4 ms·

Good. The stigma around bipolar is absolute hell for those of us who have it. Having rational and largely unemotional conversations about it with friends, famil

Good. The stigma around bipolar is absolute hell for those of us who have it. Having rational and largely unemotional conversations about it with friends, family and co-workers is a near constant struggle, when even possible. Just mentioning it is enough to get responses like, "Yeah, but everyone has a mental health disorder!" to change the subject. Hopefully the social stigma around even discussing mental health will go away in my lifetime, but I'm not holding my breath.

zafka 8y ago
I am not holding my breather either, but there are some pretty big companies getting behind reducing the stigma.
phkahler 8y ago
>> Having rational and largely unemotional conversations about it with friends, family and co-workers is a near constant struggle, when even possible. Just mentioning it is enough to get responses like, "Yeah, but everyone has a mental health disorder!" to change the subject. I'm wondering what the stigma is. From what you said people don't make a big deal of it and may even be dismissive. Or are you saying they refuse to acknowledge it as a problem and change the subject? While not helpful, it's not making fun of you either. I know people who are bipolar and the only people I've seen who think much negative about that are the people who have it. Perhaps my observations are missing something major? Are people actually hard on those with bipolar? How does the stigma manifest? I feel like I'm really ignorant about something here.
- dindumuffin 8y ago
  If mental illnesses are underdiagnosed, then it might be that the majority of the population could have some kind of disorder of varying scales on any spectrum. With how many different things can go wrong with our complex neurologies combined with tens of milennia of racial inbreeding it'd be surprising for anyone to have completely spotless mental health, just as few men and women are blessed with perfect bodily health free of rashes and allergies and proportional assymetries. Personally, I have a variety of brain related disorders which I must contend with on a daily basis but also make me good at spotting others with my experience across anbroad range of symtpoms. So when someone says to me "everyone has a mental health disorder" I just assume that they have a mental disorder and agree with them.
  - phkahler 8y ago
    >> So when someone says to me "everyone has a mental health disorder" I just assume that they have a mental disorder and agree with them. I totally agree with this. If there's no one around you might even say "yeah, wanna share, what's yours?" "There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who have faced their issues and are a work in progress, and those who have not." Yeah yeah, projection, black and white, all-or-nothing, splitting, etc... It's still a fun thing to say.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- xor1 8y ago
  >I'm wondering what the stigma is. I think a major part of the stigma is people thinking that borderline personality disorder and bipolar are the same thing, primarily because they have the same acronym. As a result, people wrongly associate Cluster B symptoms/behavior with bipolar.

zafka 8y ago

I am not holding my breather either, but there are some pretty big companies getting behind reducing the stigma.

phkahler 8y ago

>> Having rational and largely unemotional conversations about it with friends, family and co-workers is a near constant struggle, when even possible. Just mentioning it is enough to get responses like, "Yeah, but everyone has a mental health disorder!" to change the subject. I'm wondering what the stigma is. From what you said people don't make a big deal of it and may even be dismissive. Or are you saying they refuse to acknowledge it as a problem and change the subject? While not helpful, it's not making fun of you either. I know people who are bipolar and the only people I've seen who think much negative about that are the people who have it. Perhaps my observations are missing something major? Are people actually hard on those with bipolar? How does the stigma manifest? I feel like I'm really ignorant about something here.

dindumuffin 8y ago
If mental illnesses are underdiagnosed, then it might be that the majority of the population could have some kind of disorder of varying scales on any spectrum. With how many different things can go wrong with our complex neurologies combined with tens of milennia of racial inbreeding it'd be surprising for anyone to have completely spotless mental health, just as few men and women are blessed with perfect bodily health free of rashes and allergies and proportional assymetries. Personally, I have a variety of brain related disorders which I must contend with on a daily basis but also make me good at spotting others with my experience across anbroad range of symtpoms. So when someone says to me "everyone has a mental health disorder" I just assume that they have a mental disorder and agree with them.
- phkahler 8y ago
  >> So when someone says to me "everyone has a mental health disorder" I just assume that they have a mental disorder and agree with them. I totally agree with this. If there's no one around you might even say "yeah, wanna share, what's yours?" "There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who have faced their issues and are a work in progress, and those who have not." Yeah yeah, projection, black and white, all-or-nothing, splitting, etc... It's still a fun thing to say.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
xor1 8y ago
>I'm wondering what the stigma is. I think a major part of the stigma is people thinking that borderline personality disorder and bipolar are the same thing, primarily because they have the same acronym. As a result, people wrongly associate Cluster B symptoms/behavior with bipolar.