My last official act as a teacher before retiring was to attend one last commencement ceremony. A popular teacher who had been out all year battling cancer spoke to the graduating class. Upon being introduced, he was received with a standing ovation. I stood. I then sat and admired his speech. I got a little tearful. And then I wondered.
Why don’t bipolar survivors get standing ovations?
Loneliness is deadly. Quite literally. And I am alone a lot. And lonely even more.
I was a physically and socially awkward kid from the beginning. But not as awkward, in retrospect, as my self image told me to be. As I got old and fat, I wished that I hadn’t been as shy and unconfident as I had been.
In 1971, a defense analyst named Daniel Ellsberg leaked a top secret document critical of the Vietnam War to the New York Times. This prompted men on Nixon’s payroll to break in and search Ellsberg’s file in his psychiatrist’s office in order to find anything embarrassing or discrediting.
Prominent psychiatrist Jan Fawcett has instructed spouses of those in manic episodes to “close the bank account and wait it out.” I wish I could have had someone to close my bank account.
