive me to appointments, take me out to eat or go shopping when I am able to leave home
• Comfort me
• Go to therapy with me
• Let me cry on your shoulder
• Help with expenses
• Tell me that you care about me

Of course, I must also share the negative treatment that people reported:

• They treat me as if I am stupid or imagining things
• They tell me that I am selfish and my illness is caused by bad life decisions
• They ignore the situation and hope that it will go away
• They tell me I need to get a job
• They assume I could fix it if I didn’t dwell on it
• They get irritated and tell me I’m getting tense*
• They tell me I need to grow up
• They try to run my life
• They crowd me

* The phrases “cool it”, “get a life”, and “lighten up” also apply here. Like you’re going to stop an inner scream by horsewhipping.

As I have said elsewhere, bipolars, schizoaffectives, and depressives spend much of their lives being told to “learn how to get along with others”. In answer to this, I would invite anyone (especially Tom Cruise) to visit a behavioral unit at a hospital. He will find some of the kindest, friendliest people he’d ever met and can ever hope to meet. While I support using the services of modern psychiatry for relief of the symptoms, I must add that the rest of you must stop standing in the doorway when the likes of me and my fellows pass. It tires us to continually cope with stubborn know-it-alls. You need to learn to get along with us.