Mental Health Challenges

Few of us seem to care about the matter until the emergency is inside our own home but it’s probably a safe bet that there lurks some sort of mental illness – schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or acute depression – among each of our extended families or friends.

The darkness can be cloaked in silence. The very phenomenon repels intrusion as if a fine mist of shame envelops the private interior. The sufferer may refuse treatment. The parent is but a helpless witness to the child’s descent into, say, severe anxiety. The ultimate tragedy occurs when the final articulation is suicide – as it was with the son of Jim Martin, the author of our discussion piece (click: Commentary, Search For Health Care Treatment).

Jim will join our session as lead participant as he himself lives with bipolar disorder, a mental health condition characterized by extreme mood swings from soaring highs to depressive lows. There, he said it. He didn’t happen to choose the condition but he has chosen to share it with us. That is his gift. His courage demonstrates that life is more than a spectator sport.

We may, in fact, be quite taken by a condition which seems to have bestowed a kind of preternatural focus, energy, and attention – in Jim’s case, just a sampling of his resume includes graduating first in his law school class, esteemed clerkships, noteworthy executive positions and board affiliations, and newspaper columnist. Oh, by the way, Jim has run forty-nine marathons.

Jim also reports on life from the dark side of the moon in the way introspection might itself be additive to an examined life – with its possible lessons about empathy, heightened appreciation for the small moments of joy, and just living in the moment. It’s no wonder Jim’s a writer, as Anne Morrow (wife of Charles Lindbergh) once observed that writing is more important than living for it is being conscious of living.

May Jim’s gift of sharing not be in vain. His hope is that it might break down some of the stigma surrounding mental disorders, themselves medical conditions often amenable to treatment and support, thereby lighting the path for others otherwise lost in the darkness. This is a golden opportunity for Highland to prove it is more than a community in name only.