Bipolar Disorder and Accountability

Posted on February 23, 2011 in Bipolar Disorder Responsibility

A few weeks ago, I got into a Facebook discussion about the effects of labeling. The only other person in the thread said that she thought that people who called themselves “bipolar” did so they could excuse bad behavior, that this was in fact the primary reason why people like myself chose to so identify ourselves. I held back my anger and hurt — I was not, after all, in episode. In fact, I chose not to argue the point at all. But I still admit that I live with bipolar disorder, that I suffer from bipolar disorder and that sometimes it plays hell with my life.

I also feel moments of anxiety that have nothing to do with my bipolar disorder such as when I discovered that it was going to snow in the desert this weekend and motels.com had a non-cancellation policy ((Don’t worry. It has been worked out.)) . There’s a fuzzy line between my bipolar disorder and the bad habits I have accumulated that may be a result of having that disease or not. And it is for this reason that I take a different tack from others when it comes to accepting responsibility for things I do while manic or depressed or in a mixed state.

“You did those things while you were suffering from bipolar disorder,” say therapists, “so you aren’t responsible for them ((I haven’t discussed this with my present therapist so I don’t know how she will see this. I hope she will hear me out before she works on it with me.)) .” But I have a problem with this: it entails dividing myself. To be sure a thunder, rain, and hail stormed in my brain, but that was not someone else. That was and is me. I am the continuation of what happened in the past. I am the self that was and the self that will be. If I deny my past, I can’t explain my present. My identity develops with a gap that makes it impossible for me to express what I am to others. Though the disease caused me to spend $40,000 in credit card fees and neglect my teeth to the point of ruin, I offer it as explanation for some of what I did not excuse. The whole picture is more complicated than that and I choose to own it all.