I'm not sure how big a secret it ever was. It's not like I actively hid it. People who are close to me have known about my clinical depression since I was officially diagnosed four years ago. And some of those people probably knew it before the doctors ever put a label on it.
But it wasn't the first thing I mentioned to new friends or coworkers. I'm not sure anyone in my new office has any idea. Millions of Americans have dealt with serious depression, and almost everyone has moaned "I'm so depressed" at least once, whether distraught over a relationship break-up or simply the fact that Diet Crystal Pepsi went off the market (yeah, bummed me out, too).
This new wrinkle -- in the already wadded-up-in-the-bottom-of-the-hamper-linen-suit known as my mental health -- has even me freaked out.
Depression, while serious and potentially debilitating or even life-threatening, has advertising. It has a cute little cartoon bubble that bounces around on screen sighing and frowning until -tahdah- he's back to his bubbling smiley self thanks to wonder drug Zoloft. "When you know more about what's wrong, you can help make it right..."
There's no mass-market, touchy-feely, make-it-all better consumer gimmick for bipolar disorder. It's often a disease linked to or studied in conjunction with schizophrenia - the "s" word of mental illness that invokes the image of wide-eyed, sweaty, unkempt, hallucinating individuals who sit rocking and mumbling in the corner of an asylum somewhere. (Or perhaps I have watched one too many movies on Lifetime-Television-for-Women.)
There's a site on the web, NAMI.org, which is the National Alliance for Mental Illness, that has an entire section on fighting the stigma of mental illness.
I guess one of the first ways to fight the stigma is to be open about mental illness. To not be afraid to talk about it or to tell people. It's a natural human instinct to hide one's faults from another. Then again, it's not a fault. That's like saying someone who has cancer or an autoimmune disorder or suffers a heart attack has a "fault."
It is what it is. I am what I am.
But it wasn't the first thing I mentioned to new friends or coworkers. I'm not sure anyone in my new office has any idea. Millions of Americans have dealt with serious depression, and almost everyone has moaned "I'm so depressed" at least once, whether distraught over a relationship break-up or simply the fact that Diet Crystal Pepsi went off the market (yeah, bummed me out, too).
This new wrinkle -- in the already wadded-up-in-the-bottom-of-the-hamper-linen-suit known as my mental health -- has even me freaked out.
Depression, while serious and potentially debilitating or even life-threatening, has advertising. It has a cute little cartoon bubble that bounces around on screen sighing and frowning until -tahdah- he's back to his bubbling smiley self thanks to wonder drug Zoloft. "When you know more about what's wrong, you can help make it right..."
There's no mass-market, touchy-feely, make-it-all better consumer gimmick for bipolar disorder. It's often a disease linked to or studied in conjunction with schizophrenia - the "s" word of mental illness that invokes the image of wide-eyed, sweaty, unkempt, hallucinating individuals who sit rocking and mumbling in the corner of an asylum somewhere. (Or perhaps I have watched one too many movies on Lifetime-Television-for-Women.)
There's a site on the web, NAMI.org, which is the National Alliance for Mental Illness, that has an entire section on fighting the stigma of mental illness.
I guess one of the first ways to fight the stigma is to be open about mental illness. To not be afraid to talk about it or to tell people. It's a natural human instinct to hide one's faults from another. Then again, it's not a fault. That's like saying someone who has cancer or an autoimmune disorder or suffers a heart attack has a "fault."
It is what it is. I am what I am.
Comments
I'm learning more and more how common this kind of thing is. I just found out last Friday that a very good friend of mine takes anti-depresant drugs -- and he's someone who always seems to be in a good mood.
Good luck and please let us know if there's any way we can help.