I'm sorry. It took living with me in her house for a year for my mom to understand even basics and to not insist that if I did this or that that I'd find sleeping much easier. She doesn't realize that she didn't learn this stuff until a year ago but she didn't. I honestly don't think she learned how hard I work at this until I was on bedrest for 6 weeks last summer after ankle surgery and she saw what I put into following the dr's orders, which included eating while reclined. After she saw me stick it out for the entire 6 weeks without breaking the rules at all it was like it clicked and she realized I'm actually compliant with the bipolar stuff, it just doesn't work so easily for me. I would get pretty sick of living with someone who just couldn't get it and made me feel less free. I used to get so mad at her when I lived 30 minutes away and she'd criticize my housekeeping or come and want to change how I did all these things. We had a lot of "THIS IS MY HOUSE" arguments for a while. And now my house belongs to her. Oh the irony.

There are ways to simulate so many physical disabilities. It's too bad there isn't a good way to do that with psychiatric illnesses. Andersoon Cooper did a thing with wearing earbuds that simulated schizophrenia about a year ago that was fascinating but bipolar is pretty hard to simulate unless someone is willing to let you drag them through what a few days of our lives are like.