Fight stigma with humor aceo

Fight stigma with humor aceo
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

Some days being bipolar amuses me; others not so much. Some days I'm dazzling and others, well, I can't string two words together. During times when I collapse into a discordant jumble of symptoms and side effects; bipolar primordial ooze, as it were, nothing makes me feel better than The Jerry Springer Show.

There is something oddly comforting about watching Barney next to his girlfriend, Thomaseena (complete with Adam's apple), being oblivious that this not so delicate flower of womanhood, is a man. I sit and scream at the TV, "C'mon, how could you NOT know?" Barney doesn't hear me. Jerry's audience is drowning me out.

Watching the show makes me feel better. I know it's not normal to see lace hankies walking up a flight of stairs. I know that, even as I hear their little stiletto heels clacking on the way up. But Barney. Dear Barney. Your girlfriend has a penis. How can you miss a penis? Which on a 6' 4" man, even a 6'4' man in a gold lame cocktail frock, must be of some substance.

I can't rationalize why society thinks it's scary that I see things that aren't there while its entertainment that Barney doesn't see genitalia that is there. Perhaps if I saw penises wearing stiletto heels clacking up the stairs. But I digress

The truth is there are plenty of undiagnosed folks; not all on The Jerry Springer Show. There is pathology on both sides of that locked door, and at times the undiagnosed scare the crap out of me. No one is free of idiosyncrasies. No one is free of things they would never share with another living soul. Everyone has a dark side. Not just the diagnosed. People forget that.

I'm tired of thinking about how people will see me if I come out of the bipolar closet. How can I lessen the stigma if I only let the socially acceptable bipolar stuff come out? You know the things I mean. It's the things that all the bipolar actors, writers, and newscasters cop to when giving interviews. The wanting to write/draw/paint/act all night long...and never needing to sleep ...the endless creativity... the ending up in rehab on a Caribbean Island. Basically, all the things that make people without bipolar think - That doesn't sound that bad, in fact it sounds kinda cool.

Do I go up to strangers to tell them tales of walking hankies? Do I have a bumper sticker that says, ASK ME ABOUT MY HALLUCINATIONS? No, that's crazy. And when all is said and done, I'm just bipolar... I'm not crazy.



This card is done on a matte board base with a collaged art paper background. The main image is printed on a plain paper but over the paper are many layers of thick acrylic - some with small glass beads. The card is thick and it looks like your looking at the image through rain.

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