I went to a play last night. It was a brave and courageous production. A moving story of human drama unfolding. Theatre Calgary’s production of Next To Normal, Music by Tom Kitt, Book & Lyrics by Brian Yorkey, is visually stunning and compelling. It is the story of a woman and her family’s journey through her bipolar disorder. Filled with moments of discord, frantic action, blissful excesses, dark depressions, Next To Normal was one of those events where saying, “I’m really enjoying it,” didn’t quite cut it.

It’s hard to enjoy mental disorders. It’s hard to say, “That was fun!” when what you are witnessing is very real, challenging and true for so many.

1 in 5 Canadians will suffer from a ‘mood disorder’ such as depression in their lifetime with 2% of all Canadians experiencing bipolar disorder.

It doesn’t seem fair. But then, a mental health disorder isn’t about fairness, because depression, bipolar, schizophrenia don’t discriminate. They don’t care about age or sex or size or faith or social status. A mental health disorder doesn’t care ‘who’ you are, it just cares that you are under its control.

There is no fair in a mental health disease.

I once dated a man who was bipolar. I was madly in love with him. I met him 3 years after the end of my marriage. He was the first man I loved after its end. We dated for 2 years and lived together for a year and a half. He was incredibly charming, witty, funny, energetic, smart.

When he was up.

When he was down. Watch out. In those moments that could last for weeks, I was evil incarnate. I was woman and I was bad, wrong, not fit for man. I tried to make it work. I tried to be compassionate. Caring. Kind. And then, I tried to be invisible. Quiet. Unseen.

It took a toll on me, and my daughters who also adored this man who in his ‘upness’ made them laugh incessantly. In those moments, he was the father figure they had never had, the one who heard them, saw them, recognized them as miraculous beings and helped them believe they were capable of anything.

And then, the dark moods would hit. He would hide in our bedroom for days on end, sitting beside the fireplace, reading, sleeping, never getting out of his pajamas. He was fastidious but in those moments of darkness, he couldn’t care less if he shaved, showered or changed his clothes. He couldn’t care less.

At the time, he didn’t have a diagnosis. That came later. After the tears and the pleading for me to stay, after the fights and the anger and telling me to go. After his diagnosis he went on medication. His moods evened out, but I was already gone.

I wonder sometimes if I hadn’t spent that time with him, would I have been so susceptible to the abuser. Would I have been so invested in someone else telling me how amazing and wonderful I was? I met the abuser just a few months after the ending of that relationship. And, while I told myself I was emotionally stable, I don’t actually believe I was. There had been too many moments of his words piercing my skin, inflicting pain deep into my heart for my emotional and mental well-being not to have been adversely affected.

There is a difference though, between the words of that man I once loved and the abuser. The man I once loved had a mental health disorder that drove him into despair. He didn’t want to nor mean to hurt others. He just couldn’t see or feel or know what he was doing when the disease was in control.

The abuser… well, let’s just say he wanted what he wanted because that’s what he wanted and what he wanted was all that counted. Let’s just say, it wasn’t that he enjoyed hurting others, it’s just, he didn’t have the capacity to do anything else because lying, deceiving, manipulating was who he was, always. And there were no drugs, or even therapy, that could keep him from being who he was.

Both these men made a difference in my life. Through them I learned, after the fall, how to stand up and be true to me, no matter what is happening in the world around me. I learned to hold onto myself, regardless of how fiercely the winds blow. I became my ‘I’ in the eye of the hurricane. I became my own control at the centre of my mental health.

I went to a play last night. I was moved. To laughter. Tears. To thoughts of my own mental health. To recognition of my own well-being and good-fortune.

I am one of the 1 in 5.  I was once severely depressed, suicidal. Today I’m not. I got help.

We’ve got to check up on our mental health.

You you can check up on yours on October 4 through National Depression Screening Day — an online test for depression. It’s anonymous. free. Easy. Just go to http://www.calgarycounselling.com and follow the links. No one has to know.

Yet, isn’t that part of the problem? The fact we don’t talk about our mental health?

Maybe if we did, we’d make a bigger difference in the lives of the 1 in 5 Canadians for whom mental health is not a bed of roses.