Welcome!

It's not like what they say on tv. My teapot never talks to me, i don't have voices telling me to hurt others, no whispers, no taunts. Not in the way that you think i hear voices. If i stopped taking my medication, the only person that would be in danger is me. 

Depression is a voice, a voice of anguish and despair, a cold cruel voice. Deceptive and compelling, full of lies. It admonishes you for your actions, or rather the inability to act. A desperate pain filled voice screaming that you are worth nothing. You deserve nothing. A certainty that you are not worthy of love.

Sometimes i think i am lucky, because being bipolar, there is another voice, a voice that encourages me to greatness- pushing me to be MORE. And then i remember that the voice of mania is a relentless voice. A voice without mercy that will drive you right to the edge. Vulnerable to the other darker voice that waits to pull you back into despair. 

There are drugs made to silence both voices. Seductive drugs that claim to ease the suffering, to quell the two voices of my disease. To make us 'normal'. But those drugs blur my reality and steal my intensity.  Colours become muted. It becomes harder to know God. To know me.

Somewhere inside the pain and elation i know there is still me. My being, Who i am does not change. Those medications can mute who i am. They bring numbness and apathy, worse than ever the depression could bring. Anti-depressants take some of the pain away. A blessing. But the mood stabilizers take me away, and that is worse than anything this disease can do to me.

Don't believe the lies when the media tells you that people with bipolar are 'crazy' or dangerous. Try to remember that the danger is to ourselves. It is true. There are horrible things going on inside my head. But there is also beauty, inspiration and so much empathy.

We are intense. We are often self-loathing. But above all else we are the first to reach out to someone in pain. Remember this when you hear people using 'manic', 'bipolar' or just plain crazy as a dismissive insult. Remember i am not my disease.