Words With My Father: A Bipolar Journey Through Turbulent Times

By Lukas Klessig and Lowell Klessig

THE DRAMATIC STORY OF A PIONEERING MAN, HIS MERCURIAL MIND AND A SOCIETY IN LIMBO.

 

"If you found An Unquiet Mind or Darkness Visible transformative, Words With My Father will further enrich your perspective and resilience."

 

 

Mission:
A deceased father and alive son discuss the development of the father's bipolar condition during the turmoil of the 1960s and explore the insights into better mental health that readers (like you) can absorb from his intense odyssey.

Synopsis:
Words With My Father offers a gripping portrait of the evolution of a young man's mental illness and how it manifested into a dramatic and often dangerous existence through the turbulence of the Civil Rights, Peace and Conservation movements.

 

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Medley Park Press
• Release date: Mar 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9780960118922

Book preview

AN INVITATION

Lowell Klessig

I

wrote this most especially for you if you have a mental illness. The pain of your illness has likely been compounded by the specific stigma associated with your mental illnesses and by the general discrimination against people with mental illness. All of us with mental illness suffer three times – from the illness itself, from the specific stigma associated with our particular disease, and from a generic prejudice against anyone identified as mentally ill or sick in the head. From personal experience and scientific training (B.S. in Biochemistry and M.A. in Molecular Biology), I am confident that illnesses above the jawbone have a biochemical basis just as illnesses below the jawbone do. Just like propensity for other common illnesses (heart disease, diabetes and certain cancers), mental illnesses have clear genetic links, and thus biochemical pathways. Illnesses of the brain and nervous system should be viewed in the same way as diseases affecting any other complex physiological system or body organ. Like other illnesses, mental illnesses can be treated with lifestyle changes, social support, medication, and therapies (verbal, herbal, physical and spiritual).

I wrote this especially for you if a member of your family or a close friend has a mental illness. My hope is that the example of my life will help you recognize that normalcy is both infectious and habit forming. Your relationship with a mentally ill person has potential for both. You can be the infectious agent serving habit-forming normalcy at your kitchen table or at the ballpark. You can facilitate the formation of healthy habits by example and encouragement.

I also wrote this for you if you but care about others who suffer from mental illness. Thank you for caring about public perceptions and public policies that stigmatize millions of people and cause many more millions to hide their mental illness from family, friends, co-workers and even their doctor. You can demonstrate that you care by supporting organizations like the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and the Alzheimer’s Association – organizations dedicated to finding cures and eliminating stigma.

1

Two Bad Genes: The Discoveries

Lowell Klessig

I

was lying on my back on a red, tweed rug in front of the open door of the woodstove in our lower-level den. As was my daily exercise routine since my lower back surgery in 2003, I first turned on the radio in the corner window to listen to NPR’s Morning Edition. So routine, in fact, that the radio dial never wavers from the same FM number.

In the second phase of my winter morning routine, I use yesterday’s Wall Street Journal to light the wood stove in the den. Homegrown firewood provides most of the heat for our home. Each winter morning there is a contest in my brain. The more ancient sleep lobes of my brain want to keep control of me for at least a few more minutes. They remind me that it is not yet 5 a.m., urge me to relax and let the flames just two feet away warm my naked legs. The lapping yellow tongues grasp the bark fragments and then chase down thicker prey, the oak in the back of the stove.

Most mornings – for a while – the hypnotic flames dam up my thoughts and delay full consciousness. On other mornings, stimulated by something I hear on the radio, my mind jolts into high gear. In those situations, though I am still on my back looking at the fire, my mind churns with ideas for an essay or a guest newspaper editorial. Some mornings, I am vitalized enough to sit up and write an entire essay or OP-ED on the spot – on a little yellow Post-It pad that I keep handy to jot down thoughts on intriguing topics.

