I have heard that being bipolar is “fashionable.” I have heard that “all the kids are doing it.” I have heard that it’s a fashionable, fad diagnosis. I have heard that some even want to be called bipolar because of its association with creativity. But, seriously, is this a real thing? Is it fashionable to be bipolar?
Is Being Gay In Fashion, Too?
This notion is very similar to the idea that it’s “fashionable” to be gay. Somehow there is this idea that youth are all desiring to be gay or bisexual and that it’s somehow trendy. Now, I am not a youth, but I am a bisexual, and at no time did I feel like I had graduated to a runway walk.
And this is because many people don’t like bisexuals (or gays, in general). Many people don’t trust us. Many people think we’re just “experimenting.” Many people think we just want to “pass” for straight. Many people think that we’re not capable of commitment. Many people think we just can’t accept that we’re really gay. Many people think that bisexuality doesn’t even exist. And so on and so on. It’s not a thing to want to be because if you are, you’ll quickly see the downsides.
The Fashionability of Bipolar Disorder
And the same thing goes for bipolar disorder. Again, I’m not a youth so I can’t say “what they’re all doing” but I can say that having bipolar disorder is not fashionable as it has considerably more downsides than wearing a Marchesa gown.
Of course, there are all the downsides of having bipolar disorder: the bipolar mood episodes, the suicidal ideation, the medication, the psychiatric appointments and so on.
But even if you just called yourself bipolar you would find there would be quite the number of downsides. Suddenly, you would find that you would be treated differently. Suddenly, you would find that many people would be scared of you, not trust you, worry that you would be unpredictable, discount your opinion and in many other ways shun you.
Being bipolar is the furthest thing from “fashionable.” Being “fashionable” is a goal (for some), being bipolar, certainly is not.
Why Do People Say It’s Fashionable to Be Bipolar?
I think by saying that bipolar disorder is a “fashionable” illness or diagnosis, it’s just another way of discounting us and what we really go through. If a diagnosis is just “fashionable” then it isn’t real, it doesn’t have impact and people don’t have to take it seriously.
But we, people with bipolar disorder, know differently. Most of us would give our eye teeth just to experience a life without bipolar disorder. If this is a fashion choice, I’ll happily put myself on the worst dressed list every day for the rest of my life.
My point here is that no one would dare say that a cancer diagnosis is “fashionable.” No one would dare make light of cancer patients’ suffering or the devastation of that illness, but people feel just fine doing it with a mental illness. We can’t allow this. We need to remind people what serious mental illness is and that not only can it ruin your life, but it can actually take it, just like cancer can.
Being “fashionable” is a lighthearted thing that only a few, very silly, people care about. Having bipolar disorder is a serious thing that requires medical care. Let’s not conflate the two, okay?
Note: I used the term “being bipolar” in this piece purposefully. Yes, I get that so many of you have issues with it. I don’t.
Bipolar seems to be glamorized and then stigmatized.
I heard a 13 year old young lady i know say this the other day: “I’m sooooo bipolar today! Ugh!”
I didn’t bother having that talk with her for many reasons.
The first, I didn’t know how to react so it was better of I didn’t. Let’s face it, don’t know what you’re going to do? Then don’t do anything. Zip it and put a lid on it until you figure it out.
She’s 13 and she has really no clue what she is saying. She’s just being the age of 13. Knowing everything, expressing herself, being cool, saying whatever to fit in… all that good jazz.
I was really at a loss in that one, so I pretty much let it go.
At this point in time, a “fashionable” teenage young lady doesn’t really care to know the details of being “bipolar” anyway.
Does she need to be more aware? Yes. But I only heard her say it once so I didn’t pursue it further.
At this point in her life, she doesn’t need to know my personal details. She’s not too young; however, she is at an age where she could get mad and spew out my personal life to her friends because she was grounded for… (you get the drift).
If it becomes an exasperated fashion statement again, I’ll have to figure something out; however, I’m not quite sure what will get through to a blooming 13 year old.
