Is Bipolar Cool?
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And, if so, will other people be indifferent to our pain?
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Bipolar and stigma. Something major has happened in the ten-plus years since I've been diagnosed with bipolar. Back then, it was an illness you concealed. It was a shame you hid. Friends, family, and colleagues had a way of only seeing the diagnosis, and what they chose to see was not good.
To disclose your diagnosis was to risk everything: friends, relationships, livelihood.
Then something started to change. Over time, bipolar morphed into something that could be "cool" to have. Mind you, those struggling mightily with their illness saw nothing cool about it. Neither did their suffering families. But the flip side was the stigma was diminishing, and this had to be good news.
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Part of the trend had to do with the recent recognition of bipolar II and various forms of "soft" bipolar. In other words, bipolar wasn't an all-or-nothing disease. You could be a "little bit" bipolar. And a little bit was cool. Even the way-out-there bipolars could make a claim to cool.
Van Gogh, Hemingway, Woolf - how cool was that? Okay, they all killed themselves. But maybe if they were alive today - the thinking goes - that wouldn't have happened.
Over the years, I have urged individuals to embrace their entire illness - the good as well as the bad. If we simply viewed ourselves as victims who suffered, I kept saying, we would always wind up stuck well short of recovery.
In early 2009, I went to Facebook and searched under "bipolar." If the word appeared anywhere on a profile page that a member created, Facebook would find it for me. (These kind of searches are no longer available on Facebook.)
Bipolar Cool Profiles
My results revealed "more than 500" finds. I suspect many thousands. There were a great many examples to choose from, but let's go with three:
First, there were those whose lives seemed part of a weird Andy Warhol movie. These weren't exactly people you would be seeking out as Facebook friends. Then again, their bipolar credentials carried an air of exclusivity, as if to challenge the world. In the past, these people would have been shamed for failing to meet the standards of society. Now, there was an air of pride and defiance. They weren't about to please you. You had to please them. Too bad if you weren't good enough.
Then there were young hotties who advertised themselves as a bit on the wild side. Most of them, I suspect, had never seen a psychiatrist. But they proudly proclaimed themselves as "semi-bipolar" or "must be bipolar." Forget for the time being the dangers of romanticizing one of the worst illnesses on the planet. Instead, focus on the fact that these young women - part of a new generation - view bipolar as something positive, as a credential they can use (and misuse) to make new friends.
Finally, there were those I like to call bipolar role models. The image that stuck with me is that of a very attractive woman in her thirties or forties. She is in a smart pants suit, in stylish heels, posing in front of her Cadillac Escalade. I'm bipolar, is the underlying message, and not only am I making it in your world, I'm really kicking ass.
These are just some of the new faces of bipolar. They are a reflection of a changing world, a world that they (we) are changing. It is the face of a new bipolar cool.
A new generation - the Facebook Generation - is out there, in your face. They are not hiding in the closet. For good or bad, they are wearing their bipolar as if it were something to be embraced and envied rather than an entity to be feared and despised.
The rest of society is likely to embrace this change, as well, but possibly at the expense of being indifferent to our pain.
Let's see what happens ...
More on Bipolar Cool
In Jan 2009, I completed an email interview with Michael, who had just set up a (now deceased) website, Stable Moods.
"What more do you think can be done to change the public’s perception of mental illness?" he asked.
That one really got me thinking. "We (patients) have to take more responsibility and stop blaming others," I responded. "We need to recognize that our behavior has put those around us through no end of grief and that they have every right to never want to associate with us."
That was just my warm-up. We tend to think of stigma as something we have to put up with from the general population - and, believe me, there's more than enough of it to go around - but we're not going to get very far doing nothing for ourselves and waiting for others to change.
I've seen far too many patients on the cusp of recovery but going nowhere - stuck - and I can't help thinking a victim mindset has a lot to do with it. Not only do these patients hurt themselves, a lot of them hurt the rest of us. All it takes is just one person to play the bipolar card on someone once too often to turn a would-be sympathizer into a one more reason my life is difficult.
Fortunately, people are capable of forgiving us for our outrageous behavior, but first we need to ask, and second we need to demonstrate good faith.
Meanwhile, we need to make an effort to become role models, to start acting as if we have something to offer the world. An enlightened public is more than willing to embrace us and put up with some of the craziness that goes with the whole package, provided that we set out to become a positive force in their lives.
There has been a major sea change in public attitudes since I was diagnosed 11 years ago. Yes, we are still exposed to a lot of, "He's acting weird, must be bipolar." But we're also hearing more of, "Wow, she's so amazingly smart and creative and personable, must be bipolar."
Next thing, we'll have a bipolar President. Wait, we've already had at least at least three (John Adams, TR, LBJ).
First published as two separate blogs, Jan 2009, revised as an article Jan 14, 2011
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