If I have not interrupted my supine listening to scribble on Post-It notes, the direct radiant heat becomes uncomfortable. I move my legs the minimum distance from the open door of the stove and continue my back strengthening exercises. Even without a news story that ignites one of my passions, the radio reportage eventually edges out the primordial pull of the fire to relax in a predawn semi-consciousness.

On the morning of November 30, 2007, the fire surrendered early when NPR broadcast a story on an issue that was highly relevant to me on a personal level. That morning, Charles Jackson planted the seeds for this endeavor – for the writing of this story. That morning, Mr. Jackson did a personal testimonial as part of NPR’s Story Corps Series. At age 13, Charles learned that his mother had Early Onset Alzheimer’s and that the responsible bad gene was common in her family. He became her caregiver.

Jackson knew that he might carry the gene that afflicted his mother and other maternal-blood relatives. At age 50, he also was diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer’s. Three years later, on a good day, like the day of his NPR testimonial, he was articulate, candid, and positive. I was impressed by all three qualities but particularly the latter. He became an inspiration to families who were dealing with Alzheimer’s or Mild Cognitive Impairment.

I had just been diagnosed with Mild Cognitive Impairment – a pre-Alzheimer’s condition, which I was told evolves to Alzheimer’s at the rate of ten percent a year. I got a second opinion by having my memory retested at Marshfield Clinic – a high-quality regional medical facility. The verdict was the same: Mild Cognitive Impairment; the sentence was a 40-50% chance of getting Alzheimer’s in five years. Those odds were frightening. Since my father, in his early 80’s, was exhibiting mild to moderate Alzheimer’s symptoms, my general physician recommended a blood test to determine the genotype of my Apolipoprotein E (APOE) – the marker gene associated with Alzheimer’s Disease.

The APOE gene has three variations: APOE 2, APOE 3 and APOE 4. The lab results were not good. I learned that I carry the APOE 4 Allele which is the one that increases the risk of Alzheimer’s Disease after age 65. I was told that because of APOE 4, probably inherited from my father, my genetic predisposition to get Alzheimer’s increased by a factor of thirteen. Since I had already been diagnosed with Mild Cognitive Disorder at age 60 and had the APOE 4, the odds of getting Alzheimer’s in five years (by age 65) were substantially greater than 50%.

When I learned, in 2007, that I carried the APOE 4 gene, I had known for a long time that I also had the bad gene for Bi-Polar Disorder, whose hereditary link, scientists have concluded, is much stronger and thus, the probability of expression sometime during a lifetime is much higher than the bad gene for Alzheimer’s. Bi-Polar Disorder is highly inheritable; it typically first strikes between adolescence and midlife and typically strikes more than once in a lifetime. It can produce exuberant, frenzied, irrational, reckless behavior (mania) or intense sadness, worthlessness, incapacity or even suicide (depression). The mood of individuals with Bi-Polar Disorder tends to swing from one pole (extreme) to the other. The time period of the mood change, or swing, can vary from minutes to years.

In my mid-twenties, my outlook on life was bleak during winter months when days are short and time outside is limited by cold weather. Lack of exposure to sunlight in winter negatively impacts mood for a large part of the population. However, the impact is typically mild and temporary. For some, including myself in the early 1970’s, the feeling of depression is intense and lasts throughout the winter. Known as Seasonal Affective Disorder, these effects are most common among people with ancestry from higher latitudes where sunlight diminishes in winter and can mask or magnify Bi-Polar Disorder.

I likely inherited the Bi-Polar gene from my mother, who periodically blamed weak nerves for her recurrent lethargy and was once hospitalized for a nervous breakdown. Some of my relatives also got a bad draw of genes in the ovarian egg lottery. However, the distribution is not a simple case of one gene found in a double recessive combination. In addition, expression of the defective gene differs widely from family to family and from individual to individual within the same family.

Reflections 1

The Potential for Wasted Potential

Lukas Klessig

My father opened his first chapter by getting right to the point: he had inherited certain genes that would go on to afflict him with bipolar disorder and early dementia.

