Personally Speaking: Excerpt from “Words With My Father”
By Lukas Klessig
This personally speaking blog is an excerpt from “Words With My Father: A Bipolar Journey Through Turbulent Times“
My father was a functional manic and a despondent depressive. Each persona took a heavy toll on his life and his psyche. Mania bestowed the ability to contribute and achieve but robbed him of the satisfaction that neurotypical people enjoy from accomplishment. Depression represented a vast void. Life was an uncertain balancing act with the spectre of depression and the risk of manic exhaustion ever present.
Throughout everything, the depression never killed his spirit or ambition. The mania never sabotaged his goals or principles. He would not let them. Even when his mind betrayed him, he still wanted to and needed to accomplish things. That need and purpose spurred him on and left him intent on living as healthy and full a life as possible.
As we will see, this resilience came not just in spite of his disorder, but also because of his struggle. He was determined not to let bipolar disorder ruin his life and that determination repeatedly rescued him from doomful despair and untenable frenzy.
What Dad Knew
The story that follows ensures that Dad’s insight doesn’t leave this world with him. His need to contribute before facing diminished abilities wrought by cognitive decline from early onset dementia sparked his most profound and personal writing. Through the chronicle of his dramatic journey, his greatest desire was to help future generations navigate the world his generation had imperiled and to show those battling mental illness that they could prevail. He would not allow death or Alzheimer’s to threaten that endeavor.
The book you hold in your hands is that story along with my own reflections. My greatest desire is to share his story with people who could benefit from its wisdom while offering my own perspective on the author, my Dad. I think that you will find his journey a beautiful and provocative narrative, an entertaining meditation on the tribulations of the human condition and a call to contribute to the betterment of the world no matter what challenges you face. Dad’s example of strength despite flaws and purpose despite uncertainty have nurtured my soul. I know that these words could do the same for others. It is my obligation to share them.
I have, therefore, framed this book as a call and response. My father’s call and my response. Teacher, student. Father, son.
My father left behind so much to ponder – an overwhelming amount, actually. His full manuscript comprises hundreds of pages of memories, anecdotes and introspection and another hundred or so individual essays. Given the great breadth of this work, I have chosen to focus on the first part of his narrative, those pages that deal most directly with his early life as a student and activist when his struggle with bipolar made his life a compelling drama of trauma and tenacity.
Too many people dealing with mental illness or other major challenges simply give up. They lay down and die. They’re still living, in the most literal sense, but they succumb to the death of their potential – slowly, day by day. They lose forward momentum and their pursuit of greater meaning and purpose. My father almost died from such hopelessness. The fight to live, to thrive, can seem an impossible battle. It is not.
We all face adversity, setbacks, burdens of some sort. Without a sense of heartfelt purpose, it becomes far too easy to let difficulties define your present and future. My father understood that his existence was, and would be, maligned by bipolar disorder. But illness does not equal death and he refused to be a victim of his illness. That fortitude has inspired and guided me through my own mental illness reality.
Dad showed me that while you cannot simply wish any problem away, you can face challenges head on with the tools of ambition and purpose. These tools can be fuel for your fire, they can ignite and keep your flame burning. People are never “cured” of bipolar disorder (and most other mental illnesses). There is no pill you can take to make it disappear. Psychological therapies and lifestyle strategies can make the condition more manageable, but they are not perfect. What my father’s turbulent story reveals most clearly is, yes, the importance of treatment but, even more, the vitalness of purpose and consistent goal-seeking.
Bipolar disorder, as well as the specter of Alzheimer’s that shadowed his later years, tested my father’s sanity and taxed his mind and body. However, through it all, he accepted the hand he was dealt. He was not a victim. Tough times only made him work harder to reach his cherished goals. Recognizing the fragility of his mind only made him more undaunted in reaching them, including the completion of his manuscript. Without the very real prospect of losing his mind, his efforts to write these words for clarity, posterity and others’ benefit might have dissipated into complacency.
To be clear, he didn’t, and I don’t, glorify mental illness or belittle suffering. My father simply understood that his diagnoses (his bipolar nature, the threat of dementia) could be both a blessing and a curse. He refused to allow these afflictions to limit him, to steal his identity and intentions.
That resilience is the lesson I hope this story, as a collaboration, imparts to you as well. Serious and even grave challenges may cause you twists and turns, detours, setbacks – but what is that road but life itself? If you can retain and reinforce your purpose, if you can focus on what you want your life to mean, if you can keep your flame burning – if nothing, not even major mental illness can destroy your ambitions – you will be charting a path to fulfillment. Perhaps, to a good life with bad genes.
Like my Dad did.
