I feel like there’s a huge amount of pressure on me to function perfectly because I have bipolar disorder. While everyone wants to do their best, certainly, I feel pressure to do the best just to prove that a person with bipolar can. It’s like I’m letting everyone with bipolar disorder down if I don’t function perfectly.
What Is Functioning Perfectly with Bipolar?
I guess “functioning perfectly” with bipolar, for me, is working every day (or most day anyway), being responsible and professional, paying all my bills, maintaining social relationships, getting out, doing things, exercising, cleaning my apartment, eating decently, and so on and so forth. It’s this long list of things that most people take for granted but that is really, really hard for a person with bipolar disorder to accomplish much of the time.
I’m just, desperately, trying not to drop any balls.
Why Is There Pressure to Functioning Perfectly with Bipolar?
Some people out there won’t get this, but it feels like I’m a champion for bipolar-kind and if I fall, I’m letting down bipolar-kind. It’s just because I’m so visible and touch so many people, I suppose. I’m lucky in that I’m fairly high-functioning at all, but this pressure to function perfectly with bipolar at all times is still really tough for me because, of course, I have bad bipolar times like everyone else.
I also think I’m not the only one who feels this pressure. I might feel it more publically, but I think many people feel like they have to be better than others just to seem the same.
It’s like if someone loses their temper. Okay, this happens. But if it happens to a person with bipolar disorder, it’s “evidence” that their bipolar is out of control or that they’re out of control. So people with bipolar, then, may feel the pressure to be perfect even-keeled at all times to ensure they are not perceived as “sick” or “crazy” or whatever.
That’s really what I’m trying to avoid. I’m trying to avoid people looking at my life and seeing failure. It feels like anyone else could slip up on one of my list items and just be considered plain old human but if I do it, it’s a signal of so much more.
And I know a lot of this pressure just comes from my own brain. I am asserting pressure onto myself. If I want to stop it then I have to stop it. I get it. But somehow, that doesn’t make it any less real.
Bipolar and Perfectionism
And one should not forget that perfectionism is actually tied to depression. This isn’t terribly surprising as if you’re constantly striving for something you’ll never get, you’ll always feel like a failure. People who feel like a failure are often depressed and those who are depressed often feel like a failure.
Getting Over the Pressure to Function Perfectly with Bipolar Disorder
“Getting over” something is always such a high bar. You can work with something, you can mitigate it, you can mollify it, you can temper it and so on but actually “getting over” something? Tough.
Part of the difficulty is that I know I have to be hard on myself in order remain high-functioning with bipolar disorder. This is just true.
That said, I need a bit of grace, too. I need a bit of slack. This whole keeping-up-with-the-normals thing is just too hard.
And yet. And yet I still don’t want to admit to the horrible, no good, very bad days where absolutely nothing gets done. I still don’t want to admit to never vacuuming my apartment. I still don’t want to tell you how many times I wash my hair a month. I just don’t want to do it.
But there. I guess I just did. I’ve exposed my frail humanity and chronic illness to everyone. And the world didn’t implode. Bipolar-kind is, I think, still ticking.
So I guess the lesson is this: While a modicum of this pressure for some of us, also admitting to our imperfections is okay too. As long as we try our best, we can be perfectly imperfect, just like everyone else.
Banner image by Flickr user Sean MacEntee.
And some of us are simply hoping our meds will work soon and we’ll be un-depressed enough to do *anything* – even work or volunteer a *little* bit. Perfection might as well be a concept from another planet. This article is skewed towards the “high-functioning”. What about the rest of us?
Thank you for this article. I’m a professional counselor and have worked for Vocational Rehabilitation as a Rehabilitation Counselor for 10 years. I’ve always been very high functioning, as I was diagnosed 4 years ago at 39 yoa. Before I was diagnosed, I managed to obtain my M.A., maintain a career in mental health for 25 years now, have a marriage of 18 years, a 14 yoa son, life long friendships, and great family support. Ironically, I’m currently on a corrective action plan for “timeliness”, I regularly experience gossip, nosiness, and judgement by co-workers and colleagues. My supervisor and other administrative staff know of my illness although I’ve never requested accommodations. Currently, my doctor has written me out for medical leave for a month in order to increase my current medication and added a new one, as well as make some more lifestyle changes to increase my wellness. I’m supposed to return mid-November but I really don’t know if I’m going to be able to weather the stigma and pressures. I too put more pressure on myself than anyone else but I don’t know that I can keep it up. It too saddens me that I work for an agency whose sole purpose is to put someone like myself back to work yet here I am on the other end. It’s frustrating and very disheartening, but it is my reality. I don’t know if I want to keep my job at this point… I don’t know if I can, plus, I can’t help but feel betrayed by the agency I am employed. I’m not wanting to bad mouth the agency either because I know the good I’ve been able to do for others like me during my tenure. I’m grateful I have more leave time to figure this out. Thank you for your article, it empowered me to write this. God bless
Thank you for this post. The struggle is real and while I know I am not alone, it helps to hear others stories. I am currently reading a great book that follows along the lines of your post. Driven: A Daughter’s Odyssey by Julie Heldman is her memoir about her ridiculously successful Tennis career and life, in spite of her battle with bipolar disorder and secretively traumatic relationship with her mother. This book was a page turner but it hit me on so many personal levels. I Highly recommend it.
