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B19
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14 Jan 2015, 6:00 pm

This has puzzled me: why do people generally say "I am bipolar"? People who are depressed don't personalise it to "I am depression"; people with mania don't say "I am mania", people with anxiety don't say "I am anxiety", people with PTSD don't say "I am PTSD", people with schizophrenia don't say "I am schizophrenia". So why is there this curious anomaly vis a vis bipolarity? Is it therapist led? "You are bipolar". Do therapists see the patients with bipolar as no more than a mental condition? Or do people with bipolar see that as their identity in particular? Why?

If you think that naming doesn't matter, you are welcome to your point of view, though I don't share it. Naming matters, especially self-naming..because self-definition matters, it influences behaviour, expectations and beliefs in a very profound way.

Why are you bipolar?



kraftiekortie
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14 Jan 2015, 6:57 pm

This is a linguistically-complex question.

It's almost like the difference between "transitive" and "intransitive" verbs in the English language.

One would say, for example, I "sneezed." One cannot say, "I sneezed over to your house."

One might say "I went to the store." Rarely does a person say, merely, "I went."

"I am depression," is counterintuitive to me; whereas "I am bipolar" doesn't give me an uneasy feeling.

Instead, one would say, "I am depressed." "I am bipolared," though, gives me an awkward feeling.

It's funny and weird, really---but that's language!



slave
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14 Jan 2015, 7:39 pm

Good point B19.

Really all clinicians and patients should be saying " John has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and (John would say) I have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder(respectively)"

Clinician do say things like "I work with bipolar, I work in stroke, I work with transplants, etc....." It is common for them to refer to the patient AS the diagnosis. It is laziness mostly.



fifthgear
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31 Jan 2015, 6:37 pm

It's simply the english language. 'bipolar' and 'depression' fall into two different grammatical categories in English and so their syntax (structural location within the sentence) is different.

'bipolar', adjective.
Adjectives are words that modify or enhance the meanings of nouns, noun phrases, and other adjectives. Other adjectives are 'tall', 'short', 'thin', etc. So, let's see how adjectives fall within the structure of an English sentence:

Sally is tall. ('tall' describes or modifies the meaning of the subject noun 'Sally').
The tall player ran. ('tall' describes or modifies the meaning of the subject noun phrase 'The player').

Using this exact same sentences structure we can swap adjectives:

Sally is bipolar.
The bipolar player ran.

Now let's move on to the word 'depression'.

'depression', noun
nouns are words that serve as labels or identifiers for persons, places, things or ideas.

Nouns can't be used in the same way as adjectives in English sentences. We can say,

Sally has depression. (she can also have a spoon, have time, or have most other nouns)

On the other hand, if we said something like,

The depression player ran.

This sentence structure doesn't work. It fails to identify the subject of the sentence. Are we talking about depression or about a player? While technically English nouns can pose as adjectives, they cannot do so when they create an ambiguity such as above. In this case however English DOES provide ways to explicitly convert nouns into true adjectives.

The depressed play ran.

Then it all works out.

So the short answer to your question is that most disorders are nouns posing as adjectives (a very legal thing in english, just like the word 'space' in 'space ship'). However, 'bipolar' is strictly an adjective. So the two words are used differently in English because they are simply of different grammatical categories.

On the other hand, English does provide us with ways to turn adjectives INTO nouns. One way is to add the suffix, '-ness'. So, 'Her depression is severe' and 'Her bipolar-ness is severe'.



QuiversWhiskers
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02 Feb 2015, 8:28 pm

I agree with the language discussion by Kraftie and Fifthgear, but I also think perhaps it is the language structure itself that imposes identity of bipolar on the user perhaps without the user being aware that they have internalized that identity.



B19
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02 Feb 2015, 8:35 pm

Yes, I agree. It's about the way we construct meaning. We label ourselves in ways that represent to ourselves not just who we are but what we are. Bipolar is a particular example that I hear very often, used as an identity marker. I am always saddened by this.



Lnb1771
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22 Feb 2015, 3:54 pm

B19 wrote:
Yes, I agree. It's about the way we construct meaning. We label ourselves in ways that represent to ourselves not just who we are but what we are. Bipolar is a particular example that I hear very often, used as an identity marker. I am always saddened by this.

I usually say "I have bipolar disorder" and sometimes add "type I" if I feel like being more descriptive. I have heard others in my support group say "I am bipolar" and have wondered about the meaning of using language that way, but have never actually asked anyone about it before. So, thanks for asking. It's an interesting question.
Lydia



SignOfLazarus
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22 Feb 2015, 8:15 pm

I think it's actually important that the person who is diagnosed be given the power to dictate how they are referred to.
I have been diagnosed with bipolar, but I don't want to be referred to like that in that context.

I am bipolar. Simple.
There are reasons for this, and when people try to enforce on me this whole "person first" crap: Person With Bipolar Disorder it kind of drives me up the wall. The point of person first language is to value the person over the diagnosis. If that is the point, people should respect my choice, in reference to me.

This means clinicians treating me should refer to me as bipolar, not a person with bipolar. It's about empowerment and there are all kinds of reasons people choose to not use person-first language when referring to themselves or when asking others to refer to them.

I discussed this in a previous blog entry I wrote offsite actually:
Instead of saying "I am a person with bipolar" [so. many. words.] or "I have bipolar", I want to say "I am bipolar"? You don't get to tell me that I am supposed to use "person first language".

Because guess what? I'm a person, and that's the language *I* am using to describe myself. We are not Borg here. Clearly. I describe my own experience. My own experience has been that if I was not bipolar I would not at all be the person I am today.

Meaning? I am bipolar. Not at all sorry if that is disruptive to your view of the universe. You don't have to incorporate it, you just need to respect it. Just as if you have been diagnosed with bipolar and would like to refer to that event as "having bipolar" as opposed to "being bipolar", I would respect that. Same thing goes with anything going on with my brain/body or your brain/body.

[I expanded upon it slightly ,but not much and only provided the link for context.]


---

Quote:
Bipolar is a particular example that I hear very often, used as an identity marker. I am always saddened by this.

I hope you can maybe rethink being saddened by this every time you hear it. If I didn't have bipolar, I wouldn't have gone through a lot of the things that forced me to grow and develop a lot of the strategies I have that actually have aided me in coping with autism. I also can work a lot of problems that I probably wouldn't be able to. I have developed a strong sense of resiliency because of the bipolar. I am extraordinarily tenacious because bipolar can sometimes be like this insidious creeping creature that JUST WON'T QUIT.

And while I am not the disease in its entirety, bipolar is a large part of how I came to be the me I am today. So I am bipolar and I talk about it to anyone who wants to know because we have to stop being ashamed of that and other people need to stop being afraid and need to stop shaming- and stop feeling sad and sorry. I don't have bipolar and I don't have autism. You can't separate these things from me. Other people may feel differently so you'd have to speak to them- I speak only for myself.
Don't feel sad that I am bipolar. I am also autistic.

...Screw it, I'm awesome.
I get to say that.

The fun thing is everyone else gets to say it too!
You can also say "I have awesomeness", if you want.

Really it's a personal decision in the end, and that's the point.


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