CBS Sunday Morning anchor Jane Pauley is speaking out about getting diagnosed with bipolar disorder when she was 50 years old.
“When I was 49 I was not bipolar. When I was 50 I was,” Jane, now 68, explained on CBS This Morning. Most people who are diagnosed with the disease find out before they turn 24. Jane’s doctors realized she had the disease after she was prescribed steroids to treat a case of hives.
“It unmasked what doctors described as a genetic vulnerability to a mood disorder, and by that time I was in pretty deep trouble,” she explained during the show’s “Stop The Stigma” mental health week.
She said that her moods started the “change,” and she quickly went from upbeat and cheery to erratic and manic.
“I got better and felt much better, and then I felt really great and started having plans, and other behaviors that my husband didn’t know who I was,” she explained of the scary experience, which happened in 2001.
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“When the doctor finally recognized, ‘Oh I know what’s going on here, this is bad,’ he called my husband and said, ‘Your wife is very sick.’ And Gary [Trudeau] was almost relieved, because he knew, ‘Oh maybe someone can help get my wife back now,’” Jane remembered.
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Jane decided to step back from her public roles and spent three weeks in a psychiatric ward. But that wasn’t what the doctor advised. He suggested she should lie about her health issues so she didn’t have to disclose her
bipolar disorder diagnosis.
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“The only time in my life, and we’re closing in on 20 years, that I experienced stigma was that day, day one, when I realized that my doctor was giving me a cover story to tell employers that I was being treated for a thyroid disorder. Which was true, but it wasn’t the whole truth,” she remembered.
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Jane even disagreed with the idea that stigma needs to be “fought.”
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“As a communicator I know something, words have power. And the word stigma is its own stigma,” she explained. “… So every time you say stigma, it is a reminder for people like me that I’m fighting two wars.”
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Jane continued, “It’s not enough that I have a disorder that’s pretty serious, but I’m also fighting this front. So my goal is that we fight stigma, which is real, but we fight it with sophistication.”
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“When the doctor finally recognized, ‘Oh I know what’s going on here, this is bad,’ he called my husband and said, ‘Your wife is very sick.’ And Gary [Trudeau] was almost relieved, because he knew, ‘Oh maybe someone can help get my wife back now,’” Jane remembered.
Photo credit: INSTARImages
Jane decided to step back from her public roles and spent three weeks in a psychiatric ward. But that wasn’t what the doctor advised. He suggested she should lie about her health issues so she didn’t have to disclose her
bipolar disorder diagnosis.
Photo credit: INSTARImages
“The only time in my life, and we’re closing in on 20 years, that I experienced stigma was that day, day one, when I realized that my doctor was giving me a cover story to tell employers that I was being treated for a thyroid disorder. Which was true, but it wasn’t the whole truth,” she remembered.
Photo credit: INSTARImages
Jane even disagreed with the idea that stigma needs to be “fought.”
Photo credit: INSTARImages
“As a communicator I know something, words have power. And the word stigma is its own stigma,” she explained. “… So every time you say stigma, it is a reminder for people like me that I’m fighting two wars.”
Photo credit: INSTARImages
Jane continued, “It’s not enough that I have a disorder that’s pretty serious, but I’m also fighting this front. So my goal is that we fight stigma, which is real, but we fight it with sophistication.”
Photo credit: INSTARImages