Although I am ever so greatful that she doesn’t have this cross to bear, I realize when you do not have it you are usually ignorant to it. This goes for anyone.
So how to educate someone in being more mindful is my challenge.
I’ll probably have to do it like when you raise your child to not laugh at someone in a wheelchair:
“That’s not funny, they are hurt. You don’t laugh at someone for being different. They cannot help it. Shame on you.”
I agree with you that a 13 year old is too young and immature to share details of the reality of bipolar disorder. What I deal with a few times a month is when my wife is talking about someone as being bipolar. I point it out all the time but she laughs it off. She has lived with me for 30 years and we have been living with diagnosis for 15 years. She has seen me at my worst. She has seen me suicidal and hospitalized yet she continues to try to diagnose other people. Part of me dies every time she does it but I don’t know what else to say to get her to stop.
There are some famous people who identify themselves as bipolar and many others one suspects are or were probably something like that. People like the idea of being able to take risks, be creative, look at the constraints of society and say “I don’t give a damn”. A lot of people find a brooding melancholy sort of deep and attractive as well. Being alive with emotion sounds awesome.
Most people don’t understand bipolar, so they are just projecting what they imagine “extreme emotions” are. The actual experience of bipolar depression isn’t an emotion. If you’re sitting on the couch and want some ice cream, but you can’t make your body get off the couch to get the ice cream, that is depression.
The emotion comes immediately afterwards when I start feeling anxious and guilty, and part of me starts screaming “if you can’t get some fucking ice cream how can you do anything!” That is a desperate emotion of helpless misery and self-loathing.
The brooding melancholy isn’t depression. That’s the contemplation of how my life is fucked, and the suspicion that the entire world is fucked, and the corrosive realization that I’m the least capable person to figure either of those things out. If I can get a cup of coffee, I’m not depressed.
Mania is the same. Calling it an “emotion” is just the best word to describe “gold” to someone that can only see in black and white. “Oh, it’s really white and shiny like the sun…that must be awesome.”
They can’t imagine the experience of having the sun gripping your skull and flowing in through your eyes, no matter how tight you try to squeeze them shut. There are no dreams because it’s always day. Details with exquisite definition stab into my mind so quickly, and with such intensity. For an infinite moment, everything snaps into place and I can see. I hold it all.
And if you talked to me, during that infinite moment, you would be awestruck. The terrible problem with mania is that, for that moment, I don’t feel Godlike. People that don’t understand treat me that way. I read them with such precision and tell them what they mean with such force, that they are enthralled. They believe and then I believe.
Everything floods in faster. I keep talking with more and more force; the intensity of the flood of details becomes too much. I can’t keep it all, but I’ve lost the ability to forget.
And then the sun squeezes a little tighter, my skull cracks, and my mind explodes.
At no point do I experience happiness, contentment, or joy.
The most existentially traumatizing part, is that I don’t remember. I remember the intensity as you would see sunlight reflected in a mirror. I hear echoes of things I said and images of what I experienced. They’re out of sequence, and fragmentary. I remember the attention, and I directly experience disappointment and anger. The history of my life is scattered with people who thought I was special and that they were special to me, when in truth we didn’t know each other at all.
I’m insane. When these things happen, I’m responsible. But, I can’t accept guilt or shame for the experience. There is a part of my mind that can see these things happening, locked away and screaming. Ice cream. All you wanted was some ice cream. I just wanted to get off the couch.
But, even as people around me can be so angry at me, I look at them with an almost equal rage. How could you be that stupid? I’m crazy, what’s your excuse? If you let me carry you away you are at least as blind to yourself as I am to me.
But you can’t tell people that, while you are accepting responsibility. So, I am silent while other people tell me what happened, and what it all means. And I can’t remember anything. I know their stories are self-interested, and inaccurate. Often, people are angry, so their stories punish me at the same time they claim to understand. But, I can’t remember. I’m insane. I don’t have a side.
