“I can remember being five years old and not understanding what was wrong with me, just thinking ‘well, I guess this is normal, I guess feeling this way is just how it’s going to be,” remarks Melanie* a former nurse and mother of three. In describing her illness she recalls moments of extreme loneliness and despair for days, weeks, and sometimes even months at a time with no real reason or cause. Officially diagnosed with Bipolar disorder in 2008, she says her lows most definitely outweigh her ups in terms of feelings.
“I usually feel the sadness part of it,” she says, though she has mentioned going through times of mania that involve staying up for days at a time with high levels of energy and motivation.
The irony of the entire illness is that Melanie is one of the friendliest and most energetic people one could ever meet. On her good days she’s the woman handing out her pocket money to the homeless, commenting on the local grocery cashier’s gorgeous hair, or striking up friendly conversation with complete strangers in the elevator. Contrary to the stigmas associated with the illness she is not some brooding, introverted individual or crazed maniac but rather the exact opposite, making her bad days especially hard to cope with.
“I don’t even feel like myself when it happens. I feel like I’m in such a rut, like I’m trapped in my mind,” she says.
Mental illnesses affect approximately 20% of Canadians, and yet it’s a disease with so much stigma attached to it that it’s a wonder how many other struggling people are out there unaccounted for. Bipolar is a mood disorder that makes individuals feel intense, prolonged emotions such as extreme depression, or bouts of mania involving euphoric feelings, extreme optimism, insomnia, increased irritability and recklessness. As someone who has personally seen the effects such a disease can have on an individual, their relationships to family and friends, and their careers, I can attest to its hardships. Mental disorders are often stressful and confusing for both the sufferer and their loved ones, especially since open, honest conversation regarding these conditions is still very much taboo. Nobody wants to complain about their problems, especially when the problems include a silent, suffocating grip on your minds ability to think, act, and communicate clearly.
Many people interpret symptoms of depression or mania as the individual simply choosing to alienate themselves, electing to avoid social functions just because they are uninterested, sleeping because they’re lazy, or crying because they’re hysterical. Many Bipolar people are seen as melodramatic or too sensitive because people do not understand the severity, given that the sickness itself is a very private, inward battle. That being said, it is important for people to understand that those with Bipolar are not only mentally ill; they also experience physical manifestations of the disease such as muscle aches, extreme nausea, exhaustion, and loss of appetite — to name a few.
To watch someone you love struggle with depression or bipolar disorder cannot be adequately articulated. To go home and hope that your loved one is awake and happy, to spend your days watching a closed bedroom door and wishing for it to open, or constantly being confused and mislead by their sudden exuberance, is something that’s hard for anyone to understand, much less describe to a society that has for so long dismissed it’s validity. There is something so self-explanatory when words like “cancer” are uttered, yet mental illness is often brushed to the wayside and undermined as something that is in the most metaphorical sense “all in your head.” And I guess that’s the problem with it — they are exactly right. It’s hard for people to sympathize with the disease that cannot be seen, especially when it is often interpreted as one that can be controlled by the sufferer at hand, if only they could just “snap out of it.”
Mental illness is something that needs to be talked about more openly. If we could see the scars etched into the skins of those inwardly suffering perhaps as a society, we would feel more inclined to open our arms and listen, support, and motivate them. At present it is far too easy to dismiss those with mental illnesses as “crazy” just because we do not have the proper discourse to describe it in any other way. If society can collectively ban together and educate themselves on the causes and warning signs, perhaps we could create a more open, honest, and empathetic society able and willing to make a difference in the lives of the sufferers and their loved ones. As Melanie candidly told me, “honestly, if it weren’t for my doctors, my family, and the help I received as a result…I’d be dead.”
*Names have been changed to preserve anonymity