Living with Bi-Polar, a review of Stephen Fry’s documentary, and personal experiences Part 2

I’ll skip a lot of specifics about my family. I am somewhat comfortable talking about my own issues, but theirs are for them to tell. I will attempt to only give generalities, and might change a slight fact not to obscure the truth, but to protect privacy as best I can.

One simple truth is that I felt near constant loneliness as a child, well into my teens. This drama is familiar for many people of that age, but the cycling up and down of mania and depression worsened it for me. You see, as a child, when your experiencing a manic episode, you’re just “full of energy”, and when you’re depressed, you’re just “being moody” or “going through a phase”. Now, one could say, “Come on now Corey, if you really were that bad, someone would have noticed, right?” Well, to be honest , yes. Someone would have noticed and SHOULD have noticed, but there was one little problem; too many people.

“Wait, what? I thought you were alone, how can that be with too many people?” I shall now endeavor to explain. You see with the absence of my father, my mother had to work a full-time job to make ends meet. On top of that she went back to school to get a teaching degree. (I would like to make note that I do not resent my mother going back to school. On the contrary, I am proud that she did so. I only mention it to frame the reasons for absence and to frame the next issue.) With so little time to spare, my mother employed the help of my father’s parents and a circle of parents with kids in my grade to watch my brother and I.

My grandparents were great, and I especially had an extra bond with my grandfather, (as did my brother), since he was the only real father-like figure we had to look up to. He would be the person who would frequently pick us kids up and ferry us home to wait for my mother. We would get shipped all over. Some weeks we would ride the school bus home to person (A’s) house. Sometimes we would go to person (B’s) house for a couple days, then back to (A’s) house for the rest of the week. Sometimes we would get dropped off at person (C’s) house because fuck (A) and (B).
(Ok, that last bit was a touch of humor; A and B were fine. As a kid you don’t know why you’re at A. B or C’s place. You just take your orders from the commander, [mom], and deploy where you’re told.)
I hope you’re beginning to see the picture. I wasn’t so much alone, as in a constant state of flux. Nobody was really ever around long enough to see my behavior long-term to have even a chance of noticing what was wrong with me. When all of the clues are spread out over 10 players who don’t know they’re playing; no one gets the correct answer of “It was Professor Plum, on the bridge of the Space Battleship Yamato, with a bottle of astro-glide…” Yep, most were clueless, or just too distracted.

I’ll end this section with a sort of “disclaimer” if you will. I am not an “I blame blah-blah-blah for all my issues” person. Again, I’m relating cause and effect. The people who volunteered to watch my brother and I were all wonderful people for the most part. I am glad to this day that they were willing to allow a couple entropy machines into their lives and disrupt their daily schedules.  They allowed this disruption for little more reward than the thanks of a grateful parent. I could not then, nor now, have expected any of them to have seen me as more than a smart kid that was hyper and moody. How could they? They had lives going on and decided to be charitable enough sharing their homes and food with us. Hell, I have a hard time now as an adult keeping track of all the things that need done at my home with just Kim and the dogs, and I see them all day long. Unless one of those parents that watched me was a multitasking deity, they would have had zero chance at observing me enough to see patterns or cause-and-effect behavior scenarios. Hells, I’m just glad that none of them became alcoholics after dealing with us kids.

TL/DR Before I get to the thanking portion, the quick take away is that bi-polar is hard to diagnose correctly. Don’t be a helicopter parent, but don’t ignore any child’s behavior if you think there is reason for concern. True, even the most diplomatic overtures can quickly escalate into WWIII when talking to other parents about kids’ behaviors. But to be honest people, we need to be a little less polite, and a bit more involved if we are going to start catching these types of diseases early.