There’s not a lot of anything going on here today, and not much going on in my mind. I was amused by a discussion last night, though. I was talking about how I blog daily about bipolar to the gal who runs our Stitch ‘n Bitch, and how it’s so much easier to be openly Bipolar here. Oh sure, there’s still misunderstandings about what it means to be mentally unwell, but when we have the likes of Stephen Fry openly talking about his life with bipolar, it makes it easier for the average Brit to appreciate that we’re just as human as anyone else. That’s a nice thing, to feel free to be oneself even with the scruffy baggage that is a mental illness!

It also reminds me that I’m not going to have a fun time trying to share my diagnosis with my family state-side. I’m already the odd duck enough (I’m from my mother’s first marriage, and my (step)father’s sister’s children had no qualms rubbing that in my face all our lives), so adding that atop my so-called Satanism and lesbianism (’cause y’know, that’s what they decided I was) is going to be fuuuuuuun. There’s the off chance that it will be treated decently because my father’s mother’s new husband also has Bipolar… but I suspect that I would just invite more harassment and verbal/emotional assault.  I’m not even sure all my siblings know of my diagnosis, and I’m almost completely sure they are unaware of my suicide attempt a few months back because I don’t think any of them actually come around these parts. Which is… sort of a relief, I guess. I would like for them to know, but as the default modus operandi in our growing up home is that I’m not permitted to have feelings or emotions (or that any I have are wrong and need to be shoved away), it’s much healthier for me to operate outside of that frame of reference.

Otherwise, I’m just thinking about handedness. I’m left-handed, and defy all the stereotypes – I have lovely handwriting, no stutter, and can speak several languages to varying degrees of fluency. It amazed me to realize that left-handed people were ‘supposed’ to have such problems; after years in art school and years amongst linguists in the military, I found that the percentage of lefties was closer to 30% on those fields. I’ve never felt discriminated against because of my handedness, and find the concept rather unimaginable. I still laugh at the unusabI left-handed scissors, and the ‘fact’ that I should be completely unable to use normal scissors (Which I can. Left handed.), and roll my eyes at claims that we’re all doomed to being lost and confused because it’s a right-handed world.

And though it’s early days yet, it seems like my daughter is likely to follow in my footsteps, and those of her paternal grandfather. I do my best to encourage her to play with both hands (to include me attempting to play and doodle right-handed!), but she of her own accord has continued to express a left preference. She’s of an age where that might be her real preference, and that would excite me. I have hopes she’ll express an interest in the yarnly crafts, and well… no idea if I could teach crochet right-handed. I can barely chain two together because it is very awkward and straining on my hand to hold the yarn to tension. Though if she were right-handed, her grandmother and father could teach her the rudiments. Really, we don’t care which way it goes as long as she feels confident in her abilities to do things, ’cause that IS the main important thing.

<3