Bipolar disorder – seeking answers in faded photos. Michael Georgy

Whenever I visit the United States, I open a big plastic box in my parents’ living room. Inside are photographs dating back to the 1960s.

Black and whites of my parents, now each 90, at a beach in Alexandria where they first met. Images of my family in the United States after we turned our backs on the Egypt of military strongman Gamal Abdel Nasser.

I hold up one image after another, seeking clues in the faces of relatives – grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, parents.

Which one of them, like me, battles a chronic mental illness called bipolar disorder, or manic depression, that can be passed down from one generation to the next?

Bipolar disorder is simply a chemical imbalance in the brain. But it distorts your perception of reality. A life-long roller coaster ride that unleashes creativity and boundless energy one day and breaks you the next. You just never know.

Days isolating yourself under your blanket. Tormented by the anxiety and paranoid thoughts that often accompany depression. Strong sleeping pills make the problem worse. You wake up with a panic attack.

A few days later life is so amazing! All options are open.

Do I need another pair of shoes from that expensive store in the mall? Not at all. Yet ‘here is my credit card,’ I say with a smile.

Do I have the energy to pursue another story even though I haven’t slept for over 48 hours because of mania? Absolutely.

Don’t get me wrong. It has made me a strong person. It is part of who I am. I would have it no other way. Bipolar disorder affects one percent of the population and poses the highest suicide risk of any mental illness.

So, I stare into the eyes of relatives in those photos. Bipolar eyes are sad, heavy, lifeless. Sparkling and engaging when up.

Bringing it under control requires medication, years of therapy, the right dosage of exercise, proper sleep. Most of all mustering up the courage to say I NEED HELP in a world where the mentally ill can face deep stigma.

I am lucky. My loved ones, friends and colleagues at Reuters have stood by me, especially during some really dark days, when I was close to giving up. I am forever grateful.

We bipolar people, after all, are hard work – up or down. Exhausting. Unpredictable. Often anti-social, distracted. Irrational. Reckless. Self-obsessed because we are trapped in our minds.

The possibility of passing bipolar disorder down to my two sons fills me with despair every time I run their photographs through my fingers. I don’t think I could forgive myself.

Four years ago, I spent six weeks in a London mental hospital.

It was the first time I met another bipolar person. Nearly daily Electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) for depression failed to get a smile out of her.

The mother of one of my sons was visiting London with him at the time. “Shall I send him over to visit you?” she kindly asked.

I was thrilled. “Yes, just tell him I injured my back,” I said.

He arrived with that sweet smile and a hug, at 16 years of age.

He looked around nervously at the manic depressives. The paranoid. The schizophrenics. A tormented Saudi man who was so terrified of telling his conservative parents that he was gay that he ended up in the mental hospital.

“Dad, this does not look like a hospital for people with back issues,” my son said. It was the first time I laughed in weeks.

I told him the truth.

“Don’t stress about work,” he would often say to me in the years after that visit, knowing my downward spirals were triggered by an irrational fear of failure at work.

I broke down after recently learning he has been diagnosed with a mild form of depression. Therapists say it could deteriorate into bipolar disorder without proper treatment.

I want to reach out to anyone in my family who has that same gene that makes life so interesting despite the drawbacks – from those who may be in those worn-out photographs in the plastic box, to the new generation.

In fact, to anyone who faces the daily challenge of mental illness.

It’s time to walk proud together right through that cement wall of stigma – hopefully at a moderate pace.

Michael Georgy is special correspondent, Middle East. He has covered just about every conflict in the region for the last 22 years. Mike was Cairo bureau chief from 2012 for three years. Before that he served as Pakistan and Afghanistan bureau chief and worked in Southern Africa. 

This blog post first circulated internally on Feb. 13, 2019.

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