My name is Sarah and I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder in 2006 at age 22. The years leading up to my diagnosis were filled with so many questions and misunderstanding of what I was feeling. There are so many misconceptions about mental illness and I would like to be part of the movement that clears up some of those misconceptions. Stigma is real and it is ugly. I am here to tell society that mental illness is not a weakness or a personality flaw. It is a medical condition and it should be treated as such. So many of us are well functioning human beings that hold jobs, raise healthy children, have successful marriages and many people who don’t have a mental illness raise children or have a partner or family member who does.
We are not defective. We are warriors for fighting these illnesses every single day. My hope for this blog is that it will help someone feel like they aren’t alone in their struggles. To be honest it has done the same for me. I no longer feel as if I am on an island in the middle of the ocean isolated from the rest of the world.
People tell me all of the time, “I would have never guessed that you have Bipolar Disorder.” I haven never advertised my illness until now and as scary as it is I believe that it is necessary to help fight stigma. I am the same person I was before you knew I have this illness. I will always be me, sometimes I just have to fight a little harder than everyone else.
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