I guess it really runs in the family

I have lived with the diagnosis of bipolar disorder for about five years. I was diagnosed by a psychiatrist in 2016 when I accepted the fact that I needed the help. Mood swings, irritation, irrational thoughts, and manic depression were taking over my life. The truth is it’s still an everyday battle. I have had highs lasting several days, weeks, and even months. The lows have taken me to rock bottom, where I felt like I was losing everything, myself included.

2020 brought the topic of mental health to the forefront and 2021 is carrying the torch. More societies and cultures are opening up to discussing and destigmatizing mental health differences. It’s about time. It has taken decades of personal and public tragedies for people to accept there is a problem. Not long ago, society would consider people like me insane, lock me up in an asylum for the rest of my life, and give me a nice white jacket to hug myself with in a padded room.

Being male, expressing emotions growing up was considered “unmanly.” In the 90’s that would be some “gay shit” (in the toxic masculine dialog of the time). It causes men to suppress their true thoughts, especially if they have gone through traumatic events. I personally think that that perspective is one of the reasons it’s so hard to have a decent relationship now, because now it's not only men, women go through this as well.

This was especially true growing up as a cis black male. We have been placed at the forefront of the house. A man of color is expected to be strong, tough, callous to the abuse the world has distributed over the years, and still be a loving family man. Black women not only bear our children, they bear being viewed as sassy, mean, nasty women with bad attitudes. This is of course not the case. It’s a generalization that has been planted in heads and now generations are tasked with reckoning with these dangerous stereotypes.

In the years of growing up with my old man, he would go on about what man is “supposed to be”. He had to be tough and know how to fight. Show women you are running “thangs.” “Don’t let these hoes catch you slipping out here.” “Show no emotion to these bitches.” The logic he had put together throughout his years reinforced the game he had gotten from his father. Like my father, my grandfather got around. Granddad had kids all over, from the Southeast all the way up to a few boroughs in New York City. I have cousins in Harlem and Brooklyn that I've never met along with long lost uncles and aunties.

I’m just gonna keep it real, my Granddad on that side was a ho, and his son (my dad) Anthony A. Williams Sr. evolved from his hoedom. I’ve been told I met my grandfather as a small child, but unfortunately his dark past caught up with him and he was murdered before I even made it to a toddler. I believe the man that killed him had only been out of jail a few years. My dad had a love/hate relationship with his father because (like mine) he wasn’t there in crucial moments. It wasn’t until he was older that my father and grandfather really got to have some type of relationship.

To be honest, I'm still in that building stage even though he drives me crazy sometimes. One moment we can be having a great convo roasting the shit out of each other and the next, my mom is a fucking bitch who fucked everybody in the family and stole money from yada yada. It took me years to realize (and rationalize) that this is from years of drug and alcohol abuse, untreated PTSD from the Gulf War, childhood trauma, and possibly a severe case of bipolar disorder. Do I excuse his actions for some of the things he has done in the years he was with my mother? No. He always had an abusive nature. Hell, I’ve been told on certain accounts that before I was born, he was rather violent towards my mother, my aunt Tracy and his younger sister (my late aunt Rhonda).

Aunt Rhonda was there during my time in Jacksonville and even lived with us for a short time. She was a quiet woman who kept to herself, worked, smoked menthols, and drank Coke. She loved Tupac and R&B, which we could see from her 2pac shirts and hear her playing in her room. If I could describe my late aunt, she was a beautiful woman, a mix of Left Eye from TLC and Angela Bassett. Despite her beauty, I had never saw her date anyone. She never went out. Most of the time she just slept and kept to herself.

I didn’t know then, but I’ve learned in the last year or two that she had manic depression. She passed away when I was in eighth grade. I remembered (though it wasn’t discussed) how she died. My Aunt Tracy and my mother later confirmed that she took her own life by overdosing on medication. She was rooming with my grandmother in a two-bedroom apartment and unfortunately, my grandmother found her. It wasn’t public knowledge at the time, largely because my Grandmother was very religious, a minister, and she was in shock.

Reflecting back, I can see how hereditary mental health is on my father’s side of the coin. As I get older and learn more truths about my mother’s side of the family, I see that side is no different. The knowledge gradually opens a new door and explains more and more about who I am. These unlocked truths reveal how much pain has held within generations before mine. There are probably plenty of truths that have died with the person who held them.

I realized that it's a pattern that needs to stop. How are we going to be better in the future? The time of lying to ourselves to comfort others has to end. Our families need to be more open and supportive in discussing the things they're going through instead of pushing one another down. It's time to lift each other up, for the black community and others. If we want to grow, we need to think forward and educate ourselves on how to help those who are going through it. I think for now that's just a thought I want to leave on. -Anthem.