I’m grateful for this post! No one is as hard on me as my own mind is. This reminds me to keep in mind that everyone has their battles and feeling guilty for when I was unwell with mania does abosulely nothing but feed my depression. Thanks a lot for this!
Come visit my blog at http://www.mindhealmind.com for some holistic solutions to mental illness! Get a free anxiety and depression relief hypnosis when you sign up for our newsletter! :)
Because I love in the open about my illness, I too feel the scrutiny of others on my performance. I sometimes feel as though they are waiting for me to screw up.
is it me? Or is there some strange reason we are not talking about a very high profile, high achieving rap star who had recently ‘come out’ admitting he suffered from bipolar disorder?
I just watched the full 24 minute clip displaying Kanye’s oval office visit, including his flight of ideas, hyperverbiosity and rapid speech pattern, grandiose and disconnected thoughts, new admission that he’s been diagnosed as having bipolar disorder but now believes he really has a sleep disorder.
Those who wish to start a real conversation, do yourselves a favor and watch this very public event…then tell us your own thoughts about it. I did not see a political moment – I saw a mental health moment that is being ignored for what it is. Ah, the power of stigma…
How long are we in America going to keep giving lip service to helping people with mental health problems, while ignoring textbook public cases of SMI when they present themselves? Why must we keep ignoring the obvious and take a pass on teachable moments like this one that could actually help educate the public?
That is the only way stigma will ever be reduced, imo, especially for high functioning sufferers of bipolar disorder- not by us just talking among ourselves.
Thank you for writing this article. It hits close to home for me. I work very hard to maintain “normal”. Though I’ve been stable for 4 years now, I still work hard to guard my thoughts and emotions so as not to trigger a cycle. I feel I’ve got to be as perfect as possible and not appear weak or unstable. I don’t want to be marked as “less than normal” due to having bipolar. I feel I am a normal person who happens to have bipolar. I have the same feelings, hopes and dreams as anyone else and I don’t want to be seen to be different. So I work hard and keep the pressure on myself. I want to be perfect for my husband and family too. I don’t want them to have to worry about me. I don’t want to worry about me either so I work hard. You made me take a good look at myself and motives. Thanks.
I swear I could have written this article as it is exactly how I feel. I have a great amount of guilt not being able to have the house clean like it use to be, keeping up with my job, just managing the day to day activities of life. I used to be on top of things. Not any more.
Thank you, Natasha, for another great article, and for sharing a bit of your life with us. I also feel pressure to “perform” at a high level. I’ve never been that way, but people (mainly old “friends”) think I should be like them. I can only be me, and I’m pretty good at that.
Always enjoy reading your blog Natasha. I was also about 55 when diagnosed with BP II, Sue . Gainfully employed, though fighting depression’s set-backs. Now retired and 66, I always considered my mania to just be me…until a while after my diagnosis. My wife actually pointed out the manic side of me. I then concurred with her.
I don’t feel the pressure to be perfect as I once did. Now, its, “this is who I am” and fine with sharing the good, bad and ugly…though it has taken years.
Take a deep breathe with me…I do not expect you (specially those with mental illness) or anyone else, to feel the burden of having to feel like a perfectionist…it is unrealistic and not attainable. We can always “try to improve” in areas that we feel need “work” – right? I am not perfect because I am human…glad to have that revelation!
Thanks again! BTW-Putting my thoughts into words is as helpful to me as it may be for you all. It is nice to have a platform like this to voice and vent.
Thank you, Michael. I appreciate your candor and positive message. I’m grateful that on more occasions than less I relish in knowing that I was extremely successful during a fair amount of time of my career. But, I spiraled out of control when I found myself strangled by stresses in our family life, my husband and I having to work multiple jobs to pay bills to cover our family and his two older sons from his previous marriage, and losing my politically appointed government job seven weeks before the birth of my second son. My life of medication started then yet it still took 20 years before the BP II diagnosis. It’s bad enough that I have to try to not look back at what I lost. But, I find myself thinking that too much time has passed for me to heal enough to enjoy much of what’s ahead. I will try journaling again. Thank you again. Sue
This is a very important topic, in my book. I, too, have struggled with the frustration and many other negative feelings about not being as productive as I like, or feel I need to be, or worse “was”. We must not compare ourselves to others, especially people without a mental illness.
Sometimes I get pissed off even by stories and profiles in bp Magazine. So many feature stars who “beat” bipolar enough to succeed succeed succeed. I find it only minamally different than comparing oneself to models in magazines. And Kay Redfield Jamison? She’s wonderful in what she’s contributed to bipolar research, education, etc., but few people with bipolar will reach her professional heights and few have the support she’s been had. Few do great on Lithium alone, unless she’s hiding something from us all.
