Stephen Fry, Bipolarity & Angels

Pepsoid, Are you into aromatherapy?

Mental Illness is defined by the extent to which the condition or symptom impacts negetively upon the life of an individual. A delusion is not like a fancy or an idea. It is something that can't be shaken off, or thought about a different way. For you, the person with the delusion, it is absolute implacable truth. Very whimsical the idea of omnipotenece and special purpose may sound to the observer, but imagine trying to book a flight and claiming you needed the best seats because you were a special emmissary of god. Or explaining that you can park where ever you like because you are on a mission from a higher power. Not so whimsical now is it? The 'is he a visionary, is he mentally ill?' will run and run. The question of whether you'd give up bipolar is a funny one. I wouldn't, but only because I know what it's like to be medicated up and missing a bit of yourself. Would I like to have been born without bipolar? Maybe I would, it would certainly make life more predictable and less tiring. We're a rum bunch, I'll give us that. Cheers, Mark

Oh! The things I could tell ya! :) There's nothing more mind-teasing than the incomprehensible eagerly avowed - Dennet

"What if we’re missing something in this age of science, rationality and iPods that, if we were just a little more accepting and open-minded regarding the possibility of, would actually improve our lives?" So, ran this by us properly, what you're saying is that most people are currently too rational? What more would the large majority of the world's population who believe in the rule of an omnipotent supernatural power have to do to convince you of their irrationality?

Pepsoid - no one at any point in the programme actually challenged or belittled the guy's belief. You're ranting against something which nobody criticised or even mentioned. I found it an hour of discomfiting, moving television, and (though I'm not surprised, given it's you) I'm pretty disappointed you've decided to pick a boring, geeky angle on it as a discussion point, only to throw yourself into it with your usual ignorant gusto.

It's a good idea to clarify terms I think. The thing with delusions is, you aren't be told that they're wrong (moral judgement) but wrong (incorrect). Also delusions aren't beliefs, they're misdirected thinking. There is a difference. The person in my example doesn't believe they're an emmissary of a higher power, they know they're an emmissary of a higher power. The thing with delusions is, once you're out of the period that you're having them, you can recognise them for what they are. When you have them, though, they're as real as real can be. In a non delusional state you carry the residue of that experience, the footprints of it on your mind. It's that point where insight happens. One of the ways in which mental illness is recognised is by being sensitive to a person's lack of insight, which is what delusion is. A person who is delusion can't do 'reality checking', that is looking at what the probability of a particualar conviction being true actually is. Cheers, Mark

When you go out to buy a book and come home with thirteen copies of it then it's time for the lith! When you're standing in your back yard at 3am in the morning with a bottle of pills, eyeing up a nice spot on the dewy lawn where you might just curl up and die then you need the lith. Indeed, biploar and schizophrenia are listed as the world's most devastating diseases. The symptoms last a life time. Our brains evolved to map out the most advantageous environment. It's true that Aristotle could only see tricolour rainbows during his lifetime (as detailed in his works). We've since adapted and been introduced to more colour. That's an example of how our awareness and perceptions will develop in the future. If you take pyschoactives your brain chemistry is altered and you're flooded with an entirely new awareness which we cannot say isn't 'real' but just not practical to our survival needs. When you see someone with a leg in plaster you can relate, you can see with your own eyes their problem. When you contemplate the mentally ill there is nothing you can see with your own eyes to measure and empathise with. That's why they have such a rough deal. but it's just the same thing. Any mental illness affects the body aswell as the mind. There's nothing more mind-teasing than the incomprehensible eagerly avowed - Dennet

"Medical treatments are no doubt valid and useful, but I also believe we should be a little more open-minded about the possible insights a “mentally ill” person may have that a “normal” person wouldn’t." If I thought I was literally seeing angels I'd much rather I was treated for it than have my 'belief' tolerated as a possible gateway to an unnecessary realm of higher understanding. One delusion can lead to others. My brother's friend thought, when he was staying in hospital, that he was a special agent of Jesus. There was one in each country, and he was England's. He thought the nurse was his bodyguard. As I recall, he also tried to throw himself off a cliff, believing he could survive. We have all the understanding of the world we need in order to make it better - there's no further 'insight' worth jeopardising someone's life for, Peps. ~ I'll Show You Tyrants * Fuselit * The Prowl Log * Woe's Woe

