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I'm a Damn Good Scientist10/24/2021 CW: descriptions of bipolar mania I have bipolar disorder, and I'm a damn good scientist. It feels really freeing to get that off my chest, and I look forward to the day I can declare that without anonymity. Unfortunately, there is still an overwhelming stigma surrounding schizophrenia/bipolar in STEM. Depression and anxiety have started becoming acceptable to have, but other mental illnesses are still off-limits. Outspoken members of the sci-com community still use ableist terms like "manic" to describe a quirky thing they did that week. Mania is not quirky. Mania is life-ruining. Mania means I may never see my spouse again. Mania is the difference between waking up every day in a safe home and going to do research at a job I love and going on a drug binge that ends in jail/homelessness or thinking I'm God. Unless you have fought to sleep and eat for multiple nights in a row, knowing that if you do not get back on a regular life hygiene schedule, everything you enjoy in life will be stripped away from you, you do not get to discuss mania. There is nothing more terrifying than feeling your mood escalate to a point where you know it will be out of your control. Oh yes, so quirky and fun. I've heard peers make off-handed comments about how a certain person "obviously skipped their meds" just because that person was having an off day. If someone knows you have a mental illness, you're not allowed to have a bad day around them because it immediately gets attributed to your mental health and not the fact that you're a human experiencing a normal fluctuation in mood. In a lot of ways, I feel like an imposter by hiding my bipolar. If people knew that I had a mental illness, would they still look at me as the standout, infallible student/trainee/peer/friend they see me as now? Would the qualities they admire about me become the things they criticize me for if they knew some of my better personality traits were developed coping with bipolar? Maybe, yes, maybe, no. Bipolar is not all fire and brimstone. When managed well, it is an asset to my training. I've been stable with proper meds/therapy for the better part of a decade and lead an otherwise typical life. I hope someday I can find the courage to be out with my mental health challenges so I can help other people like me. At this point, I am both a contributor and a consequence of ableism in academia. Selfishly it is comfortable to hide my mental illness. Thank you to our anonymous author for sharing their story.
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