I see a lot of posts that detail stupid **** that happens to people when they are in one state or the other. Many times, they either blame their bipolar or have trouble differentiating between something that would happen to anyone in the same situation and something that would only happen due to bipolar. I know I do sometimes.

I'm not talking about things that are obviously bipolar, like running through a shopping mall, stark naked and screaming our head off, or alternately, being unable to get out of bed without wanting to kill ourselves. What I'm talking about are fairly normal interactions with the world, especially interpersonal relationships. "Bob did this to me because I'm bipolar." "Jane was acting mean and I think it's because I'm bipolar." "I got angry at Joe because he did this or that and it was because I'm bipolar."

Maybe being bipolar makes us hypersensitive to our environment. Maybe not. I know that when I'm manic, I couldn't give a **** less about what I'm doing to other people. But a lot of times people are just stupid and ******. They would be that way whether we are bipolar or not.

The reason I mention this is because it can be a slippery slope for us. We get our panties in a wad over something simple and then it gets away with us, with the result depending on which pole for which we are headed. We have difficulty with causality. The event happened because we are bipolar, or the event is neutral, but the result is a function of bipolar.

Sorry if this is tl;dr, but I like to put things that go through my head into writing.