The 4 Kinds of People You Will Meet When Saying “I Have Bipolar”

I will never again hide the fact that I have bipolar disorder. That would be denying a piece of myself, and I’m not down with that.

Many of you have asked, “what is it like to tell someone you have bipolar?”

There are 4 types of people who I meet:

1. The freaked-out person. These people get very uncomfortable with the whole idea that I have bipolar. It’s almost as if they’re waiting for me to do something ‘crazy,’ which just makes me laugh and couldn’t be farther from my reality.
2. The ‘supportive’ person. These people will generally start by saying “really?? You don’t seem like you could be bipolar! How brave of you to tell people.” Which I know their hearts are in the right place… but I still stand by the fact that it’s not brave when I’m just being myself. 🤔
3.  The shocked person. These people literally do not have words for what they just heard. It’s as if I just told them that I like to eat dirt. They just give a blank stare and say something like “ohhh, ok.”
4. The ‘me too’ person. These people either have a mental illness themselves or begin speaking of their friend or cousin who also has bipolar.

More often than not, and possibly because I blog about bipolar, the most common person I meet is probably number 4.

For those of you who tell people you have bipolar, what person do you most often encounter?

I’m so bipolar, and unashamed.