Jan 13


Self-exposure

by Terry 13 January 2009


Yesterday marked the first day of a new school term. One of the first assignments in any class is the ritual of introductions on the bulletin board. My little spiel is the usual – back in school after 25 years, 3 kids, geek job, yada yada.

But this time one of the intros was different.  One young woman concluded hers by saying she was bipolar, and that morning was her bad time of day.  Within hours a reply went up saying “Me, too.”  But I was silent.  I wasn’t comfortable discussing it in a public forum like that, though I did send private email to the two women who revealed.

But it makes me wonder.  How much do I owe to the people out there who might be struggling like I am?  How much do I owe the gawking public?  I don’t think strangers really care, beyond the novelty factor, but I don’t self-reveal anyplace other than here, with my thin veil of anonymity.   The people I work with don’t know, beyond one woman who is a personal friend.  To the rest I’m just a little odd, with some nameless problem that makes me nervous in public.

Their having a label to hang on my “problem” wouldn’t change anything positively, and those who push are acting out of idle curiosity as if I owe them an answer just because they ask.  I resent that, and it makes me stubborn.

Should I have stood shoulder to shoulder with the two women who revealed?  I’m paranoid about perceptions in work and school situations, and even personal situations.  I’m very leery of giving any impression that I expect any accommodation or special handling.

If I had diabetes, or high blood pressure, would it be different?  Would I be more comfortable talking about it?  Does it matter?

How much do I owe strangers?  Is the small potential benefit to them worth the emotional risk to me?  Was I a coward today for saying nothing?

What would you do?

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10 Comments

10 Responses to “Self-exposure”

  1. Ahistoricality on January 13th, 2009 8:55 pm

    My tuppence:

    I don’t see that you owe anyone anything. Your ability to function is your first priority, and you’ve decided — for good reasons, it sounds like — that public self-identification is not in your best interests.

    If you self-identify and can’t function, how does that help your classmates?  (Quote)

  2. Jeff Hess on January 14th, 2009 4:16 am

    Shalom Terry,

    Reading your post made me think of the debate in the military over whether or not soldiers mentally injured in combat are deserving of the Purple Heart medal.

    The vast majority of humans easily comprehend physical injury and disability. We can empathize with the person with cancer or living in a wheelchair because we can imagine our own lives that way.

    Brain illnesses, however, are not imaginable because we have no personally experienced mental state with which to compare our own to. We can’t get into someone else’s head.

    I’ve wrestled with this myself struggling to understand and internalize that Clinical Depression is not being really really sad because a bad event occurred or a good event didn’t occur.

    We can say things like: imagine your worst moment ever times one thousand spread across your every waking second, but that doesn’t get to what the person suffering from Depression actually experiences.

    It’s like trying to describe color to a blind person. We can say that red is warm or hot, but that doesn’t really get to the heart of redness.

    Another facet of the problem is that while we might expect a person with a brain illness to describe the difference between their state and what they might describe as normal, all too often there is no baseline for comparison.

    That is one of the reasons that Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor’s experience with stroke is so amazing.

    What does any of this have to do with your real-world question? Maybe nothing.

    Because I, who do not have to make the real-world choice, want to think that I would be courageous and announce my affliction to the world and open its eyes is effrontery of the most cowardly kind.

    In the aggregate I have to agree with Ahistorically: your life is best managed by you; you may be informed, but not governed, by what others think you ought to do.

    My view is that by wrestling with this in this public way is, in of itself, courageous beyond what most people believe they are capable of.

    B’shalom,

    Jeff  (Quote)

  3. Have Coffee Will Write » Blog Archive » MY COMMENTS… on January 14th, 2009 4:22 am
  4. Stephen Leigh on January 14th, 2009 4:51 am

    No, I don’t think you have any obligation to self-reveal. Because someone else has revealed that they’re gay doesn’t mean that anyone else still closeted has to come out. You’ve already chosen to reveal yourself here in this forum; it doesn’t mean that you must do the same in every social situation.

    That was their choice; this was yours.  (Quote)

  5. Billie on January 14th, 2009 7:38 am

    I agree with what they have all stated, Terry. You don’t owe anyone anything. You do whatever is in your best interest. I have found that when people know about me, suddenly the illness becomes something that labels and identifies me. “Oh, THAT is what’s wrong with her!” Then anything out of the ordinary (heh!) becomes part of the illness.

    But you do what is good for you. :-)  (Quote)

  6. Rebecca Clayton on January 14th, 2009 11:24 am

    Sometimes self-revelation is manipulative. “How can you expect me to turn in my homework on time? I have all these problems!” Or perhaps she is looking for on-line friends to share with. Nobody should have to feel obligated to be her chat-pal.

    It’s hard to tell what a person’s motive is for revealing personal information, and perhaps she doesn’t know why she wants to talk about it in a school setting.

    I didn’t mean to imply that you are being manipulative or inappropriate in what you reveal here. Obviously, because I keep coming back here, I think you are sharing just the right amount.

    But here’s someone that used a diagnosis to get what he wanted: A fifth-grader I had in class last year began suddenly to behave very badly, was sent for evaluation, and diagnosed with bipolar disorder. After medication and therapy began, his wild behavior escalated, and one of his teachers asked him why he was acting out.

    “I’m bipolar,” he replied.

    “But your behavior was good earlier this year,” she countered.

    “I didn’t know I was bipolar then.”  (Quote)

  7. Bluegrass Poet on January 14th, 2009 3:46 pm

    I have nothing to add to this conversation except to make it unanimous that you don’t have to tell more than you’re comfortable with. But I do want to add my voice to the chorus.  (Quote)

  8. Burrow on January 14th, 2009 9:21 pm

    You don’t have to tell anyone anything. I would say something just because it’s a huge part of my activist mission to work against the stigma associated with mental health problems, but thats MY way of doing it and we all have our own way.

    You fight it by blogging about it (which I do intermittently), which is necessary. You should *only* to do what you are comfortable with.  (Quote)

  9. Terry on January 15th, 2009 12:44 pm

    Thank you, everyone. I’ve been suffering guilt at not being supportive of the two women who revealed, but I’ve decided that sending private email is good enough for now. I do feel stigma, as much as I wish I didn’t. I trust you all, which is why I’m comfortable here. Elsewhere, it’s a different story.

    However, I may feel different when we get to the section of the class on disability – in that case, my experience is a tangible example of what we’re discussing, and may have value to those who would otherwise feel disconnected from the issue. I’ll have to think about that.  (Quote)

  10. Scrivener on January 17th, 2009 9:06 am

    I agree with everyone else that you should only do what you feel works for you. The fact that you sent those two women emails was its own kind of overt action on your part. How did you feel about reaching out in that way? Did they respond? How did their responses make you feel?

    I went to a talk a couple of years ago by a woman who’d written a memoir about growing up poor, in an abusive home full of substance abuse, and then going on to get a PhD in English and to hold a position as a dean at an Ivy League institution. During the q&a, I asked her about whether she had struggled with feelings of shame in writing the book and said something about my own difficulties getting past that shame, and she and I talked for a couple of minutes about the issue. After the talk was finished, a colleague pulled me aside and thanked me for speaking up in that way and said she wished she could do the same, but that she wasn’t ready. I felt tremendously supported by her willingness to talk to me directly about it.  (Quote)

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