I’m getting a haircut today. I’ve got to get out and find a job and, while I grasp for some semblance of individuality, personal expression, and calculated rebellion, it’s time I look more like everybody else. Now I’ve got great hair, especially for my age. What God denied me in height he more than made up for on top of my head. Tall friends kid that they’d trade me a few inches in height for all of my hair. Yet it’s time to face the reality that an older man with long, grey hair starts to look like a grandmother, or a leftover hippy, or, and this is a little too close to home, a crazy person.
I need a job, and when you need a job, to a certain extent, you need to fit in. Stand out for your skills and experience, get noticed for your potential, not lead with the fact that your focus and priorities are individuality, personal expression, and calculated rebellion.
Despite the fact that many people with bipolar disorder identify with the disease and embrace the prejudice that they are different and run with it, fitting in is not a bad thing. I’ve always insisted that true liberty demands limits, and to impact society, especially when fighting the stigma against people with mental illness, you have to operate from within the mainstream. And, whether you like it or not, operating within the mainstream requires some conformity toward inclusion. So I’m going out and getting a haircut because my hair, my hair and nothing else, is what people notice when they first meet me. Not the rest of me. Not who I truly am. And that will not help me get a job.
In defeat, some people wear their bipolar disorder that way I have been wearing my hair. It’s the first thing you notice about them.
Now I’m beating my drum again. I believe I make two key points, yes, over and over again, about living well with a mental illness. First, do not identify with the disease, because it is a disease, and you are not a disease. I do have bipolar disorder. It has made life incredibly difficult and at times it has limited me. At other times it has enabled me to soar to heights others can only imagine. But, even after the profound impact it has had on my life, it is not who I am. I would never say I am bipolar. That is so limiting. That is also untrue. Yes, I have bipolar disorder. For better or worse it influences what I do. It is a part of me. But it is not all of me. It doesn’t separate me from everyone else. It does make me a little different, but to be well I want to be part of the world we live in and not focus too much on how I am different. I want to find some common cause with other people. I want to be a part of something greater. I can do this through family, friends, church, or clubs.
But most accessible, and most immediate, I can do this through a job.
Which is my second key point. We have to work. We have to do any work we can. We have to be as productive as possible as we work toward some level of independence. Ideally and inevitably this will be paying work. But as we move toward that it can be a hobby or volunteer work. As long as we do something, we can add to the world something that wasn’t there before we did it. We can touch others. We can contribute to our communities and our culture. We can honestly find ourselves, heal, and be well.
Sure, this smacks of conformity. The last thing people who identify with bipolar disorder want to do is conform. But that’s the problem with identifying with a mental illness. It forces us to be different at the same time it makes us dependent. If you’re too extremely different you can’t find the work that can heal you and help you to be truly independent. You can only rely on others to enable your difference as you wallow in the rut of dependence. So conform a little, already. This civilization we’ve built for centuries, these goals of getting a job, getting a home, having a family, leaving the world a better place than it would have been without you, aren’t so bad. I’m all for conforming a little bit to get there. Because with a mental illness you can get there. You just have to do the work. The hard work. Work that begins with coming in from the lonely cold of identifying with a mental illness. Then do work that is honest work, something you’re good at, something that leads you to deserve the life you seek and to make it possible.
I’m sure of what worked for me and I am opinionated, Still, I’m not big on telling people what to do. Then again I write this newsletter and I’ve written two self-help books. These come more from experience than being preachy, and they’re more pragmatic than idealistic. My ideas come out of a long struggle, including sixteen years in and out of hospitals, a destroyed career, and several trashed relationships, but I have found success. Success as a husband, a father, and yes, an employee. To many fired with mania or crippled by depression this may sound terribly normal. Boring even. It seems I’ve abandoned the creative and insightful potential of bipolar disorder. I don’t think I have at all.
I just refuse to identify with mental illness, and at the same time I refuse to allow it to limit me. It’s simply a part of who I am. Something I bring to the table. Something I can offer others. Something like my curiosity, my work ethic, my pragmatism, and my great hair. I think we live in a promising world full of opportunity and possibilities. Even for those of us with mental illness. If fully participating in this world is fitting in, then I’m all for fitting in.
Give a gift of mental health for the Holidays. Give a loved one a copy of my book Practicing Mental Illness: Meditation, Movement and Meaningful Work to Manage Challenging Moods. You can find a copy on Amazon here. Thank you.
You do have good hair. But it doesn't take as long as you think, to look past it and see your personality. Still you do make good points, as people do indeed stereotype.