Thank Goodness, I Have Bipolar!

BY SARAH CALLENDER

For the first forty years of my life, I was deeply uncomfortable with people who had a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. I knew no one who had it, and I didn’t want to know anyone who had it. People with bipolar disorder were unstable, and instability made me uncomfortable. People with bipolar disorder scared me.

Yes, I knew and accepted that I had postpartum depression. That was fine. Postpartum depression was temporary. Well OK, when I learned it wasn’t so temporary after all, that it was, in fact, major chronic depression, I accepted that too.

While not ideal, a diagnosis of depression wasn’t scary. Not too scary. After all, I was a writer. Most writers had depression, or alcoholism, or some other inner turmoil that proved they understood profound suffering.

Over the years though, I came to realize that I couldn’t stay on top of the depression with medication. And then there were those times when I felt great. Really great. Super great! Times when I didn’t need sleep. When I was wonderfully funny and brilliant, definitely the life of any and every fiesta. When I wrote and wrote and wrote like crazy.

Still, people with bipolar disorder scared me.

The other thing that scared me? How sometimes, during these lovely breaks from depression, I would say, write or do things that seemed perfectly appropriate at the time. Only to find out later they required an apology from me, perhaps even some rebuilding of trust. I hated this, the result of those feeling-great periods. It was embarrassing. Even more important, it wasn’t me.

I shared these realizations and facts with my psychiatrist, and he and I explored what I had done—and how I had felt—during these times of feeling too great. We arrived at the idea that I might have a mood disorder. One that might, in fact, be called bipolar 2 disorder. The irony and the comedy was not lost on me.

This time, though, I wasn’t scared. Instead of feeling frightened, I felt relief.

Suddenly, my behavior made sense. And I realized those years of fearing people with bipolar was likely the subconscious fear that I might be one of them. Sometimes our brains know more than we think they know.

When my husband got home from work and our tweens were in the other room, I shared the news.

“So,” I said, “Dr. J. and I think I have bipolar.”

“Huh,” my husband said. “OK.” And then he gave me a hug.

I had known he would have a compassionate, calm, cool-headed reaction, that he’d take it in stride, acting as if I had told him that I merely had the flu.

I also knew his reaction was not a typical response to news like this, that when I called Erica, my dearest friend, to let her know about the new diagnosis, I would get a far different reaction.

Over the phone, Erica was flustered and edgy. She told me the diagnosis was a mistake, a misunderstanding. Then she created a silly reason about why she had to get off the phone.

I knew she was scared of people with bipolar. And I knew she was worried about me.

When the phone rang less than an hour later, I smiled. I knew she’d call back.

Erica apologized, telling me she was just scared and worried. I reminded her that she was also worried when she found I had been diagnosed with depression, and it didn’t hurt our friendship. We both agreed that I wasn’t any different than I had been yesterday. No different than I had been over the three decades she had known me. The only difference was now, I had more information about how to avoid situations for which I would later have to apologize. I had the opportunity to take better care of myself.

These days, I take an antidepressant and a mood stabilizer. I take naps. When I feel depression lurking or mania bubbling, I take it easy and pray and meditate and rely on my faith and my loved ones. I have learned to balance work and health, in part by creating an environment where I can work from home.

I have a number system where I can easily rate my level of depression. Instead of struggling to describe how I am feeling when it’s nearly impossible to string even three words together, I can simply say, “Today I’m a two.” My husband and my friend, Erica, know exactly what “a two” means.

I also talk about my diagnosis using particular verbs: I have bipolar 2 disorder (not I am bipolar). I have a mental health condition (not I am mentally ill). I focus on what I know to be true: that the struggle to live with and manage a mental health condition gives me empathy for others. That I have great sensitivity. That even on medication—in fact, especially on medication—I get to feel the world deeply and be my best self. I get to thrive. And the amazing thing? People don’t seem scared of me.

Erica told me once that I—and others like me—are superheroes. “Someday,” she said, “we’re going to realize that people with mental health issues have the best brains of all. And then everyone will want to have a mental illness.”

I laughed when she said that. Part of me thinks it’s crazy that someone would wish for my brain.

But also I know she’s right. It’s hard to see the gifts that often come with a mental health condition, but they are there: creativity, sensitivity, self-awareness, and compassion for other peoples’ inner lives. Traits and gifts that are absolutely the opposite of scary.