Pet Peeves, I Have a Few #9

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As an easy-going guy, I'm finding that I have a lot more pet peeves than I thought. One of them is people who casually throw the term "Bipolar" around without having a clue what it actually means, usually to describe someone who starts acting crazy for a minute or two. For one thing, it doesn't work that way, and for another, we aren't crazy. A Bipolar endures bouts of mania, followed by periods of deep depression. Those of us who have it would give anything not to. My depression cycles tend to last longer than my mania. My depression is often crippling (another pet peeve: don't tell us to "snap out of it." It's impossible.) At worst, all I want to do is sleep. I have no energy and have to force myself to do things, whether it's this or riding my bike. At worst, I can get suicidal (I've tried twice.) Luckily, thanks to hard work in VA programs, I can now recognize it and try to manage it. When I'm manic, I might not sleep at all, or if I do, it's only for a couple hours at best. I have lots of energy and become very productive. I also make poor decisions, freely spend money that I don't have, and party a lot (I still have trouble with the spending money part, but I'm slowly learning to put that energy to good use.) So until you've actually experienced this disorder firsthand, or at least actually understand it, you don't get to throw the word around, using it to describe a person who is clearly not one of us.