A lot of us are in the closet about our illness.

[Tobin S.]

5. I don't hide that information about myself

but I don't volunteer it either unless it is very important that I do.

The response that I get the most when I tell the average, normal person that I have bipolar disorder is fear. I think that's what the social stigma of mental illness has its roots in. People hear bad stuff about people who have mental illnesses on the tv and from misinformed people. They come to the conclusion that all people who have mental illnesses do bad things. We know the stats on the issue but most people don't look that stuff up. So they are ignorant about mental illnesses and that feeds the fear.

I don't care much about what people think about me outside of my friends and relatives, but it is important that I keep my job and I'm afraid I might lose it if my disorder were to become common knowledge at work. That's just the way things are there. If I decided to try to be a hero about this, I'd quickly become a martyr. And it's not just me I have to think about. I have people who are depending on me.