Personal Stories

Stuart explains the impact of his bipolar disorder on friendships. Now that his symptoms are managed, Stuart finds that he’s enjoying life. Undiagnosed for decades, Greg’s bipolar disorder devastated his marriage. Thanks to treatment, Stuart feels his life is now just like anyone else’s.

Leslie and Greg talk about their experiences with hypomania. Greg’s bipolar journey has led him to a new career: helping others with the condition. Leslie describes how bipolar disorder affected her relationships. As much as he wanted his friends’ help, Stuart kept pushing them away.

Nell Casey:

Nell Casey, editor of the book Unholy Ghost, was only 16 years old when her sister Maud was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Eleven years later, Maud stopped taking her medicine. After a brief hospitalization for mania, Maud fell into a 4-month depressive episode.

During this time, Nell and her mother became Maud's primary caregivers. Nell threw her energy into this. She responded to hospital crises. She took care of Maud's job and apartment. She helped Maud through the trials of finding the medicines that worked for her.

Eventually Maud recovered. However, after Maud stabilized, Nell experienced an aftermath of problems. She had anxiety, extreme hypochondria, weight loss, and headaches for several months. Nell describes the difficulties and emotions of caregiving. She also describes the incredible triumph of her sister's recovery.

Missy, Bill, and Katherine:

Although Missy struggled with bouts of depression since childhood, she resisted taking medicine. She finally sought treatment in order to be well for her infant daughter, Katherine. At first medicine helped, but then Missy became manic and was hospitalized.

She continued to suffer for years, until her diagnosis was changed to bipolar disorder. To help Missy, Bill learned as much as he could about depression. Over time, however, Bill developed a tic from stress. Bill and Missy drifted apart.

Now, Missy is on new medicine and is doing well. With couples counseling and the support of their church and family, Bill and Missy are united and better than ever.

Stuart:

“I think that, all along the way I wanted people to help me, but I just wouldn’t let them. There was a fear of loss somehow, I think... I was just absolutely afraid to reach out to people, and to tell them what was going on, how I could use their help, how they could affect my life.

"I'm very well-educated about bipolar disorder now, and I have great relationships with friends. I enjoy being around people, which is completely different than before. That's the major difference in my life, I think. It's that life is enjoyable. There are a few times of some ups and downs once in a while, but they're very infrequent.

"I'm able to function at pretty much the same level as all of my peers. My work life is great. My home life is great. I don't have the avoidance issues that I've had before. I don't spend a dozen hours a day in bed. I don't spend four hours a day or 4 to 5 days in a row awake and shopping and buying cars on credit cards and doing stupid things like that, which come from the mania.

"I can save and, you know, have goals like buying a house and, you know, just anything that everybody else is doing, I can do as well. On the whole, my life I think is just like anybody else's. I'm very successful now at what I do. I advocate for other people like me."

Leslie:

“I don’t get mania, but I do get hypomania... I would say inappropriate things; sometimes rude, sometimes just obnoxious.

"I have difficulty forming new relationships with people, whether romantic or just friendships. Because there's always the question of, when do you tell somebody, or if you tell somebody about this — and worries that I may do something inappropriate, or say something inappropriate, and not have it be understood."

Greg:

"My illness affected my marriage very severely, because living with me was like living with either someone who was just on top of the world, tremendous musician, actor — and then months of complete depression, not being able to work, not being able to want to do anything, go anywhere, see anybody. My partner was just devastated, couldn't understand that at all. And so the marriage was disintegrated because, I think, of my illness.

"I was exhausted because, with the depression, to keep alive is very exhausting, and with hypomania, which not only can manifest as good times, it can be also manifest as anger or irritability.

"So, then you're irritable in the store. You're irritable with the cashier. You're irritable with the subway conductor. You're irritable with everybody, and it turns into anger, and it's very destructive. And that's what I had for 25 years — hypomania, mostly manifested as anger irritability.

"I feel good about myself on the one hand, and on the other hand, I feel it's happened so late for me — that I got treatment, diagnosed, and I'm on a path of self-knowledge, that I have an illness, that I can accept that I have a mental illness. To be able to say that for me, and for a lot of people, is a tremendous accomplishment.

"The acceptance of the illness for me is a tremendous thing. I've been in entertainment and computer science for my whole life and I decided it's time for something new. Let's help people with bipolar illness. So I'm going back to school and I'm going into training for peer-to-peer counseling, and then going further into training on psychotherapy."

Next: Family and Friends