Women are classic “I’m sorry” – ers. We’re taught to say “I’m sorry” from the time we can utter the words. We are the peacekeepers, claiming fault so no one else has to. We have to apologize for emotions because we’re “overemotional.” We have to apologize for our needs because we’re “clingy.” We’re sorry for our behavior, our significant other’s behavior and our children’s behavior. We are simply, sorry. And most women in 2011 realize this habit is one borne of the past and is no longer relevant in our everyday world. We realize we are not “sorry” at the drop of a hat or a glass of wine spilled by a drunken significant other. We realize there is a time to be sorry and there are times not to be. Unfortunately for me, I feel like I have to be sorry all the time, for every tear, for every thought, because if I’m not, people will leave.

Due to my frequent flirtations with treatment-resistance over the years, I have discussed ECT with a variety of doctors. To the first doctor, and the one after, I said simply, “I would rather die than do that”. Well, as it turns out when faced with death, you’ll do a lot of things you didn’t think you would.

I grew up in a small town where there was no diversity of any sort, in beliefs or otherwise. And one of the things an outspoken group really didn’t like was gay people. This group lodged a major war to ensure that anything ever mentioning homosexuality was banned from my high school. I thought these people were idiots. So I fought them. I wasn’t about to let some closed-minded, ignorant people marginalize others based on their sexuality. I went to their rallies and spoke against them. I wrote stories for our paper. And then, sometime around age 17 I figured out I was bisexual. So I jumped into a closet for a few years.

This week one of my Twitter followers asked me for advice on communicating with her friends and family about her mental illness. She has only recently started telling people of her illness and she wasn’t sure on how to express her needs around her mental illness. This is a great question and one I think every person with a mental illness faces. How do you tell people about your mental illness needs?

Sometimes people don’t believe I’m particularly sick. They meet me, I look fine, I interact, I charm, I wit and all seems, if not normal, at least something reasonably normal adjacent. And that’s fine. It’s by design. Being a high-functioning mentally ill person, I can’t really afford to run around with my hair on fire. But faking normalcy, happiness and pleasure is a tricky and very expensive bit of business.

I’m spending this Christmas back in the town where I grew up, sleeping in my mother’s guest room. I have to be there a week. A week with parents and siblings. A week of turkey and tiny oranges. A week of me silently begging to go home. But I understand that holiday obligations are, well, obligatory, so I do have some methods for trying to survive it.

I was inspired today by Seth Godin’s blog article Lady Gaga and Me. In it, he makes the point that writers needn’t worry about all the people who don’t like them because really, they should only worry about all those who do. I understand this as I’m a writer, and there are people who don’t like my writing; which is OK, because there are many who do. The same goes for bipolar treatments. Some people are just never going to agree with your chosen bipolar treatment plan no matter what you do.

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.

Those of you who follow me may have gleaned that I've been having trouble getting a psychiatrist. Basically, I was finally allowed to see one and she threw up her hands, told me to give up and that I was never going to get any better. This is one of the worst things I have ever been told, and personally, I think is unacceptable on pretty much every level. However, yesterday I managed to see someone new, and this poses its own challenges.

Next week is Mental Illness Awareness Week in Canada and the US. It's our week to get out, speak up and be heard. It's our week not to be ashamed of our illness or the illness of our loved ones. It's our week to march, write, Twitter, Facebook, talk and tell politicians how important issues of mental illness are. But what if you don't want the world knowing you have a mental illness?