Bipolar

There is a yucky stigma attached to mental illness.  

I know.  I feel it.  

One "manic" day, a few months after I was diagnosed, I decided people needed to know about the diagnoses and my story. I wrote a long email and sent it to my immediate family AND  about 30 other people who were my aunts, uncles, grandparents and cousins. 

My immediate family would have sufficed. 

Only 5 people responded: 

My mother, my older brother, my next younger sister, one aunt and one cousin.

I really didn't have a desired outcome for the letter--  

Just to get it out.

Most mental illnesses and especially bipolar need to be called:

BRAIN DISORDERS

Here is a short description of bipolar summarized from the DSM:  Bipolar disorder (BP) is a medical illness the affects the chemistry of the limbic system of the brain. (The Limbic System is the area of the brain that regulates emotion and memory.) BP affects the neurons responsible for emotional regulation and so the illness leads to difficulties controlling strong emotion, the ability to bounce back from stressful or traumatic events, and sometimes causes intense mania or depression and lots and lots of other symptoms. 

Yes, bipolar is a brain dis-order or dysfunction and those of us with BP can't alter our brain chemistry any more than you can alter the pigmentation of your skin.