"I'm the craziest person in the world" is something so many people with a mental illness have said to themselves, and maybe even others. This happens a lot before treatment but can happen even after. Feeling "crazy" is a real thing for so many of us, and feeling alone with feeling crazy is a real thing too. If you've caught yourself thinking, "I'm the craziest person in the world," you need to read this.

In an interview, Lady Gaga recently talked about taking antipsychotics and her experience with psychosis. This is amazing. Few people with the eminence of Lady Gaga are willing to talk about these subjects -- let alone admit to direct, personal experience. If Lady Gaga takes antipsychotics and talks about her own psychotic break, are we finally okay with psychosis?

My bipolar brain works best at a certain time of day. This is actually common for people with bipolar disorder. People with bipolar commonly find their mood and ability to think waxes and wanes at the same times throughout the day. Your average person may experience this as well, but for a person with bipolar, of course, everything is amplified. So here's when my bipolar brain works best for different purposes.

Bipolar doesn't make you unworthy of love. I have a lot of trouble with that statement. I don't have trouble because I don't believe it -- I do -- I have trouble because I don't feel lit. I'm not sure whether I feel like life has taught me that I'm unworthy of love because of bipolar or my brain just made up that nastiness because of the depression, all I know is that it feels true. It feels like I'm unworthy of love because of bipolar.

Does it feel like everyone can tell you have bipolar disorder? Does it feel like you're carrying a neon sign above your head with your diagnosis on it? Does it feel like as soon as you open your mouth, people can tell that you're "crazy"? If so, I'm pretty sure this actually makes you normal. There's this odd time often right after a bipolar diagnosis where, for some, it feels like everyone can tell you have bipolar disorder.

I'm tired of feeling sorry that I have bipolar disorder. I don't mean feeling sorry for myself -- that's a different thing -- I mean feeling sorry for the very fact that I am sick. I mean feeling sorry for the very fact that I am the one with the serious mental illness. And this feeling sorry about bipolar disorder is wearing on one's being. I, for one, don't want to feel sorry that I have bipolar disorder anymore.

Bipolar disorder makes me lose days. Whole days lost to a disease of the brain. And when I say “lost,” I mean lost. I mean I can’t find myself during lost days and I can’t find the lost days once they have passed. All I have a recollection of it losing them. Bipolar disorder causes these lost days and I hate it.

I don’t think euphoria in bipolar hypomania feels like extreme happiness. I use the word “euphoria,” which does mean “extreme happiness” but the word only partially fits my experience (Bipolar Mania and the Impact of Manic Symptoms). “Euphoria” is what doctors call one of the “gateway criteria” for bipolar hypomania or mania (one of the main characteristics) so many people with bipolar disorder experience. And sometimes I do experience something like euphoria in bipolar hypomania but bipolar hypomania euphoria just doesn’t feel like its real definition to me.

Functionality is important in anyone’s life but I would argue functionality should not be the sole measure of quality of life in bipolar disorder. Quality of life is so much more than just whether one can make it through the day or how many pages a writer can produce. Quality of life in bipolar, and in everyone’s life, is complicated. Functionality matters in quality of life in bipolar but it’s not the only thing (Bipolar Disorder and Decreasing Functionality).

There are so many reasons why I hate having bipolar that I could have a whole blog just on that alone and I’m sure other people could join me in their hatred of bipolar disorder, too. I do realize that hating an illness is normal and that enumerating the reasons why one hates a disease is a bit of a rant, but, what can I tell you, this is my space and I’m going to tell you why I have having bipolar disorder (Bipolar Is Unfair).