"If it was diabetes..."

Personally, I have always hated it when someone tells me, “Well, if you had diabetes, you would take your insulin. It’s the same thing with bipolar.”

It’s not the same thing.

I know they are trying to help me see that bipolar is an illness just like diabetes, and it can be treated, just like diabetes can. But it is not the same!

If I had diabetes and I didn’t take my insulin, I could die. If I have bipolar (which I do) and I don’t take my medication (which has happened before), I don’t die. Yes, I get very depressed and dramatic and my life sucks, but I don’t die.

Now, I’m not trying to say that bipolar isn’t serious because it is. There are people who have cases of bipolar that are life threatening if not treated. But that has never been my personal case. So the diabetes comparison never made sense to me.

Recently, I was watching something on TV or reading something (I don’t remember what it was) but it made me think of a great analogy for bipolar.

Bipolar is like fire. It burns you. It stings you. It can get out of hand very quickly. And not everything damaged by the fire is salvageable. This has happened to me. I have been hurt by my own thoughts, I have had manic episodes where I made no sense, and I have damaged relationships that I have had with people beyond repair.

Bipolar is like fire. And if you saw something on fire, you would do whatever you could to douse it.