Someone I know personally sent me a message about my language in my last bipolar post, about how I said that under the right treatment plan you could feel emotions the normal way, the right way. I seemed to have slightly ruffled feathers by implying that there was a normal and right way to feel emotions.

It’s true, I suppose, that everyone reacts to their emotions differently, even completely healthy people with no hint of mental illness, that being said, there is most definitely, without a doubt in my mind, a wrong way to feel emotions and it’s not normal.

Being bipolar does not define me, but it is most certainly something that is wrong with me, I think to say otherwise is dishonest. I wouldn’t have chosen to be bipolar, even though it has gifted me with some wonderful things, like being so creative. Actually this has been a debate in my mind, would I give the creativity in exchange for the mood disorder? I don’t really know, but I would never miss the disordered moods. I’d never miss not being in control of my emotions, of not being able to feel happy when surrounded by things that should make me overjoyed. The simple fact that I could be in a situation where literally nothing is wrong and still feel depressed? That is the wrong emotion, that is the wrong way to feel emotions. The same goes for being so manic you lose control of your ability to rein in your thoughts or in some cases control your actions. Is that right? Certainly not. It is a wrong way for emotions to overtake you. They aren’t supposed to do that, they can be consuming, but they aren’t supposed to be controlling.

So I don’t regret using that phrasing. Maybe there isn’t a right way to feel things, after all we all respond to things in different ways. Right is really in the eyes of the one feeling and the one affected by those feelings. But there is a wrong way to feel things, there is an abnormal way to feel things, that’s why they call it an illness, because something is wrong with the brain (a chemical imbalance to be exact).

I won’t pretend like being bipolar is just another personality type, and the people who direly struggle with it probably won’t either. I’ve heard the argument be made. It’s the same ones that tried to call learning disabilities learning differences (have I talked about that before? I have them too and I find that nonsense too, mixing letters and words in your mind isn’t normal either, even when it doesn’t slow you down).

So this is a response post, to anyone else who might have cringed when they read that. I understand where you are coming from, but I still stand by the statement that there is a wrong way to feel emotions.