The shame thing doesn't resonate with me too well. I was given guilt trips growing up and I know they left scars, but I do have self-respect and try to avoid hurting others--always have been like that, so maybe that's why I haven't much shame attached to this illness.

I consider it an illness just like chicken pox or stomach disorder or kidney disorder.
It's there; it's medicated; I can speak about the illness and how to help improve the feeling tone. The past is the past; we just can't afford to live in it.

I'm also a little troubled by what people refer to as the "stigma". Almost all of the well-educated people with whom I've talked have no real stigma attached to bipolar illness. My psychiatrist says it largely exists in the business world where business owners are required to foot the bill for medical insurance for bipolar patients.

Among the well-educated, the stigma just doesn't exist, strongly. Oh, it's there with the uneducated, the insecure ones who are trying to hide their own dilemma, and those who are just mean, but who among us would list them as valuable contributors to our well-being?

I think in many ways that we've got it together pretty well and I know for a fact that as we get older the illness mellows into a far more gentle disposition--that is, if we were careful about taking proper medications during the most active part of the inflammation--which is what bipolar illness is.

It's an inflammation of a portion of the brain which fires too rapidly. The biggest concern I have about it is that I hope we don't have a shortened life span because of the too-rapid firing during youth. Doctors don't know why it happens yet, but they're working on the (several, perhaps) genes involved.

They do know that certain things help calm the situation--even aspirin in mild cases of bipolar illness has been recommended by my doctor.

Shame? Nope. Concern? Yep. Hope? Yep.

Concern for those who hold a stigma in regard to the illness? Mild concern
because I know they're using it in an effort to cover their own feelings of
inferiority or guilt.

For those who are free of a need for stigma, I feel great respect, because they know that the human being is valuable just as a human being with
no attachments to differences; that takes a mature person.

Genetic