That’s a major aspect of his life, but since we covered it already, let’s address the way he casually mentions listening to NPR and reading The Wall Street Journal. As he states, he consumed them routinely, almost constantly. Public radio always played in the background in the car. My mother often complained about all the books, newspapers and academic articles cluttering recently-tidied surfaces.

Understanding the world was important to Dad. He cared especially about environmental policy and foreign and domestic affairs. He opposed unjust wars and championed equal rights and sustainability. These weren’t idle beliefs and platitudes, but deep convictions he acted upon. He needed to stay informed.

Something tells me that, if he were still with us today, my father would turn off the radio more often and cancel some of his subscriptions. Dad would lament the confusion of today’s world. The amount and pace of information and outlets that provide it would have left him disoriented as it does all of us. The shallowness of much of media, the instant way we forget and move to the next shiny object and a more ambiguous morality and sense of truth would have saddened him immensely.

That is a sadness I share, a conundrum I, too, lament. The politics crowding headlines today and our bandwagon-jumping onto whatever’s trending share little resemblance to the movements my father devoted himself to. He actively participated for years to advance the Civil Rights Movement and to stop the disconcerting violence in Vietnam. He spent hundreds of hours for the Progressive Movement, first in Wisconsin and then nationally. He stridently opposed the wars in Iraq and the way we handled our prolonged involvement in Afghanistan.

Those substantive and serious actions mattered so much more than supporting something by liking a post or changing your profile picture. Progress was difficult but clear, with direction and real community. Dad and fellow activists aimed to end the injustices and unequal treatment suffered by Black Americans. They protested the senselessness and stupidity of America’s quasi-imperial modern wars and the wanton and careless degradation of the environment. Today’s politics and fleeting cause-squatting seem frivolous and aimless by comparison. People spend their days getting angry at each other over issues about which they are ill-informed and that barely even affect their own lives. They yell at each other in inflammatory dialogue and social media provocations. They shout into the void with little consequence. Meanwhile, the world burns.

This isn’t a partisan viewpoint. You see this behavior permeate every side of the aisle. Whether the echo chambers are indulging in conspiracies about the opposition candidate, slinging buzzwords or propping up half-baked causes, the news and people’s engagement really is fake half of the time. Politicians and pundits (and a lot of ordinary folks) have resembled clowns more and more the past decade, performing in the latest farce of the week. If you’re reading this, you’re probably not one of the clowns and Dad would applaud you.

This kind of politics and activism – if you can even call it that – is mundane and trivial, counterproductive even. It’s negative and obstructionist, corrosive to the human spirit and anathema to the guiding and genuine purpose that can make you, me, my father triumph and contribute. The grandstanding and fleeting commitment so many people engage in now does little good in the world and accomplishes almost nothing of lasting value, not politically, not socially, not even personally. No one feels accomplished the following day after a late night session of name-calling on social media. At least they shouldn’t – there’s no purpose, no direction. Although Dad was active in politics and social movements and worked to sway public opinion and change policy his whole life, he might well prefer to remain above the morass of meanness and mediocrity if he were around today. The reason for that aversion is not something we should feel proud of.

The disillusionment of concerned citizens like Dad is an obvious tragedy. Our world loses so much when people like my father lose the impetus to lend their hands and minds to the betterment of society. But that is often the situation we find ourselves in now. Brilliant people who would love to make positive change for the world can’t bring themselves to put on their red nose and join the circus. Likewise, thoughts of online trolling or cancelling by crowd edict dissuade many from participation in real activism that ignites their purpose and power. Dad would recognize that brilliance and conviction still exist all around us, but those critical thinkers and change-makers face the constant gusts of contemporary gullible and shallow culture trying to extinguish their spark.

