Comment by ChrisMarshallNY

I have a nephew with bipolar. He has chosen to “go public” about it, on LinkedIn. His reasoning, is that it helps remove the stigma. He seems to be doing fine, but he also has a very good background, and a lot of advantages, not available to others (I come from a fairly Ivy League family, and my sister has a lot of resources).

For myself, I have been in Recovery from drug addiction, for over 45 years. I was once a Very Bad Boi. I quit at 18, so never got a[n adult] record.

It’s not something that I have chosen to reveal, while I was working. I know, damn well, that it would not have worked in my favor (even though the Recovery process has conferred significant advantages). I never explicitly told my employees or my employers. My last employer was a Japanese company, and drug addiction suffers a great stigma, in most Asian nations. It would not have gone well. As it was, they kept me for decades, and I enjoyed an “inner circle” level of trust (a significant part of my path of Recovery is rigorous Honesty, Personal Integrity, and self-Discipline. I’m a very trustworthy and hard-working person). They never knew it, but they got a great deal of benefit from my addiction and subsequent Recovery.

In fact, I guarantee that some folks, after reading that, now suddenly hate me (in addition to the ones that already do, because they think I’m a stuck-up boomer). There’s a great deal of emotion, in mental illness and Recovery, and there’s a very good reason that folks don’t reveal it. I’ve watched it happen, for a long time. It’s a real thing.

As it is, I still don’t mention it often, though it’s a primary fact of life, for me. It’s not relevant to most of my interactions, and most people have no understanding of Recovery (and shouldn’t be required to, either). It’s very much a “If I have to explain, you wouldn’t understand” thing. It’s my problem, and my responsibility to manage. I have to understand others; they don’t need to understand me.