And I am silent, in brooding melancholy, watching the precipice creep inevitably towards me. I can’t remember anything and what I have is a collection of punishing stories about myself, written by angry people. And I’m trying to write something, create something; a new person with a new story to carry me through the abyss.
It’s dark, I don’t know.
I’m afraid.
If people understood bipolar disorder, they would know that it does make your life alive with emotion.
Alive with fear.
Natasha, this is a fantastic post. I have seen this lately and it leaves me stupefied that someone thinks it is cool. I hate that I have bipolar disorder. I would love to live a normal life without four different medications that keep me from landing back in the hospital on suicide watch. I would love to carry on a deep conversation with people that is not interrupted by racing thoughts all screaming for attention. I would love to see my wife relax and not worry about me and what kind of impulsive trouble I can get myself into when I’m alone. Fashionable? God no.
There is certainly nothing glamorous about how I feel now. It’s a plague to the mind, body and spirit.
Whether bipolar disorder is fashionable or not, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It all depends on the individual and their perception. I was diagnosed with the disorder 20 years ago and I know the severity of the condition. But in all due respect, the word bipolar represents highs and lows (i.e. north pole & south pole; happy and sad), changes that occur in extremes, without a moments notice. Yup, I know all too well. Although it has taken me years, I have learned not to take everything so personal. When I used to hear people utilize bipolar so freely and tie it to any loose topic, it would bother me. But what really got me upset is when people tried to use it against me; as if I was an alien and all human policies were foreign and unable to be learned by me. Wow, I have grown a bunch since then. Now, I catch myself referring to the weather as bipolar. I mean that’s how it acts sometimes. My six year old loves to hide and jump out and scare me. When I scream “you’re going to give me a heart attack”, does that mean I am mocking people with heart disease? There is a such thing as a “figure of speech”, which isn’t meant to be taken literally or personally. I believe we have to restructure our own perception of self, then be accepting of who we are. Overcoming that challenge alone can release the stronghold of stigmatism in the mental health community and society all together.
I’m still coming to terms with being bipolar and being willing to really look at my life and figure out my cycles…fighting depression on a daily basis is a titanic struggle…I cannot imagine who would want to be bipolar, I just used to think I was going crazy and didn’t know why. I read your blog eagerly, learning from you every time how to see life more clearly. And, then trying to find an equilibrium with all the meds I take for this problem and chronic pain, too…and I wonder why it takes me so long to get dressed and out of the house…thank to all of you who write comments on this site, I really appreciate your willingness to share.
There is a lot of truth to what you wrote, Natasha. But I want to add one more thing to the conversation. Just because you’re bipolar, it doesn’t mean you’re creative. I’m NOS, on disability, over 50, and college educated. I tried for many years to make employment work. It didn’t. But I also don’t have a creative bone in my body. And I’m left-handed. So there’s a lot of nonsense to the notion of bipolar being fashionable.
And Facebook bipolar memes, oh…those really bug me!
I personally find these kind of comments hurtful and a bit disturbing. This may be because I suffer mainly with bipolar depression, have low self esteem and struggle with paranoia. But I do think they are probably true. There are quite a few high profile people who have come out as bipolar so in a good way it has shown that you aren’t necessarily a scary ‘psycho’. It has been normalized to some extent through such people. The other side of this will naturally entail a certain amount of groupie-ism or emulation. I think, as is true of homosexuality, this will die down eventually and we will be seen as just another sub group. No more or less interesting than other such minorities. Eventually the world may even come to understand that the world is in fact made up of subgroups. There is, in fact, no such thing as a majority.
I would disagree with you only on one small point. You imply that no young people would pretend to be something which would make other people scared of them. If this were the case there would have been no punk movement and no young people would walk around wearing t-shirts praising Satan. I think there are young people who want people to think they are wild and crazy and dangerous. Whether any of them pretend to be bipolar is another issue.
The reality is that there are always people out there looking for anything to make them ‘special’ and different from other people. Unfortunately this often involves people making ignorant statements.
