Have You Heard Any of These?

Leveraged from my favorite BP Forum.  In this thread titled “ Is BP an excuse for being lazy and/or immoral?”, participants listed some of the things that people have said to them about bipolar disorder.

Everybody gets sad. You just have to get over it.

Maybe you should take vitamins.

“Behavioral Health” — why don’t you just behave?

You don’t act bipolar at all. Manic depressive maybe, but not bipolar.

You’re just a woman.

You just gotta be stronger.

You don’t look sick!

BP is a scam made up so the pharmaceutical companies can sell drugs.

My dad’s favorite “are u taking ur vitamins”??? what the hell is that…ummm the question should be are you still taking your seroquel.

I made the huge mistake of telling some people at work…Now they are afraid of me ….omg she has BI POLAR!!!!
Like my head is gonna spin around….hello people I have always had this, I didn’t catch it yesterday from sitting on the toilet …..

Attention seeker!

We don’t do crazy here.

Grow up.

“Bi what?” I thought you got through that in your twenties – your heterosexual now!!!

What do you have to be down about, there are children in Africa starving.

If we all went to see a psychiatrist after doing something bad, we’d all be diagnosed with some mental illness or another.

If she was really mentallly ill she wouldn’t have been able to go to work or make any sense.

It’s all in your head. You’ll feel a LOT better if you just get out and do something.

You don’t have a disease, you’re not sick, so you can just get past this. Just think happy thoughts.

Oh, you’re on your period? Well that explains it, besides, females are so emotional as it is. Are you sure it’s bipolar disorder?

I think one of the worst things I have heard is silence….I’ve had people drop out of my life after learning of the bipolar or after getting sick, I guess, of watching me struggle with it.

There’s no physical test for mental illness – therefore it doesn’t exist! All you people are just sad, pathetic patsies for evil psychiatrists and the pharmaceutical industry!

One forum participant responded: Personally, I am both lazy and immoral. Those two traits have little to do with my  bipolar disorder.

My personal ‘fave’ are those comments that are meant to be compliments, but somehow wind up being insulting. For example, “But you seem so happy and together. . .how can you be mentally ill?” This kind of comment makes me want to scream back “Do you realize how hard it is to put on that happy and together act??” What’s supposed to be a compliment turns into my rage at the fact that people don’t realize how hard it is to be healthy!