Brutal and Unfair Social Stigma of Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar disorder, just like every other brain disorder, is met with a brutal and unfair social stigma in the world. Bipolar individuals make up about 2.6 percent of the world population, but are somehow still met with discrimination by those around them. Individuals with any kind of mental disorder are met with stigma, bipolar individuals included. Tragically, my town is not different at all from any other communities in this context.

Stigma in any community is caused by a lack of understanding. The majority of people in the world do not struggle with mental illnesses. It is hard for them to understand why someone’s brain could possibly work differently than their own, so they simply make no attempt to sympathize. Then the society we live in teaches them that people with mental illnesses cannot contribute to society to the same extent that a mentally healthy person can. Some people can additionally conclude that those struggling are only faking it, and they are just lazy and oversensitive. The gap of understanding between mentally stable and mentally ill individuals only grows as people reinforce these ideas. The only way to stop this is to simply cease thinking in such a manner. Stop thinking of people with mental diseases as any less than human. Give them the opportunity to prove their worth before defining them as worthless solely due to their problems. With encouragement and help in some specific areas, they can be just as useful as anyone else can in the world.

“Bipolar” has disturbingly become a synonym for the words “fickle” and “capricious” in my community as well as most others like it. Not only is this incorrect, but belittling to the unfortunate people who struggle with this disorder. Just this morning I witnessed a group of girl around my age complain about their “bipolar” teacher, backing up the accusation with a story about how she got fed up with a student and uncharacteristically sent them to in-school detention. Which brings me to another point, why is it that people are so quick to call someone bipolar when they have acted out in a negative manner as opposed to a positive one? Bipolar disorder is not just someone being depressed and angry, you need a flip side to it to call it that. Bipolar individuals go through a depressive phase–being sad with little to no motivation- and a manic phase resulting in an elevated mood and excessive involvement in activities that they deem enjoyable. Why don’t people associate a person who is usually mean and loud suddenly becoming nice and quiet with bipolar disorder? If condemning a typically nice person who suddenly did something mean to being bipolar is valid, then the opposite must be as well. This whole situation just proves that people without the illness do not know what it actually is and what defines it. To them, it is just a fancy word for “suddenly acting out”.

Bipolar disorder does in fact carry a stereotyping stigma with it. This stigma is unfair to all people, not only ones suffering from bipolar disorder. The stigma gives off a false representation of the face of the disease and claims it as fact, and those who don’t feel like finding out the truth will take it without second thought. It’s unfair. The only way to change it is to make conscious decisions to change society’s way of thinking. Only then can we put this stereotype down for good.

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