A great majority of sufferers (when they're manic) enjoy the feeling. Alot of patients deliberately cease taking their meds because they miss those moments of bliss. It's the downward swoop that f**ks it all up. It's very difficult to realise when you're entering a manic phase until it's too late and you've done some pretty stupid things, spent a bit too much money, or got yourself 5 pet snakes when you're petrified of them. having to live with a deep depression AND the humiliation of what you got up to (and thought was totally normal) when you were manic is what leads alot to suicide. 1 in 5 mentally ill eventually take their own lives. There's nothing more mind-teasing than the incomprehensible eagerly avowed - Dennet

This is a very interesting thread, especially since I only recently realised that I spent about six years of my life with what I consider an undiagnosed bipolarity. I made this realisation whilst reading an advert in an American magazine for some drug or other used in the treatment of bipolarity, which also gave a list of symptoms, sixty percent of which I recognised in myself (at that period of time, though not now). While I won't label myself as 'bipolar' I would certainly consider the idea of having bipolar 'tendencies'. I didn't watch the show, so I'm sure I missed the whole debate, but what interests me is not the diagnosis itself, but rather the viewpoints about treating it. I know only as much as I've read about it, but my spiritual counsellor, who is also a psychologist, feels that bipolarity is a symptom of poorly-expressed emotion; e.g. the sufferer has very strong emotions (usually anger, grief, frustration, etc.) but is unable to find a way to constructively deal with and verbalise them *at the time of feeling*. His belief is that this leads to a sort of psycho-physiological feedback loop, where the unadressed feelings cause the body's chemicals to become imbalanced, which then affects the feelings, and so forth. Therefore, while medical treatment is helpful, what he feels is more helpful is to actually address what those feelings are that triggered the chemical imbalance, get the person's chemistry back on an even keel, and find a permanent workable solution to the 'feelings' issues to avoid relapses. Certainly in my case there were all sorts of feelings for which I couldn't find appropriate expression at the time; I felt I was unheard and trapped in a situation from which there was no escape. What that led to was a massive downward spiral in mental health and some fairly spectacular rages. I reckon I must have been lucky to a) survive it and b) come out the other side of it with a greater sense of what I need to do to prevent that sort of spiral occurring again. The sad thing is that I now feel I 'missed' most of my kids' babyhoods whilst battling these demons, and carry an unremitting guilt that I may have somehow scarred them with my erratic behaviour, although I did my level best to make sure they knew I loved them, it wasn't their fault, it would be okay, etc., as you do. It's all a blur. So I have huge empathy for bipolar sufferers, and it seems to me that one *doesn't* have to have a lifelong label, but perhaps that depends on a number of factors, including the person's disposition and attitude toward bipolarity, self-awareness, spiritual beliefs, etc. But as I only appear to have had a mild case, I certainly can't speak for those for whom it is much worse, and can only wish them well, literally and otherwise.

Yan, it's true that people often take themselves by the hand and lead themselves down the path marked 'mania'. I think we often get hung up on a false set of polarities in this debate. On one hand you have rationality, the other irrationality. If we see ourselves as a bit of a free spirit, we tend to tag rational as being mundane. This, by pepsoid's logic, means that irrationality must be the opposite of mundane, which seems to me to be equated with freedom. Therefore, people with mental illnesses are more free than the majority who are enclosed in mundane rationality. Setting this out, you can see the flaw in the logic. Rationality does not have to be constricting or mundane. This then means that the opposition does not stand. Irrationality does not equal a freedom from rationality, or mundane rationality. It is merely a state of being without rationality, which isn't something that is either positive or negative in and of itself. Mental illness is measured by the level of problem that a condition causes to the individual living in a society where the majority of people do not experience the same condition, or in extreme cases the amount of problems an individual causes to a society. The manic depressive person is not merely eccentric, although they might be also be eccentric. They are not just someone who sometimes has elevated moods and sometimes depressed moods. It's easy to see mental illness as an elevated reality, which is possible to hanker after if you yourself don't have it. Most of us have an urge to transcend the mundane, to become 'more than ourselves'. Sadly, if you do have a mental illness, you do have to try to make sense of a series of eruption in your life that knock everything out of kilter. The thing is, you don't choose this, and to a great extent it's a salvage job. People with manic depression learn to love aspects of their condition because, to be honest, you don't have much choice. It's making the best of a bad job. Cheers, Mark

I am hoping that will prove the case with myself, as I wouldn't want to repeat it. I wouldn't wish that kind of inner darkness on my worst enemy; there were moments when I felt I was looking over the edge into the abyss, and what I saw wasn't pretty. I made it out with a few now-faded scars on my arms, a lot of bad memories, and a debt I'll be paying back for quite awhile. That's enough, IMO.

my teacher is bipolar yet she lives a normal life.

my teacher is bipolar yet she lives a normal life.

