BIPOLAR – The brilliant madness or JOAN OF ARC SYNDROME

I wrote this piece early in 2009 as a response to a request to address a group of volunteers for DGS Mind. It was hard for me to put the realities of my illness down on paper.

– The brilliant madness or JOAN OF ARC SYNDROME

Many famous high achievers throughout history have of late been recognised as suffering from Manic Depression or Bipolar Syndrome

Some of The Most Famous and Documented are

Winston Churchill

Spike Milligan

Ludwig von Beethoven

Edvard Munch

Virginia Wolff

And others equally famous but with a hypothetical diagnosis

George Frederick Handel       Theodore Roosevelt

Michelangelo                                   Chopin

Bach                                                     Mahler

Liszt                                                 Handel

Charles Darwin                           Edgar Allen Poe

Picasso                                           Gauguin

Gabriele Dante Rosetti            Vincent Van Gogh

Jackson Pollock                          Henry Matisse

Oliver Cromwell                         Napoleon Bonaparte

Leo Tolstoy                                   Ernest Hemingway

Charles Dickens,

The list goes on and on. We don’t know for certain that these people suffered from Bipolar, but one thing they have in common is their DRIVEN OBSESSIVE BEHAVIOUR. Many had grandiose visions which they pursued relentlessly and seemingly tirelessly. And many had bouts of deep dark depression. People with Bipolar are often multi talented, artistic or creative.

In fact, so large has the list of high achievers with the illness become that the illness has attained a certain glamour.

Hence the term “The Brilliant Madness”

There is nothing nice about having Bipolar. Its characterised by extreme mood swings or cycles from manic euphoria to deep dark depression.

I use the term manic euphoria because in this phase of the illness a sufferer can experience extreme feelings of well being coupled with supreme self confidence and the certainty that one is capable of achievement. This can escalate into delusions of grandeur in which one sees oneself as being on a mission. You might think you have the gift of telepathy, or you have been singled out by a supreme being to undertake a task. Hence the coined phrase Joan of Arc syndrome. One can have auditory and visual hallucinations. i.e. relentless voices whispering in your ear and lights signalling you from space. You can read messages in everything, from cloud formations in the sky to the way a house spider spins its web. Along with this goes restlessness, an inability to sleep and Obsessive Driven Behaviour. A breakdown quickly ensues without proper medical attention. Behaviour unless curtailed can become intrusive and potentially dangerous to others and oneself. People who have Bipolar are known to take risks like spending large sums of money they don’t have, becoming promiscuous, driving recklessly and taking their clothes off in public.

At the other end of the scale, is the depressive stage. This is much more difficult for me to describe. It’s like living at the bottom of a well. If you can try and imagine that with me. It’s dark and dank, and no light or sunlight penetrates from above. The walls of the well are covered in mould, which is slimy to the touch and you are standing in stagnant water, beneath which is mud that your feet have become stuck in. On the water float putrefying carcases of little animals that have become trapped. Its cold in the well and you have known for some time now that there is no way out. You wonder how long it took the little animals to drown and whether they suffered much. You visualise drowning and wonder how long it will take you.

You go to bed with the assumption that if you go to sleep you might never wake up again. When you wake up the day is as grey as it was yesterday. You drag yourself through the day with only one saving grace in sight. You can go to bed at the end of it and sleep. But you can’t sleep because you are too frightened of losing control. Death is always present. Horrendous dreams stalk your sleep in which those you care about most are horribly tortured or being duped or used by someone who is evil incarnate.

Because not much is known about the illness other than its effect on the sufferer, drugs are employed by the professionals in an effort to stabilise the moods (stop them cycling). Help is given by The Crisis Team who will instruct the sufferer in techniques, lifestyle changes and the correct use of medication. The drugs administered all have side affects. These side affects can be as bad as or even worse than the actual illness. They can amplify the mood. So you can see that in the depressive phase it is quite common for the sufferer to become suicidal. However these drugs are known to have a success rate in stabilising mood swings.

I would like to give you an idea of my personal growth through the experience of Bipolar. Many people who experience the manic phase of Bipolar speak of it in religious terminology. They feel they are God or they have special powers. Justin says he is an atheist. I hope he means he is an atheist and not an agnostic for I myself have been an agnostic for much of my life. Through Bipolar people can grow. It changes for good ones perception of everything and yes it is akin to a spiritual awakening.

Media perception.

There is a trend in the media to try to address stigmatism of people with mental illness by casting them in soaps, and what they portray is their suffering. We saw very recently “Jean” on Eastenders go through a Mental Breakdown and we were made aware of her and her families’ fear of hospitalisation. This fear is not unfounded. Disruptive behaviour in mental hospitals can lead to Sectioning which then leaves the patient ostensibly unable to control any aspect of their own lives. Drugs administered, sometimes against the patients’ wishes, numb emotional responses to all external stimuli. One can feel like crying but be unable to cry and the same goes for laughing. They become actors without emotions, or automatons in their own play which is their life. It used to be called lobotomy.

There is a feeling of isolation that can be counteracted by an acknowledgement of the persons’ illness. A simple “how are you feeling today” will work wonders. We will not however tell you at this stage how we are feeling as it may lead to further isolation. One is aware of the affect on those closest to you and may try to hide the inner turmoil to protect them. We do not want others to experience our world, for it is too dangerous. So we exercise restraint and censor our replies to well intentioned questions. If we sit all day in clothes that aren’t clean and seem to take no interest in diversions it’s because we are fighting a battle. A battle that takes all our strength and willpower, and from which death is perceived as a welcome relief.

I would briefly like to talk about stigma. At first I didn’t like having a label. It seemed to be a way to discriminate against me. But with time I have learned to accept my label and now view it as a badge of honour. For it tells anybody who is bothered to find out, a lot about my nature. It is not what I am it is who I am.

Finally a little quote that I find inspirational

“Our lives begin to end the day we remain silent about things that matter” - Martin Luther King