Bi-polar.
Or Manic-Depression.
Catholic Mom of 10 has an excellent post on the subject, detailing both a description of the disorder as well as the symptoms. The subject interests me because I suspect a couple members of my family have suffered from the disorder, such as my crazy mother and my brother who died of complications associated with alcoholism. (Their illness may explain my weird sense of humor.) Neither had been diagnosed with the illness, yet both exhibited manifest symptoms of the disorder. And both my mother and brother self-medicated with alcohol and other things.
In addition, over the years I have worked with several people who had been diagnosed with manic-depressive disorder. I’ve also known a couple of nuns with the problem. All of these people have found treatment and live normal, functional lives, stabilized by medication. I know it is an illness accompanied by great suffering, with extreme mood swings - hence the term, bi-polar.
Most of the people I’ve known are incredibly talented and highly intelligent. Their suffering seems to have provided them with keen insights into human behavior, and as I always say, they were a hoot to be around when they were going into mania, or, as in the case of one friend, when she over-medicated. (Another trait is that they never share their drugs!) However, sometimes the medication produces side effects that are no fun at all.
Because I’ve lived and worked closely with people suffering from mental illness, I have a deeper sympathy for all they suffer. I often wonder if clinical depression, or bi-polar disorder may not be an underlying factor in many people’s alcoholism, drug addiction, even sexual addiction? Which is another reason we ought not to be too severe in our judgement regarding people who exhibit such behaviors. Although that can be difficult to remember if their behaviors somehow adversely affects ourself.
Mental illness and sanctity are not opposed to one another, as can be demonstrated by the lives of some saints. St. Benedict Joseph Labre is considered by some to have suffered from mental illness, and it seems probable that a few of the saints in the Eastern Church have as well, especially those referred to as “Fools for Christ“. The father of St. Therese, Louis Martin also suffered from mental illness towards the end of his life. Some biographers have suggested that Therese herself had some form of it as a child after her mother died and prior to her ‘conversion’ - during her ‘mysterious illness’.
It has been my experience in dealing with friends or employees who have this disorder, that it is important to have the attitude that mental illness is just an illness, much like any other chronic physical illness. (If a person is being treated for it - if they are not, Jackie’s post has some suggestions for what a person can do to help.) Sometimes an employee needs time off from work during episodic events, much as in the case of a person suffering from MS or similar physical illness. I think it is important to have compassion and empathy for the person, without condescending into pity. It is also important to not try and ‘fix them’ by saying stupid things like, “Snap out of it,” or “Get a grip!”
I have found that like all of us, these people need to be treated no differently than any other healthy person, or person with a physical condition. There is still such a stigma associated with mental illness, which I believe is unfair.
After all, mental illness could simply be one chemical imbalance away for any of us.
[Icon: Bl. Xenia of St. Petersburg.]
