Bipolar: Learning to Love

I think I have gained some insight on bipolar, a mental disease that so many live with. I have been married to it for over 45 years. My wife’s father suffered with it, although, being a pastor, he hid it well. His mother spent her life plagued with it as well, and tried to commit suicide.  And now two of our children have inherited it, big time – a son and a daughter. 

I am not a medical expert, but I do know that bipolar is a disease, much on par with any other disease, like cancer, arthritis, dementia. It is a disease in the brain, not in the heart, the lungs, or the joints.  I know that medical treatment for mental diseases is relatively new, and still developing. Drug treatment (anti-depressants and mood stabilizers) can help diminish the depression and manic episodes, leveling off the highs and lows a bit. But drugs do not cure the disease. It’s not like chemotherapy or a hip replacement. I also know that it is often very difficult for the severely depressed bipolar person to get medical help. To be taken serious and go through all the referrals is often more that the lost soul can endure, so they give up. Or they hide it, even from a doctor, not wanting to admit how bad their life and symptoms really are. Many turn to self-medication – alcohol or meth, creating a dual diagnosis. Especially men. Men tend to think that they are their own problem, that they can and must push through, muster up the self-will to get out of bed and go to work, exist amicably in the family while everything around them is falling apart.

One woman writer told her story of living with a husband with depression. He was an intrepid world traveler as an editor for a major publication. But when the darkness came, he attempted to cope with it through alcohol. He became adept at hiding just how bad it was. Depression slowly changed his personality, as alcohol addiction began to threaten his health. They tried AA, Al-non, and several respected rehab centers. Loving and living with someone suffering with depression and alcoholism eventually becomes chaotic. Only those close can help and encourage as emotional and financial devastation take their toll. Others looked on from afar, assuming and judging, wondering why such a great life could turn this bad. Truth is, depression is a master of disguise. Some said to her that if he only had more willpower, he could overcome it all. Funny thing is, no one blames the person suffering from dementia for losing his mind. She finally lost her husband to suicide. Tragic, but yet some relief. She loved him to the end, but she had lost him years earlier.

I have many friends and acquaintances that have been touched by bipolar disease and depression. Let me share a few stories. One good friend, a middle-aged man, has struggled with bipolar for years. He lost his first marriage, ending in an angry confrontation with police and some time in prison. He now lives with his parents, cannot keep a job, and had a girlfriend who told him he needs to learn to be happy. But he refuses to take prescription drugs to help. A typical male response. Another good friend has a daughter who was a state champion athlete. She married a really nice young man that everyone adored. After a few years his darkness came on. He could not get out of bed to go to work. He lost all ambition, and then began drinking heavily. His wife eventually came to the conclusion that she was going to have to be a one-parent family. Several people I know gave up on being married to a wife with bipolar depression. They wanted a happy life of their own and could not put up with the burden. One of those wives has been destitute her whole life, not able to work or give love to her children, and barely able to cope.

My wife, Carol, was a cheerleader in high school, and the homecoming queen. She was cute, beautiful, athletic, energetic, photogenic, and hardworking. She became a nurse and worked in med-evac and in a neonatal intensive care nursery. All the while she was very supportive of me as I worked on a graduate degree in theology. About the time we had our first child, though, the darkness settled in. The disease that had come down the family line began to manifest with severe depression. (It was not until some thirty years later that the manic episodes began to manifest and become problematic.) Even with depression she still managed to raise six children – packing lunches, running taxi, washing clothes, and keeping a tidy home. She continued working as a nurse her whole life, mostly just half-time. But there were spells where she spent days in bed, unable to function. She willed herself to go to work, but doing so with such great depression took a toll and she needed a couple medical leaves of absence and early retirement to make it through. I have to confess that I was not the most understanding, loving, and supportive husband that I needed to be.  It took me years to understand her disease and how to lovingly help and support her. Now we have learned how to ride out the high and lows, and enjoy the life God has given us to share together. I now call her “super-grandma”. And she’s still beautiful, I might add.

Most people do not even know she suffers with bipolar. We tell only a few close friends. I think that even our own children don’t fully understand it, nor how it afflicts their brother and sister. Most people don’t understand it, and in fact most are at a total loss how to be encouraging or supportive. My wife was in a women’s group at church until one day they got on a tangent talking about women with bipolar and how crazy and unreliable they are. She sat there in silence, listening to all their ignorant judgment. She never went back.

People with bipolar and mental diseases used to be kept in an institution, locked in a back bedroom, or otherwise ostracized from “normal” society. Today, with medications, most try to be a functional part of family and society. How will we engage them? With blame or impatience? Avoidance or disgust? Or are we willing to learn how to love and encourage those who are depressed and addicted, who have been given a lot in life, not of their own choosing, a disease which is extremely overbearing and debilitating? God loves each one, dearly, and we should, too.