You Are Not Your Disorder

Hey, y'all--

Got some exciting news! Since I've been feeling so much better after the shock treatments and coming out of the depression and stabilizing, writing ideas have been starting to come back to me. I had an idea for a weekly column called "For Your Mental Health" for our local weekly paper, and pitched the idea to the editor, and he accepted it! I told him we always see these columns about "For Your Health," etc., where a doctor or other health professional tells us about dieting, exercise, cholesterol, etc. But NO ONE (at least not to my knowledge) has ever written one about mental illness! Like we're still society's outcasts, ya know? Like no one wants to bring it out in the open.

I'm writing the column about things in general that we all deal with, not just those of us with bipolar disorder. Because even those of us with BP have other disorders as well--anxiety, for example, usually goes hand in hand with BP. In my case, I also have schizoaffective disorder and borderline personality disorder. Don't worry, I have good medication for those as well, and I'm under control! :)

Today's article for the paper was on "You Are Not Your Disorder," and I wrote about BP, for example, talking about the difference between saying you ARE bipolar vs. you HAVE bipolar. Next week's article is going to be about how society as a whole needs to be better educated on mental illness. I'd appreciate ANY AND ALL HELP y'all can give me on that, so please write with your comments and suggestions?

Remember that God loves you and so do I!
Love, Michele