I have a friend with whom I frequently discuss being bipolar.  She seems to think I am overly sensitive to the fact that I am because I don't disclose it readily to people.  She thinks it should be no big deal.  Well, it is and it isn't.  I choose not to share it for a variety reasons, the primary one being that it isn't really anyone's business...I don't need to make excuses for myself or talk about it constantly.  I lead a normal life, for the most part.  I have more doctor's appointments than the average person and I may make excuses for that, which is really where we come to differ.

I've told lies about why I have so many doctor's appointments.  She thinks I should be open about it.  How do you get someone to understand the stigma that goes along with having a mental illness?  She is no stranger to stigma in her own right, she is a disabled person.  However, when it comes to mental health, it's a little bit trickier, I think.   People are afraid of the mentally ill.  People are taught from an early age to shun them.  There's only recently become a movement of inclusiveness that is widespread so it will be some time before people begin to wake up, if they will at all.

So, there's some fear involved in my silence.  She thinks I make it taboo, but that's not my doing.  I am not ashamed one bit.  I have little hesitation in telling someone who has earned my trust.  There's always that moment of knowing that once the words leave my lips they can never be recaptured, but afterward I'm comfortable.  I've told a fair number of people, and have yet to regret my selections.  I don't think I've hurt anyone by withholding the information.  Maybe that's her point though.  The lies I've told...maybe she thinks the people who have been lied to have been wronged by me and deserve to know the truth instead.  I just see them as being not that close to me and a little too nosey.  Hmmm.  May have to reconsider...