Land of Confusion

Freshman English major, 19.

Grandfather had bipolar disorder; this narrative describes some of my thoughts and feelings about what was happening.

My grandfather was diagnosed with manic depressive disorder when I was 12. I loved my grandpa, but after his diagnosis I found it hard to see him: he was most of the time in a depressive stupor, one that would leave him in bed for days on end with a thousand-mile stare or else lying prone in his living room, but every so often he would have fits of mania. My family said they preferred the depression to the mania, so that at least he didn’t require constant attention. I remember listening to them, dumbfounded, as they washed their hands of any humanity left in him. They thought of him more as a thing that had to be maintained than as a person. I preferred the mania when I was with him – it animated him, at least, and made me feel like he was a real person again. The depression closed him off.

Everything was made worse by all the misunderstanding. Bipolar disorder was something even my grandfather wouldn’t have believed. My parents and aunts and uncles thought he was just losing his mind, so they put him in a nursing home unequipped to handle him. He lived there for 3 years before he died. My uncle skipped the funeral. Nobody had understood that he wasn’t stark mad. Towards the end I’d go and visit him alone, although it wasn’t usually pleasant. He was hazy most of the time because of his drugs. I felt guilty, knowing that there was a lot wrong with him and doing nothing; but I didn’t know what there was to be done. I’d like to say that that doesn’t happen all over the world, all the time, but it probably does; and I’d like it if that didn’t happen so much.

If anything, I hope that this campaign raises awareness about mental health issues: what they are, how they manifest, and how to cope with them. One of the best things one can do is to know the difference between depression and depression; anxiety and anxiety; panic attacks and panic attacks; all of the words we use colloquially to express our mental state are derived from serious disorders, and that in turn makes those disorders seem less powerful. To know is to have power, and that is of great consequence in this matter.