If Bipolar Were Like Diabetes

Please Note: I did not write this. I found it online about four years ago and printed it out and have kept it ever since. I tried searching for it again online to give the author credit—but did not succeed in finding her. This has helped me in so many ways-it reminds me to keep my head up and keep moving on!—Heather

I expect to find it one day, hidden among those dusty volumes on the third floor of the University library, within the Psychotherapy 101 section. I expect to find the definitive expert who tells every doctor, nurse, and therapist that the best way to normalize bipolar disorder is to tell the patient that it is just like diabetes. It has to be the same one who suggests the phrase “Hang in there” for patients who are particularly hopeless. Hang in there. It’s just like diabetes.

If bipolars were just like diabetics, then diagnosis would be as simple as giving a sample of one body fluid or another. They wouldn’t have to go through a round of best guesses, disastrous results with antidepressants, convincing someone they do not have a personality disorder. Every depressed person, as well as juvenile delinquent and drug or alcohol addict, would be screened with a simple laboratory test. The results would be definitive. Children of bipolars would be screened as a matter of course, right along with their Well Baby check ups and school physicals. Home testing kits would be available so that stable bipolars could keep a close eye on their levels.

If diabetics were just like bipolars, newspapers would read, “The suspect, described as a loner, was treated for diabetes before he (choose one) tried to shoot the president, embezzled billions from his employer, tossed his wife out of the house for flirting with another man.” Historians would pore over documents and decide that Lizzie Borden was probably diabetic. Frustrated mothers would write Ann Landers about their no-good, lazy, alcoholic, diabetic sons-in-law.

If diabetics were like bipolars, they would discover that their insurance coverage is less than that for acid reflux or migraine headaches. They would have higher deductibles, lower lifetime coverage caps, restrictions on the number of days in the hospital, the number of visits with their endocrinologist, who is chosen by the insurance company as well. They would find themselves rushed in and out of their appointments while their doctors run down a quick checklist of symptoms and send them on their way with a jaunty wave, saying “Hang in there. It’s just like being bipolar.”