I just received a great email from a reader who has been on the bipolarhappens.com mailing list for years.
I once wrote a newsletter for family members that started out with a conversation my mother and I had about cabbage. I told the story to show how family members have to be educated as to why those of us with bipolar disorder can be so WEIRD! Here is his letter- the cabbage story follows.
Hi Julie:
This really isn’t a question but rather a comment regarding a piece you wrote about fixing dinner with your mother one night. You were making a salad and your mom suggested adding cabbage. As I recall you said it was just too difficult to get it out of the refrigerator and cut it, etc. Your mother said something like “what’s so hard about that?” and you said, I think, “I have bi polar.” Enough said!!
Ever since then every time I find it difficult (impossible???) to do something as “easy” (oh sure!) as preparing a meal or responding to an e-mail, etc, etc I always think of it as a “Bi Polar Cabbage Moment.”
I cannot begin to tell you how much this helps me! I won’t be able to listen to your radio broadcast so let just say thanks so much for all you do.
(Horace) Bruce Deal
New York, NY
**
A Conversation about Cabbage
Mom: Why don’t you put some cabbage on your salad?
Julie: I want to have cabbage on my salad but it is just too hard to do it.
Mom: Julie! It’s too hard to have cabbage? What is your problem?
Julie: It’s not just cabbage, Mom! It’s getting it out of the fridge. Taking off the old leaves, finding a place to cut it, making sure the knife is clean, slicing it, putting it on the salad and then cleaning up the cutting board. It is too much right now.
Mom: It really is just cabbage, Julie. Why does everything have to be so hard for you?
Julie: Mom. It is not a *normal* thing! It is not a cabbage thing. It is *bipolar* thing. It is an overwhelmed thing. It has nothing to do with cabbage. Things are hard for me because I have bipolar disorder.
Mom: Ok. I understand it a bit better when you put it that way. Would you like me to do the cabbage for you?
