In an interesting Guardian Weekly interview with the now 88 year old and highly lucid 1950s film star Kim Novak, the interviewer wrote of her full life activities, including being a mental health activist.
Then he adds in brackets, “she is proudly bi-polar”.
Pride is surely one of the most mis-used words in our language.
Gay pride week, a proud Kiwi, Aucklander, Scot, Labour Party supporter etc. etc. are all common-place expressions.
Surely pride as an adjective requires some input, namely achievement. These usages are like saying I’m proud to be two-legged. But it’s particularly ridiculous to apply it to an infliction.
Bi-polarism is a deeply troublesome infliction for both its victims and their family and friends and is hardly a cause for pride.
8 Comments
Pride comes before a full. I’d rather be humble than proud, and has nothing to do with achievements or what I belong to.
Totally agree! I’m unfortunately Bi-Polar and it has been a source of me majorly stuffing up things and “life in general” from time to time!!
Pride, no! More of a cross to bear and to be beaten over the head with!
The bald truth is the general public hate / disapprove of all disabilities, except if they are being interviewed on TV!
I liked you post except for the last bit. I don’t know anyone who “hates disabilities or people with them”. Fake disabilities are a different thing.
I would hope I am right about most people but there are plenty of arseholes as we know. Not letting them be important is the challenge.
I have a child with disabilities, and its life changing.
Other than the friends I/we had prior to being parents, potential new ones can be so judgemental; excepting those managing the same challenges. Its like one has the plague.
Very isolating, though it is good the media is giving it more widespread coverage because disabilities of all kinds are more common than the ignorant masses realise.
It’s not your problems that define you, but how you deal with them. Being proud of the problem is backing the wrong horse.
Perhaps she means Bi-Pedal.
Sign of our silly time…. ..” I’m proud to have syphilis, gonorrhea and to have my brain amputated at the foot. Think i’ll start my own pride club. I must now be “entitled” and empowered “.
Madness. We’re living in an episode of Monty Python.
Like a lot the counter intuitive thinking that is now so prevalent, what is actually meant is that they refuse to be ashamed of their condition…which is completely understandable