Recently, another blogger linked to my post, “Bipolar As Unexpected Gift?”

I haven’t read the linked post yet; I’m not in a great place for dealing with controversy (of which there may not be any).

That said, there are a couple of points that I think are really missed in my post — for a couple of reasons.

First, I didn’t invest a great deal of clarity in them, because the post in question was never meant to be anything but a reflection on a very surprising experience of mine (that of finding that there were good outcomes in my life — especially my marriage — that stem from the effects of Bipolar disorder on my decisions and experiences).

Second, the title is unfortunately close to the kind of thing that apparently gets out there a lot — happy-clappy New Age bull about accepting and making the most of mental illness or whatever cross one bears in life; seeing it as a gift and not as a tragedy.

I wasn’t aware of those articles when I wrote my post.

Anyway, the points in question are these:

First, when I used the word “as” in the title, I didn’t mean “as only” — quite the opposite. I had been struggling with a lot of bitterness; a lot of pain about the things Bipolar had taken from me. I can’t remember now what led me to realize that there were also things it had given to me. So the word “as” in the title doesn’t mean “as this and nothing else.” Not at all. It means “as this, surprisingly enough, along with all the other stuff it is.”

Western culture likes things to be black and white, either or: thus, if any one of us points out a way in which Bipolar has been beneficial, there are many outside the Bipolar community who will choose to see only that. “If it can ever be good, it can’t be bad, right?”

But that’s not how life works. Sometimes an ocean of bad manages to bring along with it a teaspoon of good. No, the good doesn’t invalidate the bad — not by any means. But neither does the bad invalidate the good — and hanging on to the good is one of my survival strategies.

Which brings me to the second point I rather failed to address back then: in this battle, there’s no One True Way. My experience with Bipolar Disorder is, by necessity, different from yours, and yours from mine. What works for me might not work for you.

So when I comment on the surprising experience of finding that there are good things in my life that wouldn’t have been without Bipolar Disorder, know that I don’t expect you to feel the same, or judge you in any way for however you do feel (okay, full honesty: if you regard your Bipolar Disorder as an unequivocal good and insist that others should do the same, I’m going to at very least shoot you a long, stern, professorial look with bristly eyebrows — feel how you feel, but don’t tell other people how they should feel; that is so not cool).

So there you have it.

I don’t see Bipolar as only or even as mostly a gift, and however you see your Bipolar, I honor that, too.