Moodscope attracts some magnificent writers, whose insight and wisdom is peppered with colour and humour.

Yet sometimes I feel out of sync with this staunch community, especially when each Moodscoper wholeheartedly adopts an assigned label, whether it be depression, bipolar 1 or 2, or maybe anxiety disorder.

Coping strategies are discussed, but always as though the condition is inevitable, and is their cross to bare.

I find the lives often alluded to between the lines, are the most revealing and helpful. It's true these vary greatly, and a blog each for overstretched carers, terminally ill, unemployed, and lonely might be more difficult to muster.

I struggle to accept my label, which was foisted on me in a retrospective sort of way. A therapist once explained it as mainly helpful for research funding, pharmaceutical industries, and of course therapists.

I believe it is a simple way for those around us to seperate sometimes discomforting behaviour when in stressful moments we do not act within the expected codes. We might leave a partner for example.

A mental illness label is a way of being categorised and distanced from even tempered relatives and colleagues who need life around them to remain predictable and calm.

I find the depression and bipolar labels destructive, in that those who rarely see me, are looking to fit me to my label, and draw all sorts of false conclusions about the way I live my life.

I feel a duty to perform my way out of my label...to prove my sanity. I am hyper sensitive about interactions in a way I never would have been before.

I have a huge backlog of unfair responses to draw on and feel self pity about...these define my sorrows, and my anger and defiance.

Ironically as wife for 25 years to a secretly anxious and medicated husband, I was forever strong. "The rock".

But when it all came tumbling down I switched roles. My husband gathered supporters, smartened up his act and acquired a new partner. He appears strong and stable.

I on the other hand, have become a lurcher. I am either stimulated and living life to the full, grateful for the freedom of my own smaller home, and independence, or sad, lonely and simply withdrawn, depending on the weather and the circumstances.

A relationship plays a huge role in defining our strengths and weaknesses. Without it one lives the gamete. It is no easy road.

I know my bipolar so called, is not a chemical imbalance, but a product of my life circumstances. For major periods life simply got in the way, and it did not exist.

My challenge is to get life back on the ascendency.

Deborah

A Moodscope member.