I Am & I Have

A few weeks ago I went to the dermatologist to have a mole removed; a couple of nights ago, I got a call from the doctor who told me that the lab results had come back and the mole was a stage 0 melanoma.

I have skin cancer.

Because it was caught so early, I’m just going to end up have a little more extensive surgery next Wednesday, and I should be fine.

I thought I would take a moment, though, to discuss what the differences are between saying something like “I have skin cancer” and “I am bipolar.” Now, many people do in fact say, “I have bipolar” or “I have bipolar disorder.” Some of them say, “I suffer from bipolar” or “I live with bipolar.” Most, it seems, feel that the way they express their illness is a conscious choice, and it is an important choice. If you want to take a look at some of these debates, check out Joe Kraynack’s post on the Bipolar Blog, rubyblue’s question on the Daily Strength Bipolar Disorder Forum or my question at the Livejournal community Bipolars.

The question is why one would want to make these choices. Why is it important to someone to say, “I have X” and to another person to say “I am X”?

I say I am bipolar for several reasons. The first is that I do not at all think about it as I think about the dark spot they cut off the skin of my upper back a few weeks ago.

Bipolar disorder is not anything like a tumor. It is not something that is malignant and completely separate from me, that I can go to the doctor and say, “Get this off of me; get rid of it,” as fast as possible. It is not something that I look at with abject horror. It is not a dark spot on my skin or on my brain or in my soul.

Granted, there isn’t really a way to say “I am cancer,” like there is to say “I am bipolar” – only certain illnesses in the English language can be expressed as “am,” as an aspect of identity. But even among these illnesses, bipolar disorder is different.

You can say I am diabetic or I have diabetes, and both statements ultimately mean something about your blood sugar. When you say, “I have bipolar disorder,” it means something about your brain. When you say, “I am bipolar,” it means something about your identity.

Bipolar disorder has the precarious position being both physical and mental. Further, if who we are is made up in part of how we think, and bipolar influences how we think, then separating the two is almost impossibly complicated.

Among the people who responded to my post in Bipolars, seam_by_seam wrote

I identify as bipolar. I would absolutely NOT be the person I am if... I did not have this "sickness", this experience. It is part of who I am, just as my green eyes and my (generally) compassionate nature... your life makes you who you are, not just nature. How can I deny my whole life? Who I am, what I feel. It would be a crushing insult if I did not acknowledge this... part of me, as both beneficial, and well, tragic... one has to try.

I am absolutely my own person. I just dont think being bipolar makes me who I am, but I can say with 100% certainty that I would not be the same person if I were not bipolar. Who can possibly think this?

Arbitrarily separating the person from bipolar inevitably means that there is something wrong with us. We are people and we have an illness, a disease. And we are ashamed of it. First and foremost, we cannot stand the idea that we are ill; stigma is as much an internal process as an external. How can we expect other people to treat us as complete people we do not treat ourselves as people who are whole? If we are constantly saying to ourselves, this bipolar is a dark spot on my soul? We as bipolars should be able to stand up and say, “I am bipolar,” like others can say, “I am gay,” or “I am a woman,” rather than having to apologize for it.

Our brains have neurological differences, yes, but these differences are just that: differences.

I am bipolar, and there is nothing wrong with me.

Further Reading

I am...,I have...I suffer from...: A Linguist Reflects on the Language of Illness and Disease. Fleischman, S. (1999, March 1). Journal of Medical Humanities, 20(1), 3-32.

I also wrote a much more extensive paper on this subject for my anthropological lingusitics class Spring 2009; the pdf can be downloaded here.

The Discourse of Abnormal Behavior