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This probably isn't how most people picture bipolar disorder. Yet despite this, more people than ever think they know what bipolar is — a mixed blessing for those who suffer from it. This is partially thanks to the ubiquity of advertisements for medications like Abilify and Zyprexa, and partially due to diagnoses, which have doubled over the last decade. A 1997 National Mental Health Association survey found that more than two-thirds of Americans had limited or no knowledge of the disease; almost a decade later, eight out of ten Americans think they know what bipolar disorder is. Everyone from disgraced New York Times reporter Jayson Blair to Debra LaFave, the high-school teacher convicted of seducing her fourteen-year-old student, has employed the bipolar defense. And if they don't trumpet it as the explanation for their misdeeds, media experts are happy to do so on their behalf. Without ever having met her, Fox News contributor Dr. Keith Ablow all but diagnosed Britney Spears on air this month. "I would put on the list of possibilities a mood disorder like bipolar," he said, further cementing it as the official catch-all for crazy people.
"There is never a story or scene with healthy, happy bipolars because even though that type comprises the bulk of the population, it
I constantly discovered new challenges, as basic as figuring out who my partner really was, as mundane as whether I should say something when she started cleaning the toilet bowl for the third time in a row.
doesn't sell and isn't exciting," says a bipolar woman who maintains a blog about bipolar disorder called Weird Cake. "Top this off with sensational misinformation from people like Oprah, and you build a population that fears us and looks for us in dark corners."
As a result, half of all American adults say they wouldn't date a bipolar person. Back when I dated Sara, I wasn't one of them. I'd read in Psychology Today that ninety percent of marriages involving a bipolar person end in divorce, but I figured that statistic applied to couples who were ill-informed about the illness, people who weren't prepared to meet it head-on. I also ascribed the figure to reporting bias: there were plenty of people out there who were bipolar and lived drama-free lives, and thus never made it into the statistics. Yet even with everything I knew about the disorder, I still constantly discovered new challenges, as basic as figuring out who my partner really was, as mundane as whether I should say something when she started cleaning the toilet bowl for the third time in a row.
Even in the most even-keeled people, dating can be a crisis between ideality and reality. We're constantly told that the key to successful dating is to be yourself. However, "when you have a psychiatric illness, it's a part of you," says a bipolar Brit who keeps a pseudonymous blog: Social Anxiety and Bipolar Diary of Annie. "You cannot tell where your personality ends and the illness begins."
Locating this gulf between personality and illness often falls to the significant other. "I find it difficult to realize when my daydreams cross a line into unhealthy hypomania," says Annie. "This is where I rely on my friends to put me right and stop me from getting carried away." The role of caregiver can strain any relationship. While Sara took her meds and saw her psychiatrist faithfully, she also neglected her physical health, leaving me with the choice between watching her eat nothing but popsicles all day long, or nagging her about it.
