What was going on? I had taken care of my daughter - I had given her love, shelter, opportunities in education, and brought her up in a safe town so that she would be out of harm’s way as much as possible. My parents had nothing of that, and I turned out fine.

Maybe that’s not enough? I racked my brain to think what more I could have done to take care of her. It tore my heart that she was lashing out at me one moment, then shutting me out and locking herself in her bedroom the next, for endless hours at a time. The fear that she could be harming herself in there alone terrified me, so much so that I would consistently smack my fists against the door and threaten to call the authorities. Every time I mentioned this, she immediately unlocked the door. The first few times I would continue scolding her, but then after a while I would let her ignore me and walk past in silence. Throughout all this, my wife would be silent and continue her motherly duties, keeping evenly sliced apples outside her door once a day, and knocking gently on her bedroom door to let her know her lunch or dinner was ready. These days, she normally slept through breakfast. Sometimes my wife would have to leave a plate of her meal outside her door, like at a prison facility, when she wouldn’t come down for dinner. How does one deal with this behaviour? I was sure no other parent had to go through this.

Bipolar. I furrowed my eyebrows and contemplated the word, which seemed foreign to me as the doctor uttered it defiantly. I thought this generation would use these ‘mental illnesses’ just to make excuses for laziness and lack of willpower. It was all taboo in my time; our country laughed at the existence of such a thing. However now that I’m witnessing this irrational behaviour from my lovely daughter in real time… maybe there was something we missed?