Managing Mental Illness Can Be a Team Effort

Like so many people—and so many entrepreneurs— my husband and business partner struggles with his mental health. I’m speaking up so others know: With the right understanding, life and business can still be good.

- By Leslie Chihuly

My husband, glass sculptor and artist Dale Chihuly, has bipolar disorder. He started suffering from periods of depression as a college student in the ’60s, but he wasn’t diagnosed until he reached his early 50s. That was about the time he and I met—I worked with him on what would become a breakthrough exhibition, Chihuly Over Venice—and the time that I first witnessed his rapid shifts in mood and prolonged periods of depression or hypomania.

From that earliest creative partnership, Dale and I went on to travel the world together, have a child, and get married. Today, I’m the president and CEO of Chihuly Studio. Bipolar disorder has been a part of our conversations from the beginning, and we’ve long discussed the positive and negative aspects of this diagnosis on our personal and professional lives.