My mental illness is not fucking cute

Bipolar disorder isn’t a cute trend to use when a person has mood swings. Our culture needs to stop treating it as such.

I have bipolar disorder, and I struggled with the disease for nearly 3 years before I finally figured it out and got help. In those three years, I was forced to get rid of a lot of people. Primarily because they didn’t respect my mental illness, and treated it like a joke.

I constantly see people calling themselves “manic” because they had too much caffeine, saying they are “bipolar” because they have mood swings. It’s a little bit trendy, and as someone who really had the disease, it’s upsetting as hell.

My bipolar disorder has changed me and my relationships, and I think it’s important that the exact people who think the disease is trendy to hear the reality of living with bipolar disorder. I think it’s important for people to know how ignorant they sound when they make light of an illness that they don’t have. Due to bipolar disorder, I went from a person who gave public speeches to a girl who was too scared to ride a subway alone who also had a stutter. I went from being calm and collected to angry and erratic. I couldn’t control my responses to stimuli, and would constantly cause fights when upset. All of my relationships are different now, because I was a ticking time bomb. I was either angry beyond words or in my bed wanting to die.

When people who knew me would joke about being manic, it hurt. It was like they wanted the exact thing that was ruining my life and honestly I felt disrespected—and I know I’m not alone in my feelings.

Mental illness does such damage when untreated that it’s illegal taste to make light or glorify it. The manic pixi dream girl isn’t real—she’s a manic woman, with unbrushed hair who’s shopping with her boyfriend’s credit card at 4 am because she can’t sleep. She’s breaking up with her boyfriend because he doesn’t know her new kink. She’s your disappearing friend who seems to be ever changing, but she’s really just hiding in her depression hole.

Treat bipolar disorder as what it is, a life changing mental illness with no cure.