#BipolarAF

Hi! I'm Angela and I'm bipolar AF.

Yeah, you know what that means. Or do you? If you've been here, done this, then maybe you do really know. If you live with someone and love every second of them, up or down or in between, you might know. If you've educated yourself or otherwise picked up some psychology along the way, you might have an idea.

But I'm shocked at how much people don't really know . . . or to be more specific, I'm shocked at what they assume. Or maybe I’m the one assuming? I assume a certain person who is no longer in my life thinks I’m dangerous. Let me tell you why.

I have an aunt who hasn't willingly spoken to me since she found out about my diagnosis. She was my godmother. I really looked up to her as a child. I wasn't diagnosed with this disorder until I was in my 30s, and I instinctively hid it from my extended family. I knew (or assumed?) they wouldn't understand that I was the same person they had always known; I just had a new label.

But of course, it always comes out sooner or later. My mother, in an honest attempt to . . . I don't even know, exactly, but in an attempt to do something that in some way would help someone, she told my aunt that I have bipolar disorder. After that, looking back, I realize my aunt never reached out to me once since that day.

The one time I saw my aunt and spoke to her after she’d heard the news, I dropped by her house unexpectedly in the midst of a personal crisis when my world was falling apart (and it wasn't just the bipolar talking). She took me outside to her patio, and I now wonder if that was because she didn't feel safe alone in the house with me. She let me sob hysterically, listened to what I had to say, then said, "You should just go back to work."

All I had said meant nothing. My tears meant nothing. Or maybe they meant everything. Maybe she assumed that seeing me that way was just confirmation that I was “crazy.” Maybe hearing the words "bipolar disorder" somehow erased whatever love she'd had for me. Maybe she suddenly believed I'd go after her with a kitchen knife while the soundtrack of Psycho played at full volume. Maybe she just felt helpless and didn't know how to handle it, or me. I don't know.

What I do know is how much it hurts. I haven't spoken to her in over 10 years now. I've left "Happy Birthday!" messages on her answering machine for years and never got even a post card in return. Her birthday is on St. Patrick's Day, which is probably why this is on my mind now. I won't be calling. I've called so many times and never got a response, even when my messages were urgent.

So, I think she doesn't know. She doesn't know that I can be depressed (yes, even unable-to-work depressed) for no reason. I'm sure she doesn't know that depressing things happening during already depressed times can cause that depression to spiral fast and hard and DOWN. Down until I can barely think, can barely function; until the world is nothing but sorrow and just taking a shower feels like an Everest expedition.

On the flip side, she probably doesn't know that I can feel energized and damn near invincible for no good reason, as well. I can operate on a few hours of sleep and get everything done, flitting from task to task and actually accomplishing everything I set out to do.

She doesn't know about the crash that comes after. The emergency room visits. The fear of the next up, the next down, the next flat-on-my-face.

She doesn't know me. Or, to be perfectly clear, she ASSUMES she doesn't know me. I'm still the girl that she introduced to historical romance novels, who asked her to teach me to dance. I'm still the girl who often stared out her window, daydreaming; who flea-dipped her dog when he had fleas so thick it looked like he had large scabs; who thoughtfully remarked that men and women fit together like puzzle pieces when I was about 11 years old. She smiled when I said that, proudly, as if I had discovered one of the great mysteries of the universe right before her eyes.

So if you know someone who has bipolar, maybe you know what it really means and maybe you don't. Either way, I'm asking you for something, and I'm asking PLEASE. When you hear of a diagnosis like mine, whether it's clinical depression or bipolar disorder or schizophrenia or whatever other new label someone you have always known is slapped with, please don't assume anything and PLEASE: Remember who they are. Remember that he or she is the exact same person you knew yesterday, that you may have known all your life.

Maybe you have an opportunity to understand them better. All it takes is a bit of Googling. But more importantly, please ASK. Ask if they are okay today, ask if they mind talking about it; if those are green lights, ask them everything you're afraid of or curious about when it comes to their diagnosis.

The answers will probably surprise you.

Please teach yourself before you teach your loved one that they never knew you at all.