Bipolar Today

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Nabiha Meher Shaikh, a bipolar woman in Pakistan, wrote recently about her experiences as someone who has bipolar disorder in Pakistan. Some of her experiences would be familiar to people in North America. For instance, most people will not disclose before getting a job and even after getting a job, and there is a great deal of denial about the illness itself among families especially, because of the level of stigma.

However, she mentions some other difficulties that might not be so familiar. One issue that people face is various types of faith healing that are a result of not believing that bipolar disorder is real because there are no visible symptoms. Instead, it can lead to the belief that it is a curse brought on by black magic or by possession by jinns. This can lead to dangerous, magical interventions. Another issue that women with bipolar disorder especially face is the belief that marriage can somehow cure them. However, such marriages often end in divorce, leading to further stigma as a divorced woman.

Commentary

It is often easy to focus on the negative aspects of living with a mental illness in North America, where this is still a great deal of stigma and discrimination. However, in many ways, we are very lucky. By and large, mental illnesses are recognized as real, especially when they include psychotic symptoms (there is less acceptance of the reality mental illnesses that don’t include psychosis). In addition, most dangerous magical healing has been largely eliminated, and North American quackery is mostly just ineffectual. We also will usually have access to some health care for our condition. Articles like this one remind us that the health and acceptance of the mentally ill are a global concern, not merely a local one.

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