Soulful Journeys Within

The Diagnosis Nobody Knows How to Talk About Picture a waiting room. Fluorescent lights. A clipboard with pages of intake forms. A daughter sits beside her mother, twisting the sleeve of her kurta between her fingers. Across from them, a psychiatrist explains that what the family has been calling stress, anger, rebelliousness, or a difficult phase may be part of a serious mood disorder. The mother listens carefully. She has questions, but she is afraid to ask them. Will this diagnosis affect her daughter's future marriage prospects? What will the relatives say? Will people assume she failed as a parent? Will her daughter ever return to the person she remembers? The daughter is listening, too. She hears the word bipolar. She wonders whether her family will ever look at her the same way again. They leave the appointment with a treatment plan. But neither is prepared for the conversation waiting for them at home. This is the part of mental illness that rarely makes it into the ...