I feel really secure in myself as a bipolar woman and as an advocate for mental health. I feel like I have heard all the questions I thought I could hear from either work, my mother, my blog, etc. in regard to my bipolar disorder. However, at breakfast today, I made a new friend and she asked me a question about my bipolar that I had never even fathomed.

She asked, “Are you more explosive or aggressive when you’re in your comfort zone?”

Wow.

I was kind of dumbfounded at first. To preface this, I met this girl at a gas station and she worked there. The first time I went there she gave me relationship advice about Diego since she is also Mexican. The second time I went in, I was with Diego and she remembered me and more specifically my dad because my dad buys gas for me every week. By the third time, we got each other’s instagram handles and started chatting.

So today we went out to breakfast and she tells me that her boyfriend is bipolar; a good guy but very aggressive and acts like an asshole when he is in his comfort zone. I state that I have bipolar disorder and she asks me the above question.

I told her I was medicated and I don’t normally get bouts of anger or if I do, they are controlled. I said before when I took medication rarely, I was explosive and it didn’t matter who it was too or where I was.

She went on to tell me about her life and nodded along.

It’s been eight hours since she asked me that and I can’t get it out of my head.

I feel toxic toward Diego when I am angry, but I wouldn’t say I am an aggressive person, if anything, I am a very passive person. I’m not mad she made the assumption she did, but to try to explain to her in that moment that not all bipolar people are like that and It would have been contradictory to her reality living at home in a verbally abusive and threatening place.

I wanted to explain that I was a good person, that I wouldn’t be like that, not to her, not ever. But it wasn’t about me. She is entitled to feel the way she feels and I am entitled to mine. Now I don’t know if I got things figured out like I thought I did.

Dani