I haven’t written a blog post for a long time. My life has changed and waiting for the pieces to settle has meant that I didn’t want to commit my thoughts to paper. It is for the best of reasons, as they say, but exciting life changing things are still change and change is never simple or easy.

I have fallen in love with a man who has fallen in love with me. No great drama, no conflict worthy of fiction; we are in love, we are that dreadful word: compatible. There are no obstacles.

Both for privacy and for the novelty of it I’m calling him George. I pointed out it was Mr Knightley’s first name, and he pointed out less enthusiastically that it was the name of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

There is always a difficulty for me when I meet someone new. When – if ever – do I tell them that I have bipolar and have been incarcerated twice? Of recent years I have been quite open. So many small things were affected by it – why I don’t drink, why I drive an automatic car, why I get so tired – and I have never been ashamed of my mental state. In the majority of cases I can more easily see a person asking me “why didn’t you tell me?” than them treating me badly. So many people are affected by mental health issues that being able to make a connection can be useful to both parties.

On the other hand, I have been settled in my job and local area for several years now, and people know I am friendly and that I care. So it’s easier to carry on as who I am without explicitly mentioning my mental health problem. My hope is now that when people find out that they will be surprised, and adjust their thoughts on the sort of person who suffers from mental illness.

It is different when you are falling in love with someone. You don’t want to deceive him: that great set piece of so many dreadful chick-flicks, “YOU LIED TO ME!”

George didn’t sign up to be the boyfriend of a mad girl. In those early days when I didn’t know what his reaction would be I wondered whether it would be better to get it over with: if he found out and ended it before I was in too deep. I could almost hear him telling his work colleagues – “Yes, she’s sweet and attractive but hey – guess what? She’s got manic depression! Just my luck, huh! Let’s move on…”

However – if he had time to get to know me, so that in his mind I was first and foremost Mary, and not, “this girl with bipolar I’ve just met”, wouldn’t I have a higher chance of him staying with me?

There was a man I knew for a while. I’m calling him Joshua. We were both lonely and spent a lot of time together. Funny, isn’t it, how you assume that people in your social circle will be okay? Verified by association.

I had blithely told Joshua that I had bipolar, expecting it to be, not an excuse for mood swings, but a key in just getting to know me. He was horrified. He had known someone close with bipolar, and I assumed stupidly that he would understand. I’ll call this friend of his Lesley. When he knew Lesley, she had had some severe manic experiences. He didn’t accept that I could experience things differently, or that I could manage my condition better than Lesley had done at the time. He had been harsh and controlling towards Lesley during her manic time and he was not going to treat me with any less hardened an approach. We were both in his eyes Bi-polar; we were not individuals who had a condition called bi-polar. Instead of feeling angry at his attitude to mental health problems, I began to feel that I was a dangerous liability.

One day, as friends do, Joshua and I were talking about having families. Not the two of us together, but us as individuals. He was surprised that I wanted children. He pointed out – accurately – that it would be something with which the man would have to be happy. His reasoning was less accurate. He said that because I had bipolar, I would be a dangerous mother, pre-birth and after birth. I would hand it on to my children. In what words he said it, I don’t know, but he was sure. I shouldn’t be encouraged to breed.

George and I had been going out for a few months but I had never heard George swear before. He already knew that I had bipolar but he didn’t know what Joshua had said and how it had affected me. I have never had relief flood over me so deeply as in the laughter that came from me when George called Joshua the rudest word I know, several times over. It was as effective for me as if George had knocked him down. At once the sting of Joshua’s horrific attitude went, and I was filled with the assurance of what would be George’s own attitude. George knew I had bipolar. He also knows I am Mary.