nOrMaL???

I’ve just been chatting on line with some of the people from my world of Bi-Polarism today. It’s amazing some of the different things that we hear about our disorders. One gal said that her Dad asks her "how’s the Polar Bear thing coming?" It’s her Dad’s little way of letting her know that he care’s about what going on with his daughter. I liked that one quite a bit.

Then on the other side of the coin I was chatting with another BP person who’s Mother will not give this person any peace. It seems Mom calls up when she’s having mood swings and fits of anguish. Mom has to call up and take it out on her twenty-something BP child. Mom has the attitude of “why can’t her child be normal like her?” I have to agree with some of my fellow BP’ers. If people like Mom are normal, we’re glad we’re not normal like them!

I’ve been reading and studying a great deal on Bi-Polar Disorder. It seems that Bi-Polar Disorder is the one Mental Disorder that has the most distinct physical link. Bi-Polar Disorder has a definite genetic link. Invariably, if a person is BP, you will find someone in that person’s family who also is BP in some form or another. This person may be a parent, aunt, uncle, or grandparent. It will show up somewhere in that person's family tree if you look hard enough.

Here’s an interesting side note. I’m doing some research of people in the Bible that had a mental illness. This is really kind of fascinating. Some of the greatest people in the Bible, such as King David, had some type of mental illness. King David at times had to fight off some serious duty depression. The kind of depression that King David had to fight off, especially the depression he talks about in some of the Psalms is the depression today that many people take anti-depressants for. I’ll write more about this later.

The reason I wrote that last paragraph was to help illustrate that those that one would think to be “normal” may indeed have mental issues. Add to that the first paragraph where one thinks that they too are “normal” and things can get kind of cloudy when you think about who really is “normal.”

Does this make any sense? Do you consider yourself “normal”? Please keep in mind then that those of us who actually admit and seek help for our mental disorders may actually be more normal then some of the people we see every day. At least we’re normal enough to admit we’ve got a problem and get help!

Oh, btw, Happy 40th Birthday, a day late to “Extreme Home Makeover’s” Ty Pennington! Ty is ADHD, which to anyone who watches “Extreme Home Makeover” would pretty much agree with! Ty is on ADHD meds and is an ADHD spokesperson for Shire Pharmaceuticals and their ADHD meds.

Be Blessed!

Big Scott