Last week I waded into Charlie Sheen territory. It was, perhaps, a touch more eel-infested than I had anticipated but life is surprising like that. Yes, I said Sheen is going through a manic episode as part of a mental illness. (And no, I still haven’t become a doctor.) Let’s say for the moment, I’m right. Since I made my case for compassion for Sheen and mental illness, over scorn and ridicule, people have made the case back that it’s the media’s fault Sheen’s behavior is this out of control. I don’t think so.

I’m not known for my cheery everything’s-going-to-be-OK-puppies-rainbows-lollipops perspective. In fact, I’m against such perspectives. I find them disingenuous, phony, or seriously ill-informed. Save the rose-colored glasses for Sir Elton John, thank-you. I find smiling, being positive and telling people how great everything is to be just another chore on my list of things to do today when I’m already busy just trying to keep breathing and possibly pay rent.

I am lucky enough to have many people out there who love my writing, love my perspective and yes, possibly even love me. Sometimes these people contact me privately, sometimes publically, but either way, I certainly appreciate all the positivity. On the other hand, there is a small, yet amazingly vocal, number of people who hate what I have to say, and yes, possibly hate me. These people tend to denounce me, and what I have to say, publically. And honestly, I don’t mind the differing opinions. Disagree with a point I’ve made? No problem, that’s what the comments are for. But zealous, hateful stances on mental illness, treatments and psychiatry tend to hurt those with mental illness far more than it helps.

OK, so I admit it, I haven’t spent a whole lot of time thinking about gender’s relationship to depression. I know the basic pieces of information: more women are diagnosed with depression than men, and more women attempt suicide while more men actually commit suicide. But there is a lot to understand beyond that. Did you know that men are up to 15 times more likely to commit suicide than women?

I am a word-fetishist. I adore words. They are my playthings. They are my blankies. I generally mold them, shape them and occasionally break them at my leisure. But I also respect words. I respect their meaning and their use outside the bounds of current politically correct, self-help thinking, but somehow the rest of the world wants to complain because I call a spade a shovel.

Many of us with a mental illness have tried to “power through” it. We have tried to muscle through the pain without getting help of any kind. Most of us don’t want to admit we need help. Most of us don’t even want to admit we’re sick. We think that we’ll be fine without doctors and therapists and pills. We think that they are the enemy. We think we’re better off without them. We are so ridiculously wrong.

How are you? This is one of the most disingenuous, lie-provoking, overused sentences in the English language. How are you? We say it to fill time and pretend that we care about people whom we obviously don't. As no one is interested in actually knowing the answer, I have a series of pat answers I typically give. Snazzy. Fabulous. Wonderful. Delightful. Sparkly. Peaches and cream. You? But the truth of the matter is, when someone asks how I am, even if they really wanted to know, it would make no difference, because really, I have no idea.

It is often the case that those around a person with bipolar disorder spot the disorder before the person themselves does. That’s pretty understandable as our actions are always louder from the outside. Not to mention our brain, which is supposed to be paying attention to our behaviors, is the thing that’s sick. So, you know, we miss stuff. Crazy tends to obscure reality. But what if you think a person has bipolar disorder and the person won’t listen? In this case, there are really only three things you can do.

I feel, sometimes, that I am at war with the mentally-well world. This isn’t to say that many of them aren’t lovely or that I have a desire to harm anyone, but I do feel embroiled. And it’s mostly because the well population just doesn’t understand what it is to be unwell. They demonstrate this heartily by repeatedly saying the worst things possible to a person with a mental illness.

We all take part in the game of denial. Humans need denial to exist. We can’t think about our inevitable death, the fact that we are aging, or that our marriage may end in divorce and expect to care about jobs, mortgage payments and the obvious importance of Jimmy Choos. We know unpleasant possibilities and inevitabilities are true, but on a daily basis we deny them. We need to. Denial produces a workable life. What gets under my skin though, is the fact people expect me to deny my bipolar disorder, my experiences with it, and its effects – mostly just to make them feel better.