Hi everybody and all the very best for 2011.
I have been on a date today, an achievement in itself as when we first met I was having really bad panic attacks and could barely talk I was so breathless!! Anyway, she was telling me how she did sponsored runs etc for cancer and I was thinking what a wonderful person she was. Over dinner she happened to mention how her son had left his girlfriend of two years so I asked why. She said "she was weird, what do they call it bi-polar, always up and down and I don't know why he had put up with it for so long". I just felt like screaming at her that she was ill you idiot, just like someone with a disease you can see under a microscope only people with mental conditions don't have that luxury and would you have felt the same had she had a physical illness. Anyway, I didn't, and I let the evening pass but now I don't really know what to think anymore. Am I wrong, I hear about people with mental illnesses taking their own lives but little about people with other illnesses doing the same. Why is that? A friend has told me today he has Diabetes and I was there and a friend for him. After what I heard today though I was wondering what response I would get if I told him I was having panic attacks that were severely affecting my ability to have a normal life. Probably the same as the last person I told, my ex partner and mother of my daughter, "pull yourself together, focus and get over it". I may be ranting here but not sure whether I should see the lady again. It is all going to come out and I feel she has laid her cards on the table. After the experience with my ex, who gave me no support, it may be a complete waste of time. What do you think?
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