The Impact of Mental Illness on Intimacy

The biggest struggle of my life has been with mental illness. The second biggest struggle has been with intimacy. This is not a coincidence.

Because I’ve had bipolar disorder since childhood, I’ve spent most of my life hiding integral parts of myself from the world, namely, my intense and unpredictable mood swings. I’ve considered them a shameful, almost sinful secret that would certainly result in social and professional ostracism if anyone ever found out the truth. So I’ve done my damnedest to keep them out of sight from others. As a result, I've lived in a state of secrecy for as far back as I can remember.

Secrecy can burn your soul to a crisp.

It took a monumental effort to hide my true self. When I was a child, it meant incessant overachieving, so that no one would ever think to look behind all those A-pluses. Who would have guessed that the top student in the class nearly committed suicide over a homework assignment in first grade? Or that the relentlessly smiling cheerleader, desperate to self-medicate her depressions, was a blackout drinker from the age of 16?

Nobody knew. I was voted most likely to succeed when I should have been voted most likely to achieve an untimely death.

Much as I didn’t want to become a lawyer, it turned out to be a savvy decision in terms of hiding—there’s a formality to the profession that suited me just fine. It meant I didn’t have to get too close to the people I worked with; I could maintain a remote demeanor, which was often praised in performance reviews. People called me poised when, in fact, I was simply too afraid to be seen in all my messy truth.

Relationships have been the biggest test of my ability to hide. Sometimes, it meant literally disappearing from sight—not answering messages for weeks at a time, ignoring persistent knocks at the door, pretending to be sick, or just not giving any excuse at all. Not surprisingly, many people were confounded by my here-and-gone behavior and chose not to engage with me further. But for some reason that still mystifies me, a precious few stuck it out despite their bewilderment.

Then, in 2008, my first book, Manic: A Memoir, hit the New York Times bestseller list…and suddenly I was no longer a cipher to anyone, especially to those who had known me before. People I hadn’t heard from in ages came calling in droves, and the message was always the same: “I knew there was something up with you, but I didn’t know what it was. Why didn’t you just tell me?”

I didn’t tell you because mental illness still carried a formidable stigma back then, that I was too afraid to face. I didn’t tell you because my habit of hiding had become a way of life. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know then the all-important wisdom I know now: that you are only as sick as your secrets.

To all those people I mystified, and all those people I lied to, I want to say I’m sorry. I didn’t trust you with my truth because I didn’t trust myself. An apology may not be enough to wipe out decades of deception, but self-compassion has allowed me to forgive myself as well—because the world back then was a miasma of ignorance, which is only beginning to clear.

The ultimate irony is that once I disclosed my mental illness so publicly, I was flooded by a tremendous wave of love and appreciation from a great many people. There has been little to no downside to my disclosure, despite my lifelong fears. Instead, I’ve given others the opportunity to demonstrate their compassion and their willingness to learn and understand. By coming out of hiding, I’ve benefitted not only myself, but all those who want to show their support for mental illness.

I think the COVID crisis has, at last, made people realize that depression, anxiety, and the like are more common than ever imagined; or perhaps the time has simply come for an evolution of awareness. Whatever the reason, I firmly believe that as more and more people recognize that mental illness is neither shameful nor a sin, the history of intimacy will undergo a radical change. We who were silent can finally speak; we who were hidden will finally make ourselves known.