#shawleveryday2019 Day 89

Today is #WorldBipolarDay so I would like to share with you a post from my husband Brian. He has bipolar disorder type 2 and this is his experience in his own words.

​"I know I post a lot of long ranty posts that I'm sure a lot of you skip over and that's fine. But this is very personal and it would mean a lot to me if you took a few minutes to read it.

Around 5 and a half years ago I told Melissa I wasn't feeling well and she should take someone else to the Blues game that we had tickets for. What was really happening was I was deeply depressed and suicidal. I had a plan, I had the means, and I was revising my goodbyes when Patrik Berglund scored early in overtime, ended the game, and Melissa came home. If that game had gone to a shootout I would be dead, I have no doubts about that. After a stint in a psych ward I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and have been in treatment ever since. It's still something I struggle with everyday, some days more successfully than others.

I'm not looking for sympathy or for anyone to talk about how strong I am or anything like that. I want to show that people you know are affected by mental illness but are still people just like you. Most of you have heard me talk about the damage stigma can do. It's important to understand how worrying about how people will react can keep people from getting help and how damaging it is. It's not theoretical for me. I put off getting help for a long time because of what I thought it meant about me and because I was worried about how people would react. It nearly killed me. It's still hard to talk about, I have largely kept this to myself up to this point. That being said it's important to talk about mental health and #EndTheStigma. Millions of people have a mental illness. It doesn't make us broken, it doesn't make us dangerous, it doesn't make us "crazy" and needing to be treated with kid gloves so we don't freak out. It makes us people with an illness, just like someone with lupus or diabetes or MS. Nothing more.

Everyone's journey is their own and I would never presume that I could tell anyone what to do. But if anyone is ever suffering and needs to talk to someone who has been there and will listen without judgement, or ask a question, or just vent, I'm never more than a call or text away. No one has to carry those burdens alone and everyone is worthy of love and care."

Details about this shawl
Baskerville shawl pattern