Allow me to focus on bipolar
disorder in particular, since that’s in my wheelhouse so to speak. How many people have ever heard of one good
thing a bipolar person ever did that made national news? I am pretty sure I can offer a few examples
of bipolar people causing some type of severe pain. Such is the news though, right? Maybe it’s the example of the Florida
educator who got arrested for giving oral sex to a 14 year-old boy and was
later acquitted on account of her being misdiagnosed as depressed when in
reality she was bipolar. Or maybe it’s the
TV drama that starts out with a horrific crime only to have the mystery
resolved by realizing the poor bipolar person had simply gone off his
lithium.
Either way, I dare say it’s
fairly difficult to find a genuinely good news show or sitcom in how they
address bipolar disorder. Silver Lining
Playbook did a decent job, unless you’re led to the conclusion that bipolar
people all have a mate waiting in the wings who also happens to be
bipolar. That doesn’t sound like a
particularly great idea, does it? Gee, I’m
bipolar so I guess I should seek out someone else who is bipolar, yep, that
sounds like a great idea that will end well.
Thankfully, that has started
changing albeit slowly. I just read a
thing where Catherine Zeta-Jones has been a reluctant spokesperson for people
with bipolar disorder. She may be
reluctant, but at least she embraces her weakness and shares hope with others
who have the same issues. For every
Catherine though, how many unmedicated lunatics are there in our country who
are one simple stress trigger away from a massacre?
I know, we shouldn’t have
background checks for guns. That way, it’s
easier for a person with a mental illness to buy an AR-15 than it is for them
to get health insurance and pay for their meds.
Yep, perfect sense, because by God I have my rights enshrined in the Constitution,
and health care isn’t one of those rights!
Repeal Obamacare! We don’t want
people with mental health issues to have access to affordable health insurance
so they can pay for their meds! We’d
rather have them untreated and accept the inevitable consequences of some of
them committing atrocities. We don’t
want gun control either! No! Not even reasonable measures! You can’t require a background check in order
to purchase a gun, what are you, a friggin’ Socialist or something? I’ll write more about that at a later date,
rest assured of that.
Let me get back to the issue of
bipolar. I saw a wonderful documentary
on Youtube dealing with bipolar disorder that was simply heartwarming and
heartbreaking simultaneously; pretty perfect considering it dealt with bipolar
disorder, right? I think it was entitled
Up/Down or something less than clever like that. There was a woman who had a quote that was
the best description of having bipolar disorder that I’ve ever heard of. She said having bipolar disorder is similar
to sitting in a boat and holding on to two strings. One string has a kite and desires to lift you
high above the reality of the boat. The
other string has an anchor on it and desires to bring you down to the depths of
the ocean below reality. Being bipolar
is like holding onto both those strings and keeping a balance. Perhaps the title of the documentary should’ve
been Kites and Anchors with a picture of the tattoos that she had on her hands
of a kite and an anchor, just a thought.
Almost anything would be better than “Up/Down” right? Everyone’s a critic, including myself I
suppose. They did do a fabulous job of
educating anyone who watches it about the disorder in a respectful way and I
definitely appreciated it for that.
No comments:
Post a Comment