What happened in Connecticut is horrible beyond imagination. An absolutely abominable man shooting all those helpless children just boggles the mind. Who could do such a thing? The whole world is in shock over such a despicable act; what must the people of Newtown going through? And the parents and loved ones of the victims; hell cannot hold the horrors that their lives have become.

Adam Lanza is a monster.

Of course all the media are covering this story around the clock. And to fill the airtime there’s a lot of speculation about what kind of man is capable of doing something like this. We’ve all heard that he was suffering from a Personality Disorder. Even that he was bipolar. I find it impossible to believe that someone could be driven to kill all those innocent people could be driven by the same disease that I have. My diagnosis is type I. I’ve had my share of extreme mania and even been to the point of delusion. But even in my darkest moments it’s never even been conceivable to hurt anyone else.

There are so few people who really understand this illness. There’s so much ignorance about how this disorder affects us and what it does to us as individuals. And out of this ignorance comes the stigma. Because we are bipolar many just immediately consider us to be crazy and dangerous. We are shunned and feared. It can cost us our jobs, dear friendships, relationships and marriages. It’s hard enough to live with this illness without the added isolation that comes from the lack of knowledge.

There’s no question that this man was seriously ill. We will never know just what was going through his mind as he planned and executed this unimaginable deed. He had to have been truly insane in the truest sense of the word. But was he bipolar? Read the criteria of bipolar disorder. We suffer extreme mood swings. We go though depressions that take us to the absolute pit of despair. Our manias can be delusional and we may even hear voices or lose complete touch with reality. But nowhere in the diagnostic criteria does it suggest that we can be criminally insane.

Being bipolar does not make you a mass murderer.

But now, thanks to the mass media feeding into common misconceptions and ignorance we have a new stigma hanging over us. We’re bipolar, we must be crazy. It’s hard enough to meet people and have some chance at a normal life. And now there is this added challenge to overcome.

Do not misunderstand me. I am in no way minimizing what has happened to the victims and families of such a tragic event. I’m not selfish enough to compare what I go through to the unimaginable loss that they are experiencing. To say that my problems pale by comparison would be a massive understatement. It is truly beyond compare. But in our own small way, we have become victims too. The perception of this disease has just been made a little worse. Now we are being put in the same category as a monster.

I am not a monster.

My heart goes out to all the victims of this catastrophic event. All those people gone, all those children who will never have the chance to grow up; it is such a tragedy. All the world’s tears being shed cannot lessen the loss of the potential of these lives or comfort those who have been touched. One sick man has affected us all in such of a horrible way.

It is a terror and abomination beyond understanding. For all of us.