Charlie Sheen's recent remarks may seen funny to some, but when I look at his statements and actions, to me they scream mania, a symptom of bipolar disorder.

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.

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.

Normally I try to grab the reader's attention in the first few lines of the piece so that you'll want to read the rest. Something snappy, touching or pithy. Normally I try to make sure it's an interesting subject. Usually I try to provide some sort of universal appeal to the piece or at least a good quip. But today, quite frankly, I'm talking about me.

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?

This week I did an interview for the HealthyPlace Mental Health TV show. We discussed what it is to have bipolar disorder, the impact, what works and what doesn't.

Here I am. Writing. In public. About being crazy. Here I am. Being crazy. In public. Under scrutiny. I’ve been writing about being bipolar for seven years now, in a very closed, anonymous environment. People didn’t know my name, or see my face. By design. Anonymity has a way of allowing the truth to flourish.