Dear Daddy, I'm Crazy: Confessions From a New Bipolar

During my senior year at Yale, I had what I now consider a manic episode. I'd gotten 2-4 hours of sleep for nights in a row and I was still flying high. I was in a terrific mood and got lots of work done on my senior thesis and a play I was producing. I felt invigorated! Then, one night, I crashed. I couldn't sleep. One night, I was so tired I cried and spent a few weeks just feeling "off". I never mentioned it to anyone, least of all my Dad, still reeling from my Mom’s death a year before.

Depressive Episodes Continued in My Early 20's

After college, I had a depressive episode. It started with typical symptoms: social withdrawal, sadness, lack of motivation. One day, I couldn't get out of bed. I told my job that I was taking some time off and I spent a few months watching TV in bed and doing crossword puzzles – the only thing that made me happy. Though I lived with my Dad at the time, my family never knew what happened to me. Eventually, I “cheered up” and Dad convinced me that my job had made me miserable. Obediently, I got a new one and everything was fine. Until the next time. Instead of crosswords, Dad bought me a bowling ball and took me bowling to cheer me up.

For years, I believed my “episodes” were situational: my mother died; I went through a bad break-up; I gained 40 pounds. My excuses made sense until I began therapy and was diagnosed with dysthymia during business school. Antidepressants helped everything. I had energy, I could concentrate on my work, and I was just happy. But I still didn’t tell my Dad. I kept my “secret” for a few more years, until crippling anxiety and depression forced me into an outpatient mental facility. Then I had to come clean.

An Adult Child's Mental Illness is Difficult for Parents

The thing is, even after an outpatient program, an inpatient stay, various medications, and a few conversations with my therapist, my Dad still doesn’t really understand that I have a mental illness. I think he feels guilty, like something he did made me this way but he can’t fix it; he always wants to fix things that are bad for me. Also, my Dad knew me for more than 35 years before I found the best definition – and the best treatment – for my mental illness. That’s 35 years of being “good daughter”, “smart”, and “successful”. None of those labels peacefully coexist with “bipolar”, at least for most people. And I believe squaring a lifelong image of me - wrapped up in hopes and dreams and some selfish wishes - is what's most difficult for my father to comprehend. Somehow, the life he hoped I'd have, an easy one filled with happiness and joy, has been permanently derailed because of my disease.

I don't see it that way. I see the strength it takes to strive for a great life in spite of living with bipolar. And I feel relief at finally finding a way to manage my disease and stay healthy and happy for 3 years amidst periods of turmoil. Someday, I believe that Papa Lloyd will really get it.

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