Well here I am feeling inspired, creative and so grateful to be here writing a wonderful post to you folks. It is late and we all know how important it is for us 'bipolars' to get our sleep.  We can lose our heads if we are not careful!!   I have no trouble sleeping in but the dance to the bed is generally done at a not so decent sane folk's hour.  I would rather write instead and enjoy the pleasure I get from any form of positive interaction, especially when everything connects so perfectly in that interaction taking place in my brain.  It seems to really 'ping and pong' when I am up creating prose or poetry late at night. I mentioned to a friend how I often feel it is confusing for me to make sense of my diagnosis.  When someone accuses me of being a certain way because of my bipolar-ness, it really makes me roar.  I often think 'Who are you to tell me what I do, and don't do because 'they' gave me this label called bipolar?"  I am who I am because I am who I am!  It is difficult at times as I often wonder "where does my personality begin, and where does the illness end and so on…"  Where do 'I' begin?  I have come to the conclusion that we don't know all that much about the inner-workings of the brain and fail to agree on definitions of the mind.  The language we conjure up to attempt to explain the 'something' wrong with someone who has a 'mental disorder' fails to deliver coherence.  Even in this sentence it makes me dizzy!  We are unaware of how to make distinctions and when we point to the brain to indicate an illness, it sparks an array of discussions. Is personality affected by what we deem mental illness?  If we –subtract– what we call an' illness', would we then be the way we were 'supposed' to be in the first place?  If we –subtract– this illness then am I whole?   Should I be feeling less than what I do now?  Am I feeling too much?  How much do you want me to feel?  They say she is sick, then tell her she is a creative genius.   They say she can accomplish anything she wants, 'of course, she is after all bipolar!'  They say she won't be all that successful because she  has bipolar, and she will not be able to do things like travel or hold down a full time job.  If she has sporadic absences due to her illness, they tell her to work less.  She has to simply keep up!  Now she accomplishes a lot and they say 'she can do it because she is bipolar and she has the energy to do anything!'  They say 'be careful now!'  She has bipolar and could crash and actually probably  will because she is bipolar.  You say 'Hello, are you bipolar?"  I say "No, I'm Andrea and I have bipolar.  What is your name?  Oh…great to meet you ADHD!" They say "you should be in bed young lady!"  I say "You're right!" Bipolar Babe