Recently our sleepy little town hosted an annual cancer walk, and this year there were over 2000 people who took to the streets and walked 7.5km. As I was walking I thought to myself, how many people who do this for Bipolar or depression? The answer... possibly none, or maybe just a few.

The problem with our society is that people only truly feel sorry for people who have signs of illness, but most of the time we don't show signs that distinguish bipolar or depression. People who suffer with depression and bipolar often have thoughts of suicide or self harm, and people tend to think that it's attention seeking. Well it is not!

I often, when having a bad day, am told to snap out of it, or to get over it, or the best, change my attitude! Some days I really struggle to get out of my bed and face the world, and then other days I can't wait to get out of bed. But how do I describe this to people? I love the comments of... I read that on the internet... or the internet says. The internet is not me and to be honest the internet does not describe in detail how bad a bad day can be!

So how does one get people to understand what we suffer from? Simple, we need to explain it to them, we need to create an awareness and make people realize that, just because they cant see our pain or frustration, that their judgements are unjustifiable.

So I challenge everyone to help create an awareness. Let's make our diseases known.

Regards

Talana

A Moodscope member.