Updated October 19, 2014.

In 2008 my former co-Expert Kimberly wrote a blog called Is Bipolar Disorder an Excuse for Wretched Behavior? When the original blog was misinterpreted by many people, she clarified at the top what she meant. That blog still gets comments, and this recent one (which I didn't publish there) infuriated me. The writer's comments illustrate the worst kind of attitude toward people with bipolar disorder:


It must be an American thing, this bipolar nonsense. In my country, we call it a bad person who just does not want to manage their illness.

The so-called manic bipolars are the ones everyone should guard themselves from. Bottom line, how many times are you going to lose it and repeat the same bullshit again? Are you saying a bipolar is also without a brain? Of course not. They are pacified people who like many have their positives and negatives. WHY ON EARTH CAN'T A BIPOLAR PERSON MANAGE THEIR ILLNESS BETTER?

Does it by any chance have to do with their comfort with being the 'sick' person and may stand to lose sympathy if they ACTUALLY took responsibility for their sometimes violent actions?

As a woman, I have my period once a month and sometimes, I am down right moody, but unless I want to have no one in my life, I [won't] just act however I want with no regard for others.

Maybe there are legitimate Bipolar patients, but due to fraud by some who use BIPOLAR as an excuse, the Bipolar (Insanity Plea) is quickly becoming JADED.

Control your illness before it controls you. When it controls you, you will either end up dead or in jail. Is that what Bipolar people want? Do they not care for their lives? Do they not want quality lives? Have they never heard of exercising to release some of the tensions they may experience? Do they not have spiritual backbone to turn to?

I am sick of the excuses, Bipolar Community. You sound like irresponsible people who just don't want to take responsibility for the violence you cause innocent people.

This kind of hate mail doesn't come my way often, but every time it does I become furious. This one is one of the nastiest I've seen. I have to wonder, too, since the writer says, "In my country," just what country is it where every person with bipolar who commits a crime is "a bad person who doesn't just doesn't want to manage their illness"? That's a crock and you all know it. The majority of people with BP who commit crimes are those who, for whatever reason (mostly poverty), are unable to get treatment in the first place.