So the Diagnosis is Officially In

My frustration is over, my diagnosis is official…….I have BIPOLAR MOOD DISORDER. It’s a mental diseases guys, just like Diabetes. The weird thing here is no one will question a person diagnosed with Diabetes, because that’s just accepted by society as a norm, understandable disease. However I guarantee, when people hear that you are diagnosed with a mental illness like Bipolar, they will look at you differently. Why is this?

I believe it is because society has conditioned us to believe that a mental illness isn’t a real disease, that people make up these diseases to seek attention. That Bipolar, Schizophrenia, Anxiety, Personality Disorder or Depressive Disorder people are defined by their moods, and that they can’t hold proper jobs because they could “just snap”.

Well let me set the fact’s straight right now…….these are actual illnesses guys. This means our brain has currently got a chemical imbalance, and can only be managed by medication and therapy. These illnesses can be inherited through genetics (yes one of your parents can carry the gene, which is passed onto yourself), combined with lifestyle (over working, drug abuse or alcohol abuse) or previous traumatic experiences or difficult upbringings, can all contribute to someone been diagnosed with a mental illness.

So before you judge someone in the future because of their mental illness, take a step back and consider if you have ever walked in their shoes, would you not be in the same place.

I have been diagnosed with a mental illness and I can finally make sense of why my feelings have always been so sporadic and out of control for majority of my life.

Before I end off this blog, I just want you to grasp what majority of what my life has felt like (and how I have had to hide it), which I found the perfect imagery definition in a book my mother had sent to me [O’s Little Book of Calm & Comfort – pg 18, which comes from the chapter called Splendor on the Couch – Nora Ephron]

“There’s something called the rapture of the deep, and it refers to what happens when a deep-sea diver spends too much time at the bottom of the ocean and can’t tell which way is up. When he surfaces he’s liable to have a condition called the bends, where the body can’t adapt to the oxygen levels in the atmosphere”

Now imagine being stuck in depression for ages (so deep that you felt like you can’t breath), not knowing which way is up or down, and when you resurface you are lost, confused or emotionally unstable.

I leave you with this thought.

This is me signing off till later.

#breakthementalstigma

#mentalillnessawareness