I do think success stories are important, but we need some success stories that are doable, and we need more stories that highlight success in different ways.
Elain, I feel the same, we need stories which are told like telling a success if we create the entire understanding of bipolar. Success could have a big variety, but how ever they sound like, we need them. It is our effort to understand and tell these stories. The early beginning from Kay Redfield Jamison not to hide her mental Illness leads fare into everybody’s own experience to feel the pain of having mental illness and how other people will think about it. How much her few sentences about her struggle to accept the treatment with lithium, her on and off from lithium, the enormous side effects she finally learned to accept, are giving the believe, we are able to find the way out from one episode to another. THERE IS NOTHING be told yet said the Nobelist Peter Handke and maybe we could imagine the very short story which is told so far about mental illness and that it could become a much more different one. I have no idea how it could be, but Natasha like Kay is giving a wonderful example how liberation is a effort which is giving relief to all of those who had not that power yet. Kay did also research about mania and depressiv disease and the creative work in arts. And she collected pieces of writings where writers described in letters to friends the depressions which they are suffering from. For example these letters helped me that much to read from other people who are great writers in history that they felt into depression and their brain suddenly became unable to think only one sentence, that they are unable to feel anything and that they could not stand this condition any longer. Composers who gave the most beautiful feelings maybe created feeling which did not exist before are suddenly unable to have any emotion. Being at this point when I had no emotions any more and feeling unable to think or write a sentences fearing going insane completely only thinking that I can’t bare these circumstances then the stories from others told as a success have been giving the power to survive. Even to read the last words from Verginia Wolf where she is telling to her husband that she can not stand another episode we feel that she is going to find relief through killing herself. I took that example of her, of course it is horrible and sad to kill your self, please don’t miss understand me, to describe that we could find a different impression through how it will be told and that it could make a difference to all of the suicide in the world. I know I lost a bit the path of success stories that are doable, but I wanted to say that we have to find them, that it is up to us to tell them. One other example from Virginia Wolf, she suffered a depression and spend half a year in bed. She wrote, that she stayed six month in bed-not three-and became a great lesson what it does mean to be yourself. Another way to say what Natasha said about being tired to pretend smiling or any different mood to the one she is actually having. Imagine we could finde a language to speak about all what is happening while we are mania. I don’t believe but maybe our delusions having a greater meaning like we think when we are maniac. So fare we do not talk about this like we talk about how we suffer from side effects of medical treatment. At the end only the phrase will be left over that while being mania people spend a lot of money for things they never would buy not being mania. Now I remember a story where a woman decided to take a small airplane for her travel through Norway instead of taking the bus and spend all her money for that. I immediately feel pain in my chest through own memories of loos of relationship or predictability through the experience of similar stories and the whole misery hurts me a lot. The feeling she had set her self free watching all the fiords from above instead of a long bus ride never became any honor. Imagine all the loos of relation and the intensive would have a successful description. Actually the diagnosis of bipolar does have for the majority the meaning of a living a live with lots of loos inside society. If we compare it with any other movement, let’s say black power movement, not to be the objekt of others is a very long way of liberation. I am a bit sorry because I understood well the Intension of for the need of more stories highlight success in different ways and i have exactly the same feeling. At the moment somebody who is writing about taking lithium for a long time and having capable side effects is giving me power and hope I could manage it as well while at the moment i could not believe, inside I cry thinking the change of the world it could mean. The story of taking lithium (as example for any other possible treatment) is told as the story of surviving the mental illness and finding a live worth to live instead going insane or dead. A lot of space for success.
Natasha, I love learning about the disorder from you. I was diagnosed bipolar II about six years ago, at 55 yrs old. What you’re discussing here almost sounds like being concerned about stigma, too. Medication and therapy has helped keep me ‘stable.’ Bur, truthfully, despite all the reading, I can still barely tell when my behavior and/or attitude is related to the disorder. Oh, I know what I’ll be like if I stop medication as I want to; I’m concerned about the impact the medications are having on my body. I can relate to you wanting to be perfect only because I’ve been like that since childhood. There were also external factors by family that brought that out. Here’s where I’m at. I can barely care what people think anymore, and I can barely do much. I started therapy at age 28. At 38 years old and many therapists later someone finally agreed with me about thinking I was depressed. Started medication. By 55, after seeing multiple nurse psych practitioners, and psychiatrists, I was finally correctly diagnosed (I hope). I have no idea how I ploughed through to full retirement, and I’m often emotionally broken when I think I couldn’t physically continue working and can’t think about picking up a part time job. I hope that you can find the spirit to drop perfectionism while continuing to stay well enough to do what you want to. Sorry so long. Thank you again for being so prolific and open about your journey.
Natasha, you actually made me feel wonderful today. I am right in the middle of seeing a new provider because I moved and I asked my husband what he wanted to see. He said that he just wanted me to be happy but it finally occurred to me that he likes it best when I am almost manic : vivacious, creative, up alot playing games with him on the computer, sexual and doing things around this house — however this leads to a dangerous state so I am just boring but stable… sigh…