I'm not weighing in on this

As you may have noticed I do my best to stay out of the news, so this will be the last mention of Charlie Sheen. I feel for the man. Whether it's addiction, bipolar, or just arrogance, the man has ruined a lot of his life and embarrassed himself completely. Sure, the Sheen Quote Generator going around is hilarious (I have tiger blood?) but it's sad all the same.

Anyway, Liz Spikol over at the Philadelphia Magazine writes about how there are some armchair (not hyphenated) diagnosis going down, and that's harmful for the rest of us.

"But it’s damaging to those of us who fight every day to educate people, to retool their expectations, to battle against the stigma that mental illness imposes. People who deal with mania are assumed by many to be unpredictable people with checkered lives, whose best hope is a degraded hardscrabble survival and then an early death."

If people look at Sheen and others as examples of people with bipolar, how will any of us ever be able to come out of the closet? Bosses will imagine we're unpredictable and could damage the reps of our companies. Friends and family will think they have to watch out for us quitting our jobs and dating supermodels. Wait, maybe not that part, but you know what I mean. Having a breakdown in public does no one any good. Just look at what bald-headed Britney Spears went through when she had a manic episode a few years back.

I thank God I can fall apart out of the public eye.