Marisa Lancione

When talking about my mental illness with people, I’m often asked about the stigma I have experienced and my answer often surprises them. I have never experienced stigma from friends, family, or employers. Of course, there is always one idiot in the crowd who says something stupid, but overall, stigma for me, hasn’t come from the layperson. The biggest form of stigma, as the Time to Change study reported, was from mental health professionals.

...Halloween has transformed from dressing up as scary ghouls and goblins into a time to dress up in culturally insensitive costumes. Throughout the night, you will inevitably see someone dressed up like a “Mexican” with a poncho and sombrero.

This is the reality of my life. I am incredibly unstable right now, which is why everything is so extreme. So, no this isn’t the normal everyday life of a bipolar person, but it’s one part of what it’s like to have bipolar disorder.

My main problem is that your opinion on pay equity is wishy washy at best. Although you wonder why you aren’t getting paid the same as your male counterparts, you still go out of your way (multiple times) to say that the problem may not necessarily be because of your gender. You say, it might be a “young-person thing” or a “personality thing” and you even say outright that “it might have nothing to do with my vagina.”

I’m always thinking about what and when I’m going to eat. But when I started counting calories, I was anticipating my meals even more. I was ravenous, like a starved dog -- despite not being starving at all.

3. Why do you wear heels even though you’re so tall?

After a few angry tweets and Facebook posts, I did some research. It seems that Facebook's Report Suicidal Content function is only available to its US users. Nowhere on the page did Facebook alert me to this fact. Here I was thinking that Facebook had failed, but I just hadn't read the fine print.