Recently, a man I have come to respect and care about attempted suicide. I am grateful he is still here to tell the tale. His suicide note was online and his pain was so evident it tore at my soul. I was tremendously relieved to hear his friends had rescued him in time to save him. But I was then left with the problem as to what to say to this man. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was make the situation any more difficult for him. What do you do when someone you care about just attempted suicide?

So, interesting thing. Mental illness has a tendency to run roughshod through a person's life. Everything in life goes by the wayside to make room for the unbearable being of crazy. You know you're alive because you're in pain. And then, against all odds, or at the very least against some odds, you start to feel better. It's a miracle. Breath and life and oxygen and delight fill the lungs. Suddenly life is easy. Cupboards get organized, relationships get mended and Work Gets Done. Life is Good. Why, then, is it so freakin' scary?

I recently wrote about the myth that you can be "too smart" to have bipolar disorder. I wrote about the prejudicial and false thought that if we were "smart enough" we wouldn't have bipolar. This, of course, isn't remotely true. A couple of people requested more about bipolar disorder and intelligence. But I'm sorry to say, the truth is, people with bipolar disorder are actually cognitively impaired compared to the average individual.

In response to some of the comments I see here and elsewhere, here is my response to another ten myths about bipolar disorder.

In the times when I've had prolonged periods of wellness, I don't particularly think about bipolar disorder and I don't feel its implications. I just get up, get out of bed, say 'hi' to my cats, and go about my day. True, the med-taking is a reminder, but bipolar isn't necessarily top-of-mind. This does not mean, however, that I can forget about the bipolar disorder. Forgetting about bipolar disorder is one of the most dangerous things you can do.

I take a lot of flak for what I have to say about mental illness. My positions are often blunt and sometimes unpopular. This is fine with me. I’m an opinionated girl. Not everyone enjoys that particular charm. But one thing that gets said every once in a while is I’m, “playing the victim.” And not only that, but I’m encouraging others to be victims. Contagious victim-ness I suppose. This, of course, is just a slur designed to make me and others feel bad about what we have to say. Well, I say this: Admitting to having a mental illness doesn’t mean you’re “playing the victim.” Talking about mental illness isn’t “playing the victim” either.

There are many, many people out there who either blog about issues of mental health or want to. Pretty much every mental illness is represented by people who are earnestly expressing their opinions and experiences. But it’s a jungle out there, in the wooly wilds of the internet. So before you press “post,” please consider how much you want people to know about you.

When I discovered I was bipolar, I suddenly became scared of everything. Things that never crossed my mind started to shudder through my bones and produce endless waterfalls of tears. I was afraid of diagnosis. I was afraid of what it meant. I was afraid of psychiatrists. I was afraid of treatment. I was afraid of not getting treatment. I was afraid of what the treatment would do to me. Mental illness means being afraid.

I talk to many people who want to help a person with a mental illness. Often the people they want to help are loved ones who have just been diagnosed with a mental illness and those who want to help feel powerless. The “helpers” have a hard job, but let me just say, we love you for it.

Every medical treatment comes with risk. If you have a headache, you could take ibuprofen or you could have a craniotomy looking for brain cancer. One has considerably more risk than the other. (Of course, if you have brain cancer, then the reward could be quite great.) This means every time you undertake a bipolar treatment knowingly, or not, you weigh the risks vs. rewards in your head. And one of your doctor’s main jobs is to manage that risk vs. reward scenario. Doctors, for example, almost never prescribe barbiturates anymore due to the fairly large risk of addiction. Instead, they prescribe benzodiazepines (or nonbenzodiazepines; very similar) which do not carry such an increased risk. In both cases, they carry the reward of managing anxiety. But some people don’t want to take benzodiazepines either, because some people tolerate more risk than others.