To be clear, the labels utopian or Pollyanna never described Dad’s outlook. His vision may have been idealistic, but he was exceedingly rational. This proved especially true when it came to managing his own mental health. At bottom, depression tried to convince him that his work (and most everything else) was futile and worthless. It robbed him of motivation and, more than anything, energy. Even though work and life might have felt pointless, Dad came to understand that the feeling resulted from the broken chemistry in his brain. While he couldn’t erase this irrational pessimism, he could recognize it for the temporary malaise that it was. This realization was enough to carry him, eventually, through a depressive time. Repeating cycles of depressive and manic interludes showed him that the extremes of his moods were sometimes prolonged but never permanent. Over time, that pragmatic understanding allowed him to endure the poles of his bipolar condition.

The Paradox

I, like Dad, am pragmatic (maybe overly so) but also appreciative of the wonderful creative capacity of the human mind, both for its pure creative merit and as a tool to maintain purpose and vibrancy in anyone’s life. Dad, like me, would have felt terribly saddened and alienated by the ephemeral nature of contemporary culture and creative output. Our world moves so fast and everything is discarded and replaced so rapidly. Film, tv, books, style, art, ideas, grand events, the news cycle – everything comes and goes so quickly. Creative projects that we devote so much of ourselves to are forgotten almost immediately in favor of the next trend or Big Thing. It’s a carousel in overdrive that never stops.

Truly great art, music, photography, writing, film and tv, fashion and philosophies are emerging from dedicated creative people. They are producing masterful works. More outlets exist for expression than ever before. That abundancy and freedom of expression surely are wonderful developments, right? YES!, but as Dad often cautioned, the paradox of choice, the onslaught of stimuli, the never-ending scroll reside on the other side of the coin. And that conflicting duality has real and immediate effects on our collective and personal mental wellness.

Ingenious ideas take root. But there is no time or attention for the creation to establish itself and grow and receive deserved recognition. Attention pulled in too many directions results in no real attention at all. Many superb movies have appeared in the last ten years, but none that we think of as classics. The same applies to music, art, books, etc., etc., etc. That’s just the nature of our culture and media now. Everything is half here today, all gone tomorrow. That strikes me as really tragic.

Such transience is almost bipolar, in a way. Our accelerating world dissuades people from slowing down to think anymore. Very few, including me, make time to actually read The Wall Street Journal or books that could expand their minds. Our ability to discern, to focus, to maintain real purpose cannibalizes itself with click bait, tweet wars and soundbites. This new paradigm affects people of all ages, but especially the younger generations who grow up always online and plugged in. We’re losing our ability to think methodically and carefully. Science has documented this loss. The kind of focused examination that saved my father from his own bipolar crises seems increasingly incompatible with modern lifestyles and habits.

A deluge of information as incomplete and passing noise cannot be good for our mental health. Time and space for deep thinking and observation is crucial to our wellbeing. My father worked through his mental illness by observing and rationalizing his emotions and physical state. What if all of us are self-sabotaging our critical reasoning and, therefore, our mental resilience?

My father’s advice to me and all of us today would be to trust the power of real experience. Our addiction to social media, constant stimulation, cellphones, instant information and the news cycle resembles, or is, literal addiction. Science, again, has shown us this. You get a dopamine hit each time you log on, but those pathways of momentary reward can actually conspire to leave us less happy and unfulfilled over time.

Our screen-reliance and shallow, fractured attention is not a black and white problem with absolute fixes. Despite that, Dad would offer some remedies born of his own experience. He would encourage me and everyone to get out in the world and use your senses. Expose your mind to nature, to people, to ideas for longer than the time it takes to snap the perfect photo or concoct a pithy caption. Dad would say be involved; a participant, not a spectator. My father took us out into natural places and around the world in just such an effort. Valuable experiences all, these journeys revealed the merit of travel and the nurturing spirit of the natural world. However, the most crucial activity is to deeply engage with something real, present and meaningful.

Pay attention to the world around you, not just the version your newsfeed displays. Don’t be afraid of deep work and challenging thought. Find ways to be of service and