Bipolar Me

The commercials advise you to do it for them. The family. The children. The laughing, smiling friends who have great social lives and adventurous spirits. You want to join them, don’t you? You have only to take these drugs to alleviate your depression, keep your bipolar disorder at bay, tamp down your manic highs.

Do it for the ones you love, and the ones who love you.

Well, that’s all well and wonderful, but what about you? Maybe you have a family that doesn’t understand mental illness. Maybe you don’t have a loving bunch of children and a husband or wife ready to embrace you if only you’d get cured and be able to do the laundry. Maybe you’re alone with your disorder and your own self.

Do you still have a reason to seek treatment and get relief from your disorder and your symptoms?

Of course you do! Whether or not you have that picture-book family waiting for you to shape up and smile, you are worthy of a better life, one free from the seemingly non-ending drag or jags of mental illness.

It’s just that our society says that one person’s not enough. We must live for others. We must thrive to spread pleasure to and with them. Only in a family, only when we fit in, only when we are properly medicated or counseled, are we whole.

I’m here to call B.S. on that. Many of us live our lives alone, without family who understand us and friends who support us. If you have those resources, great! No one is saying that you would be better off without them. But many of the mentally ill have to make do with no such support system, no back-up for when our brains go wonky, no squad to cheerlead when, at last, things go right.

And I say that’s okay. You are enough. You deserve to have mental health and stability whether or not you are part of a couple or have children. Your family may be estranged from you. You are still worthy of healing and stability. You deserve it because you, by yourself, are a human being who needs that.

Society calls us to sacrifice for our spouses, parents, and children. We are to think of ourselves last, give our all to the ones we love. They deserve our support, attention, and caring. Mothers especially are exhorted to give all for their offspring. But is our mental health truly something that we should sacrifice in the name of others?

Should we not go to counseling because our schedules are full with family activities? Should we not pay for our medication because there are other household bills? Should we not take those medications because they might affect our moods and thoughts?

We are all worth it. We all deserve mental health – the poor, the lonely, the abandoned, the difficult, the single, the friendless. We have value whether or not we are connected to the vision of society we see on our televisions and especially on commercials for psychotropic medications.

I say, do it for yourself. Seek treatment if you need it. You are enough, just the way you are. Don’t let social programming convince you that you are lesser, unworthy, just because you don’t fit into the roles that are deemed suitable for everyone.

If you need help with your mental health, seek solutions. Don’t worry that others have needs. Your need is just as valid. If you need help, go out and find it.

You are enough. Do it for yourself.