What’s the first impression you want to give people?
The first impression I want to give people is that I am absolutely normal. And it’s the impression I usually give. It isn’t written on my face that I have the tendency for psychoses, and the majority of people find me pleasant, empathetic and friendly. I am a good friend to have.
However, a couple of years ago I decided to be open about my vulnerability to ‘psychoses’ and an official diagnosis of bipolar disorder. I thought that if I, a university lecturer, can’t talk openly about it, then who will? Most people are hiding away under pseudonyms and anonymous accounts, and this has also been my case until recently.
I would write something about it, and then delete, dying from shame. The psychiatric stigma is so strong, that you better not to mention it when you apply for a job, or when you make a new friend. People with ‘severe mental illness’ are considered as absolute failure in our albeist society, and that’s why so many of us, keep silent.
But with some maturity and me doing well for quite a long time now, I realised that the only way to combat stigma is by confronting it. I decided to be open about my psychiatric experiences, because they never really prevented me from leading a good, albeit difficult, life. In my twenty years of dealing with the psychiatry, and getting various diagnoses (schizophrenia, bipolar, schizo-affective disorder) I lived in three different countries, worked across several fields, got a PhD and gave birth to my son. Somehow, I managed to conduct a ‘normal’ life, and upon the analysis, I came to the conclusion that it was only thanks to the fact that I never believed in diagnoses, stayed away from high doses of anti-psychotics, and tried to make sense of it all, based on my own research and experience, rather than relying on what the psychiatrists would tell me.
And I survived.
If you ever meet me face-to-face in real life, you won’t ever suspect that something is wrong with me. I have a good job, I have good friends, I raise my son, and take care of our cat. As many other people I wake up on Monday morning in order to work, and am looking towards the weekends in order to write, which is my biggest passion.
I will appear as totally ‘normal’ to you. And it’s how I want to be perceived by people. I am NORMAL, and my psychoses don’t define me as a person, and neither do the diagnoses or the fact that I take psychiatric drugs, albeit on minimal doses, and on my terms.
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