Overreaching labels are for those who are ignorant

Exactly.
This was shared with me by my excellent friend Lisa who manages a great Chiropractic office in Salem.

I am tired of this new thing we all seem to be doing, which is the constant need to label someone as all one thing.

It's ridiculous and exhausting.

I've recently been told I'm "manic" and then told I was "depressed" and then accused of being on drugs or an alcoholic because I was out on a Friday night with my husband and I DARED to have TWO gin and tonics.

For Pete's sake.

Who the F*ck are YOU to know what I am or am not?

If you have spent an hour with me or even three months with me, how do you dare to know what or who the f*ck I am at all the other times you are NOT with me. Like when I'm sleeping or when I'm here by myself or when you're at work all day and then see me for a few hours at the end of the day? Or especially when you live on the other side of the continent?

My dogs and my husband are truly the only beings that get to judge how I am or am not. I have a few close friends who are in the "know" about me and with whom I can be completely and utterly my self, but otherwise?

The rest of you can just suck it.

My therapist, my Mom, my Dad, Karen, Penny, Liz, Nina and Kristen and a few other select friends and relatives of mine are the extent of the humans licensed to judge me.

I'm not manic. I'm happy. There's a difference.

I ceased being depressed (not clinical, just situational, but still bad enough to be semi-suicidal for a while), which means, YES - I AM different now.

I'm not f*cking depressed and stop telling me I'm manic because I AM NOT.

Ask my therapist. She's the one who is certified and schooled in these matters.

Bipolar and manic are not just words, kids. 

They are clinical, prolonged chemical imbalances in the brain.

Frankly, you embarrass yourself and diminish people with diagnosed mental illnesses when you toss around words like "manic" or "bipolar" or when you say you're "depressed" because you aren't feeling particularly happy for a few f*cking minutes.

It's not nice and you need to get a job and learn a bit about the science of hormones and their effects on the human brain.

Don't say someone is schizophrenic or has some other illness unless you know it to be the truth because THEY TOLD YOU themselves. It's shitty and it's ignorant and it is not a thing that is to be bandied about lightly.

I was MISdiagnosed when I was 40 years old. A horrible quack doctor diagnosed me as bipolar within 10 seconds of entering his office. I'm not even kidding. He was terrible and SUPER condescending to me and my husband. He put me on 3 different kinds of powerful psychoactive drugs. Seroquel, buspar, effexor.

Guess what? I am NOT bipolar and he basically just gave me a crap ton of pharmaceuticals after he "knew" me for all of 30 minutes. 30 minutes and he basically was making me into a walking zombie person.

So, I found myself a good therapist and she IMMEDIATELY took me off those terrible pills. I couldn't even think straight.

I say this to you, over there, Label-Person:

Maybe YOU should stop using drugs and drinking all day and being a general idiot 

with your "SIM" games and watching cooking shows all day and then thinking you get to sit in judgement of someone who has thousands more hours of schooling and therapy under her belt.

I ran an accredited non-profit whale research center for 20 years, educated tens of thousands of people about conservation and cetology. And I worked in the marketing/public affairs department at two world-class museums, one of which was recently named a Historic Landmark District. And then I had my own, successful gardening business in MA for 10 years before I landed into a big, fat depression after I was married to a man who treated me like crap for years.

 I went to therapy for a year, stopped drinking altogether, stopped all manner of pills, 

dropped 25 pounds and got myself healthy for the first time in a LOOOOONG time.

This does NOT mean I'm manic or bipolar, for f*ck's sake. 

On the contrary, it means I've got my SHIT together finally!

Ask my husband. Ask my good friends. Ask the people who actually f*cking know.

 ASK ME, for God's Sake!!

So, there, Judgy Judgerton, take a peek in the mirror for five minutes. Put down the pills, put down the booze and ask yourself "How YOU doin'?"

Because I bet you might not like what the answer is or the person staring back at you.