I can't wait till Sarah Freeman's book on bipolar disability is published. It is going to be a great resource. Your desire and drive will have you back at work soon, doing something you love. You can do it! Best of luck in all of your future endeavors.
Jan 20, 2010 Rating
Yes it is, but... by: Anonymous
Thank you for a well-written article. You ask a good question:is bipolar a disability? I would say yes. It limits our ability to perform a job routinely. It limits our ability to be a good team player. We are unreliable people in many ways and I would not recommend us to most employers.
However, that does not mean we are useless and cannot work. Far from it! There are so many things we can and should do according to our talents and skills. But to promise that we can be accountable to an organization is probably not fair to them.
The internet is a perfect example of a way that a bipolar person or anyone with a disability can carve out some kind of work for themselves, and work with meaning.
Look what you are doing for example. This site is excellent and now you are going to school and eventually you will be able to use your rich experience as a person with a mental disability to help others.
And so I would say that our lives should not be wasted, but that we should not make promises we cannot keep.
Keep up the great work!
Jan 19, 2010 Rating
Differently Abled! by: Sarah from Bipolar-Lives
I was very pleased to receive this entry. As some of you will know I have written on the Bipolar-Lives website about how to claim disability and will be offering a detailed guide to building a winning case as in e-book in March 2010. This entry addresses the conflicting emotions on being a recipient of disability payments and being labeled as "disabled". I agree that it makes much more sense to see it as a matter of being differently abled! Also, it is pretty much impossible to scam the system in order to receive disability based on bipolar disorder so nobody should feel bad about receiving this money - you simply would not be given it if you were not entitled to it.