I think that most people go through this at some point on their way to becoming comfortable in their own skin.
Unfortunately people often end up seeking the wrong type of attention.
In most simple terms, I think that when people don’t know how to gain attention for good positive achievements, they go seeking attention via sympathy instead.
Similarly I hear people claiming that so-and-so is a narcissist. I can’t help but notice that generally I hear this from women talking about ex boyfriend’s. My conclusion is that often when people use that term, the reality was that one person was confident, had opinions and direction and was both able and happy to articulate themselves while the other person wasn’t able to get across their view and interpreted their own inability to articulate or convince their ex as meaning that the ex didn’t care about their feelings. Sometimes it’s not about one person not listening or caring – sometimes the messenger is just poor at communicating. But it’s all too easy to blame someone else instead of taking the blame themselves – and suddenly a serious term is waved around flippantly.
In Michael’s case, I suspect that what the person was trying to convey to their friend was that they are inconsistent and unfocused. But ignorance can lead to an inappropriate term being wrongly used out of context. It reminds me of a time when I lost the plot at work when someone made a joke about a colleague ‘looking like a paedophile’ – like, do people actually think before they open their mouths as to the seriousness of what they’re saying?
The world is full of great people. But ying and yang / laws of balance state that there will always be a fair share of eejits out there too. Sad but true. Try to enlighten them but try not to let them get you down.
I am so happy to see your new insightful words. I have been missing you. I saw my primary care physician last week and needed a document completed. He refused to complete it because he said look everyone is depressed! Also, Paul Ryan just made news because he is giving up his anxiety for Lent. It ses like everyone thinks mental illness (or being gay) is a matter of choice. I do not choose to be manic or depressed. I do not have control over my mood swings and it seems to be worse with medication. I wouldn’t wish a bipolar diagnosis or an involuntary hospitalization on anyone. The whole problem for me is the need to feel heard and understood, especially by health care providers and politicians who pass laws regarding mental health. I wish coping with the pain of bipolar depression was as easy as buying a new fashion.
The Paul Ryan thing just dumbfounds me. Just shows how uneducated he (and the general public) are. I’m still shaking my head.
I think all these false perceptions stem from more bipolars (and of those different gender) self-identifying because the world is becoming more tolerant. So people see more members of these minorities. That doesn’t mean they necessarily understand. The stigma of bipolar (and probably of LBGTQ folks as well, and others) has not yet changed appreciably. I have several neighbours who have disappeared from my world since they became aware of my condition. I miss them, even though it also makes me angry.
To : Paul Winkler
From : Paige
Your final sentence regarding the neighbors who have rejected you, ” I miss them , even though it also makes me angry. ” speaks to the type of person who has a big heart. You would be indifferent, otherwise. Indifference , to my way of thinking, is like being emotionally flat lined. You still care about people- You’re very much alive.
You hit the nail on the head.. Those few days that I get out of the house my wife and I went to the mall for a walk and there was a bunch of millenials in their twenties near us and one looked at the other and said ” You are so Bipolar”. I couldn’t help myself and went to those people and explained to them what bipolar really means and told them of my pain and my family’s suffering and my total loss of any dignity. My wife asked me to stop but i couldn’t hold back. I have heard that phrase so many times. Its now in movies and Tv shows as if its badge of honor to be bipolar. The person who said that statement started crying and i really could care less. I am sick of the stigma and the loneliness and the heart ache and the fire in my brain every day. No its not fashionable. For me its torture every day. A fight with the devil. The last thing I said to the person was ” spend a day in my head and within 1 minute you will run out screaming with your hair on fire, And I want you to remember me when you say that again….. One thing about this disease is that I really dont give a damn what people think of me anymore. Its what I think of them. So little compassion and empathy out there. I wish all of you peace. PS . If any of you like being bipolar becuase it brings out all the creativity in you lets find a surgeon who can switch our brains. I cycle daily.