In the first part of this blog post, I discussed what the problems were with the term “stigma”. Although I have still some reservations about the limitations of the term and the way that the term is employed, there are still some very good reasons to use the term. In this second half, I will discuss those reasons. Continue reading →

One of the primary problems with having bipolar disorder is that many of the symptoms of bipolar disorder don’t look pathological. They simply look like bad behavior. Going over the list of bipolar symptoms, there are some that one would certainly not confuse with bad behavior, such as psychosis, pressured speech, psychomotor agitation and so forth (though some of these might be confused with intoxication or drug use). However, there are other symptoms that could easily be confused with bad behavior, such as irritability, overspending, interrupting and lack of functionality. Continue reading →