PUSH / PULL Issue 22
Edited by DaMonique Ballou
“Note from the Editor”
For almost three decades I have experienced living with a family member who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. For 20 of those years I didn’t talk about it with anyone beyond the small circle of family who also witnessed the episodes.
I was taught not to. But there’s something so tantalizing about doing what you’re not supposed to do. Speaking with others held the promise of escaping isolation, finding community in the pain and confusion of these experiences. This community, though, would come at the cost of divulging my loved one’s darkest secret.
Growing up, I wondered if I told someone the secret, who would my loved one become to that person? I wanted someone to know that the woman I love has a side of her that I don’t know. And I didn’t want others to know that side of her.
Then, in 2014, I broke the silence. Unintentionally, I wrote a play about my family’s experiences with her episodes. Through the process I met and grew close with several people, not my family, who were impacted by bipolar disorder.
Almost 10 years later, in 2023, I met Camille Simone Thomas, who had also written a play about having a family member diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Her boldness in sharing her experience encouraged me; maybe I didn’t have to keep this a secret anymore. Maybe strangers will know every side of my loved one and love her. Maybe I can too?
This PUSH/PULL issue is a journal archiving the journey of breaking the silence that has bound me and practicing the courage to be in a community that knows my secret and loves me and my loved one still. This is a journal documenting the practice of loving my loved one in all her states of mind.
— DaMonique Ballou
“2013 - 2024: The Writing of Our Name is Mara”
A chronicle of theater and events about bipolar disorder
Synopsis
Mara wants to win her spelling bee; her father, Ken, wants her to win too. They spend weeks spelling words, cooking, arguing, missing work, and skipping school?! Noticing Ken becoming rude and aggressive, Mara gives up on working with her dad, which is the last straw sending Ken into a manic episode. Ken tries to hide himself from his daughter, but no distance can keep this family secret from being known. And when Mara finds out she must decide if Ken’s the father she knows him to be or a man she doesn’t want to be around.
In 2015, the play was titled “...and Silence broke the house.”
It explored the same themes, but used elements of surrealism. Instead of her family being direct about her father’s condition, Mara searched her dreams to discover the truth.
This was the first time I shared my experiences publicly. The folks I collaborated with on this project showed me that I didn’t have to be ashamed about my experiences.
(left to right) Brianna Johnson, Charles Fuller, Christopher B. Portley, Emily Matos, Monique Warren, and Julisa Fulton perform in a staged-reading of Our Name is Mara at the Theater of the Oppressed in New York City.
(left to right) Ken, Mara, and her mother, Avery, performed by Christopher B. Portley, Emily Matos, and Monique Warren.
From 2015 - 2024, I revised the play a lot--once or twice each year. I was consistently unsatisfied by the characters’ motivation and the plot. That frustration reflected my own lived experiences. I wasn’t growing closer or more distant with my loved one; and my family and I still struggled to have thorough conversations about the impact her manic-depressive episodes had on us.
The ultimate conversation would be to talk to her about her episodes, but any time I brought it up she deflected. In each revision I got closer and closer to imagining what it would look like if she, I and my family did talk about our experiences.
Besides returning to its original title, Our Name is Mara, I explored scenes between characters that explicitly defined Ken’s experience with bipolar disorder and its impact on other characters.
“2023 - 2024 :”
Camille Simone Thomas and I connected in 2023. She shared she was working on a play about a family member with bipolar disorder. I was curious and concerned by how freely she said that. In December we read each other’s drafts and discussed how differently we talked about our experiences. This led to “2 Plays, 2 Days.”
2Plays,2Days is a two-day series of staged-readings of our plays, panels with mental health professionals and workshops for the audience. By using theater to engage the community we entertained, educated and equipped audiences diagnosed with or supporting loved ones with bipolar disorder. Together we broke the silence impacting people experiencing bipolar disorder.
Meet Camille + DaMonique:
Discover more about 2Plays,2Days:
In April 2024, we performed a staged-reading of Our Name is Mara followed by a talkback with three mental health professionals.
Testimonials from audiences’ who watched Our Name is Mara.
After the talkback, we asked audiences to fill out a survey providing feedback about their experience. Here’s what they had to say:
“2025: Break the Silence”
With the support of Culture Push, Break the Silence provided space for people to share their lived experiences as someone (mis/un)diagnosed with bipolar disorder, as a loved one, a caregiver; an ally, or a witness of someone having a manic-depressive episode.
Through facilitated conversations with a mental health professional, a comedian, and a playwright, participants listened to and learned from others’ lived experiences with bipolar disorder. Following, was a writing workshop that created space for writers of all levels to translate a lived experience into a story you can share or archive.
Mama’s Waves by Chandra Ghosh Ippen
“Chandra Ghosh Ippen combines her love of storytelling and training in clinical psychology to create children’s literature exploring various expressions of big emotions. In Mama’s Waves (and Daddy’s Waves) Ippen follows a small daughter learning to release the anger and sadness she has when her mother doesn’t show up for her visit. Ippen writes that many children can find themselves in the protagonist’s position, when their parent disappears because of mental illness or substance abuse. Mama’s Waves teaches families and those children how to navigate these experiences, feel the big feelings and love the ones who sometimes don’t show up.” - Piplo Productions
As a child, I navigated similar experiences as the protagonist. I hope this resource helps adults support children who have big emotions when a loved one is absent because of mental health.
Naomi Jackson’s Memoir
Naomi Jackson comes from a lineage of women who’ve traversed space, birthed families, and have a mental illness. In 2020, Harper’s Magazine published Jackson’s essay, “Her Kind: On Losing and Finding My Mind”, a memoir documenting the genesis of her relationship with bipolar disorder. Three years later, NPR sat with Jackson as she read excerpts from her essay and answered brief questions about life, ancestry, and motherhood.
Antonia Hylton’s Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum
Antonia Hylton’s Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum is 10 years of research about one of the first mental asylums for Black people in Maryland. Through state and personal archives, films, magazines, and interviews with former patients or their family members Hylton chronicles the history and impact of Crownsville Hospital, a medical center with questionable rehabilitative practices. Despite its origins, by its end Crownsville attempted to be a refuge for Black patients to receive medical treatment and rehabilitative resources that acknowledged, respected, and celebrated their humanity and existence.
This PUSH/PULL Issue was edited by:
damonique ballou
DaMonique Ballou (she/her) is a Culture Push Associated Artist, storyteller, producer, and educator. She’s a black girl believing the theater entertains, educates, and connects audiences; the stage is a playground, a classroom, and a freeway. She co-produced “2PlaysDays”, a 2-day series of staged readings and mental health workshops inspired by two plays about families responding to a loved one with bipolar disorder; self-produced a staged-reading of her one act; and co-produced a multimedia exhibit on bipolar disorder. Currently, she’s co-producing Camille Simone Thomas’ “Mud: or when things get messy and how we live with it” through the SheNYC Arts Summer Theater Festival. She’s taught theater workshops through Sadie Nash Leadership Project, Columbia University and DreamYard. She’s an alumna of Barnard College and New York University Steinhardt.