When Bipolar Disorder Takes Another Life, The Stigma Should Be What Dies Next

 

Image courtesy Unsplash.Com - work of Paolo Nicolello

Robert Carradine died by suicide today after a long fight with bipolar disorder. The news hit me harder than I expected. Not because I knew him personally, but because I know the illness that took him. I know what it feels like when your own brain turns into a battlefield. I know what it feels like to lose the fight for a moment and still be here to talk about it. I have been there. I have survived it. And I am tired of pretending that bipolar disorder is anything other than a medical condition that deserves compassion and treatment.

Every time someone with bipolar disorder or another mental illness dies, the world reacts with shock. People ask how it could happen. People whisper. People speculate. But very few people talk about the truth. Bipolar disorder is not a character flaw. It is not a weakness. It is not a failure of willpower. It is a brain chemistry disorder that can be brutal, unpredictable, and exhausting. It deserves the same seriousness and empathy we give to heart disease or cancer or any other life threatening condition.

But that is not how society treats it.

Instead, people with bipolar disorder get labeled as unstable or dramatic or dangerous. We get jokes made at our expense. We get told to calm down or get over it. We get treated like our illness is a personality problem instead of a medical one. And when someone dies, the stigma gets louder instead of quieter.

The truth is simple. People do not die from bipolar disorder because they are weak. They die because the illness is strong. They die because the stigma keeps people silent. They die because too many people are afraid to ask for help or afraid they will be judged if they do. They die because society still treats mental illness like a moral issue instead of a medical one.

I am bipolar. I have attempted suicide in the past. I am not ashamed of that. I am not hiding it. I am not pretending it did not happen. I survived because I got support, treatment, and time. I survived because people showed me empathy instead of fear. I survived because I was lucky. Not everyone gets that chance.

If we want fewer deaths, the stigma has to go. The shame has to go. The silence has to go. We need to talk about bipolar disorder the same way we talk about any other chronic illness. We need to stop treating people like they are broken or dangerous. We need to stop acting like mental illness is a moral failing.

Robert Carradine deserved better. Everyone fighting this illness deserves better. And the only way we get there is by telling the truth. Bipolar disorder is real. It is medical. It is treatable. And the people who live with it deserve compassion, not judgment.

The stigma should be what dies next.