Second time in my life have I witnessed a bipolar girl yelling and calling the sz person rude and disrespectful and “what’s so funny?!?!?!” When the sz person is laughing at his voices in group and talking to himself.
Do you consider this stigma? I do.
She just sounds clueless
Yeah I think I’m confusing stigma with ignorance.
Stigma stems from ignorance.
This is sad. Both are mentally challenged.
I get a lot of stares when I’m laughing at what the voices say in public. I fight against it as much as I can because I’ve noticed normies seem to be more disturbed by this laughing more than anything else I do, but sometimes I can’t hold it back.
Normies will be alarmed by it. But people with a diagnosis such as bipolar are the ones who will yell at you and call you disrespectful. I feel this girl felt entitled to all morality of struggle because she had her own issues that there’s noooo way in her mind anyone on earth suffers from someone that she doesn’t. Not downplaying her issues in any way, just saying they are different issues. Us sz folk are older souls and understand empathy better and that we hear voices which is really tough, but we shouldn’t compare our issues to other people’s different issues they have. That’s what separates me from this woman. All group I listened intently to this woman talk about her struggles with the utmost respect and reverence for her personal pain and suffering. Then at the end I shared that I’ve heard voices and she became very rude and disrespectful towards that notion. The fact of the matter is that even though this woman was 20 years older than me, I have a lot more personal development of traits such as empathy and compassion and lack of stigma toward others. There is no argument on this imo. It’s not about who’s had it tougher. She’s never walked in my shoes as I’ve never walked in hers, but rather we should be compassionate towards one another. People who say they have struggled, have had struggles. Thinking you’re struggling is a struggle in itself. I wish I could just say I’ve had it easy but my mind hasn’t interpreted my life as easy. There is no comparing struggles. No need to. And no way of doing it. Show compassion folks!! If someone says they’ve had it tough, lend a helping hand if possible, rather than comparing… this is what i have learned. She stigmatized me for sure when she tried to put me down for saying I heard voices. I agree @Andrey it stems from ignorance…stigma.
I wholy agree to that as well !!
Very well put. I’ve been surprised how much stigma there is to schizophrenia vs bipolar, when in reality, they’re probably on the same spectrum of the same overlapping disease.
Yeah it is very easy to spot bipolar in these groups. 
I have a former friend with bipolar who accused me arrogantly of being a “very violent individual” plenty of times. Weirdly, his violence towards me is the reason were not friends anymore.
The only time I really ever get violent toward anyone is in the psych ward.
I have a bipolar buddy… you have to take what they say with several grains of salt sometimes… he gets all offended and mouthy sometimes but its kinda out of his control. I just leave him alone and try again in a few days. He never appologizes but whatever most of the time hes ok. I think its just part of his affliction.
If you’ve got mixed states bipolar … I can understand where the bad attitude comes from
Sounds like it was ignorance. Maybe she’ll and others will learn from these experiences if everyone is open about things.
When I was in PHP people made fun of a sz guy there. He had disorganized speech and also paranoia about the government so basically when he would talk at group it was all over the place, sometimes his responses weren’t logical at all and a lot of times he’d bring up how the CIA were watching him or whatever. I thought it was very rude and ignorant of those people to laugh at him and it made me feel more self conscious to share things I was experiencing. The guy w sz was really nice and friendly too despite those things. I chatted with him a number of times.
Yeah szs are the best to chat with! 
You’ll find a hierarchy in every demographic: Whether it’s a person with bipolar disorder thinking that they’re in some way better than a person with schizophrenia; a light-skin person of color expressing contempt for a darker-skin person of color; or a masculine gay man ridiculing an effeminate gay man.
The whole world seemingly puts people with a mental illness down, and we’re putting each other down.
That’s truly crazy.
Not stigma, kind of a naive reaction of them. I would think that would be funny to see. Usually ppl are afraid of those type of sz, never seen one confronted
Honestly what if she was paranoid? It happens to a lot of us under the mi spectrum and its unfair to assume what was going on in her head. I personally hate when people laugh and I don’t know why, I’m always quick to assume it’s about me. I was once diagnosed with bipolar but it changed after some time. I remember being manic or even in a mixed state and being paranoid as ■■■■. Just a thought.