Being diagnosed as bipolar is a scary thing. It can happen in a number of ways, but if you’re like most of us, you probably didn’t know what was wrong for a long time, then you were misdiagnosed and then sometime later, you got the moniker of “bipolar”. Few of us go right from episode to bipolar diagnosis. But regardless of how you got here, what do you do next?

When most of us were young we learned that life isn’t fair. Yes, that boy got a bigger slice of cake than you. Yes, that girl gets better grades than you even though she doesn’t study. Yes, that’s boy’s imaginary friend’s clothes are nicer than yours. Life isn’t fair. But when I was diagnosed with bipolar at 20, my definition of “unfair” had to be reviewed.

I mentioned what remission means for a mental illness in a clinical setting: reduction in specific, empirical symptoms by a given amount. In other words, you are given a depression “score” and remission means reducing that score by a given number. But does that number mean anything at all to the patient in question? If you achieved it, are you "better"? If you suffer from mental illness, what does remission really mean?

I can feel suicide flicking at the edges of my consciousness. This morning I woke up wanting to die. Before my eyelids fluttered and my logic circuits sparked I knew it was going to be a horrible day.

Words have power. I know this because I’m a writer and I’m perfectly capable of angering, saddening or frightening people with my words. If words were not powerful, bookshelves would be empty. And bipolar is a powerful word when used in the context of a mental disorder. Depending on who hears this word, it can conjure up images of violence, danger, suicide, crime, fear, and many other unsavory things. It’s really no wonder that people don’t want to “be bipolar”.

When I was a kid, show and tell created the most memorable moments in school. Not the tell part. The tell was boring. We heard about Betty going to a “real, real fun zoo” and Bobby getting a new bike; this information made us shift in our seats, roll our eyes, and make funny faces at whoever was talking. But the showing, now that was great. We got to touch a slimy frog, hear Cathy scream as a budgie landed in her hair and be frightened as a snake’s tongue lashed out in front of us. Showing was where the action was. But with mental illness, it’s never the show that people want, only the tell. People are frightened by, and run from, the show.