Bipolar Disorder and Having Children (2)

Kay Jamison describes the shock of hearing her own diagnosis of manic depression (bipolar disorder) and her doctor's advice not to have children.

I hadn't thought that way and I don't think that way. I wanted a house full of children, and so the, I didn't, I wasn't asking his permission to have children. I, it didn't strike me that it was any of his business, and I told him to go to hell. I also told him that I was Director of the Mood Disorders Clinic at UCLA and I was completely aware that it was a genetic illness and I didn't need to hear that from him and so forth. But I went out to the car and I just started sobbing, I just, it was just uncontrollable anger, but mainly hurt. It was just a level, when people assault your genes and when those genes are involved in who you are so utterly in terms of temperament and the way you think and the way you feel and the way you view the world, as these genes are, these are very complicated, these affect every aspect of your humanity. For somebody just essentially to say you ought not to have someone who has you, your kind of problems. It's just like saying you ought not to have been born. And I must say I'm glad my father didn't have that attitude, and I'm glad my parents didn't take that belief.