The Problem With How We Treat Bipolar Disorder – NYTimes.com

After the depression is suffered and endured, one is never the same. After each episode, I come out losing a sense of my many selves. And that is a good thing.

It is a good thing because I am stripped down to the one true sense of self which is how God senses me. In His eyes, I am always his beloved child, one he has created with his own hands.

But the suffering, the agony, the confusion and turmoil depression causes is so severe, it is not rare to witness how depression breaks marriages. It destroys human life. We lose many lives because of this severe disease.

I have a bad news. There is no quick fix when it comes to Bipolar. You either learn to live with it, or control it with the help of medicinal evolution continuously progressing day by day.

But the good news is that if you overcome BP, it will be the best parent you could ever wish for. When your daily struggle with Bipolar becomes your daily struggle with your heart instead of your brain, your whole life will be a masterfully created artwork. Your life will become a prayer, and your life will pray for you.

We always have a lot to learn from the monks and the monastic life style. I think Thomas Merton could not have summed up the real problem with bipolar any better.

“If the monk were able to understand what goes on inside him, he would be able to say how well he knows that the battle is being fought in his own heart.”

-Thomas Merton, The Silent Life