Some members of my immediate family are reacting (expectedly) in a hostile fashion to the airing of our family's story in Maalaala Mo Kaya’s Father’s Day episode “Diary.” Tell me about it, I can hear you saying.
One sister said, how come there are twists here and there bordering on fictional story-telling? There are other variations of these comments, and I’m just about ready to literally throw the new books on creative non-fiction and old volumes on New Journalism at these persons.
What I haven’t counted on is the outpouring of congratulatory text and Facebook messages. Although my dear kid brother Eric’s condition was handled sensitively, my own private hell from early childhood to adolescence, all the way to mid-adulthood was not tackled. But then I’ve long ago promised and submitted my essay on the family disease—bipolar disorder—to Dr. Margarita Holmes. She has it in her files to be put out in a volume someday.
Just so to appease these family members who think I haven’t come clean with my own occasions of mania and depression, here’s my daily maintenance dosage (how more open can I get about this?):
Depakote Sodium extended release, 500 mg.;
Rivotril, 2 mg. ;
And for the nights when I twist and turn, I take Dormicum, 15 mg.
Again I have to thank my father, Enrique C. Lolarga Jr., M.D., for seeing me through difficult phases in my life. He it was who brought me to Dr. Leonardo Bascara in college when the first waves of seemingly overwhelming depression left me floundering. To these other psychiatrists, I owe a debt of gratitude that can never be fully paid: Dr. Elizabeth Rondain, Dr. Lourdes Vera Lapuz and currently, Dr. Gilda Manalo Wong of the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center.
Also being part of a twice-a-month Sufi mediation group, an aquarelle society and a Saturday prayer group led by Oscar and Toottee Pacis have helped calm me.
Happy now?
My consolation after the MMK episode is this message from writer Gilda Cordero Fernando: “Anyway, all the bipolars I’ve met are much more interesting than the normals.”
Photo shows Dr. Lolarga leading his kids in singing the theme from The Sound of Music
1 comment:
Hi there...
I guess it was Norman Maclean who said that one can never tell a story as it should, for there will be scenes that will be diminished and scenes that will exagerrated.
I have watched that MMK episode too... And when I heard your father's full name, I seached the net and it led me here... :D
What struck me with the story was your father's effort to keep his philantropic efforts to himself, how he was able to make a difference in other people's lives...
I said to myself that I too want to be remembered that way...
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