I think neuroscience is the way forward with all mental illness. They're already making amazing in-roads with PET scanning. NHS psychiatry/therapy is abysmal. As for Pep's take on this, I visit alot of spirituality sites, and it's alarming how many other ppl harbour the same views regards manic depression and schizophrenia. One renowned commercial spiritualist medium was encouraging his members to get off their tablets because he claimed that they were simply suffering from attacks from 'negative entities' (evil spirits) How dangerous is that? I reported him to MIND. Pseudo-scientific vultures preying on the young and vulnerable for a quick buck. To follow on from Mark's post, some schizophrenics simply do not have depth perception. Coupled with auditory floods and paranoid delusions, that's a scary fookin' world to be living in. There's nothing more mind-teasing than the incomprehensible eagerly avowed - Dennet

I'm not dissing medicine at all in this, as there are clearly benefits to stabilising the body's chemistry; but I think to take a strictly medical perspective is to miss other possibilities as to the *root* of the problem, if not the symptoms themselves. Not all people taking a so-called 'spiritual' perspective are 'pseudo-scientific vultures', and anyone who encourages someone to go off their meds without supervision and other support in place really *ought* to be reported. *But* taking an 'allopathic medicine only' perspective is a very Western perspective, indeed; because in many cultures the ailments of the mind are considered ailments of the spirit, and in some cases they are probably right. There is still a huge disconnect in this society between mental/physical/spiritual (or mind/body/spirit), when they are inextricably linked to one another. There is a *reason* someone disconnects from their primary personality to become schizophrenic; brain chemistry, yes, but what caused the brain chemistry to go awry, and is there a chance that it is linked to some early physical or emotional trauma; are there perceptions about their existence that the person has blocked and 'separated' from? I certainly don't know the answer to this, particularly with schizophrenia, which is misunderstood by the medical profession as well as the general populace, but I feel quite sure that there is more to it than just the brain going haywire. I feel that the best treatment (and we're talking about a 'dream NHS' instead of reality) would involve 1. provision of medicine to help stabilise the brain's chemistry to get it working properly again, and careful weaning from the medicine once the chemistry is okay 2. supportive counselling to help *deal* with what's really going on 3. some kind of spiritual guidance; it need not be religion, but some sort of support or group to help give the person's life meaning and purpose beyond just 'oneself'. If I had had all of these at the same time, my 'episode' may not have lasted six years...

Bipolarity came to the trendy fore about ten years ago - a great many people with manic tendencies were leapt upon with glee and diagnosed, often with devastating consequences. People suffering from intense grief reaction, for instance, or a life which spiralled out of all feasible personal control, often through no fault of the individual were diagnosed incorrectly. I agree with Archergirl to some extent as to the causes of such behaviours. However, Archergirl, I am surprised you display such a sympathetic and understanding insight into BPD. Your attachment of yourself to such a disorder (though no surprise) makes this quote from you seem even more tastless ... "forget to take your Haldol this morning, love, or what?Apparently, bipolarity is a symptom expressed by people who can't get in touch with their feelings in an appropriate manner. You need further treatment, clearly, before your children suffer further from your mood swings." Using mental disorders as insult isnt really the behaviour of someone who has lived with one.

Pyshcoanalysis died 50 years ago! :) There's nothing more mind-teasing than the incomprehensible eagerly avowed - Dennet

That stung, did it, Cath? Probably because it had a ring of truth in it. I feel I can be facetious about it because I've been in a similar place and try, at least, to have a sense of humour about myself and the horrid things I did/said. Self-forgiveness may be the hardest thing I have to face, but that doesn't stop me from trying to make light. I *do* feel for people who suffer such things, very much so; that doesn't mean I necessarily get along with them personally. I wouldn't say that I've attached myself to it; rather, the opposite, and luckily I seem to have gotten rid of it after much work. Psychoanalysis may have died, but integrative perspective counselling is alive and well, Yan!

No Archer, it didnt sting at all. I thought it was pretty appalling at the time, and my opinion of it hasnt altered. Well done you. If you called me a spazzer, I'd feel the same, and I dont have any kind of spastic syndrome thanks.

A very cynical psychiatric nurse once told me that the difference between being diagnosed schizophrenic and bipolar was about 30K. AG, have you ever read Three Men In A Boat?

Ha

lol..the psychiatric avery itself hosts some very strange birds. What is integrative perspective counselling? It's not psychoanalysis revived with Dawinism, is it? There's nothing more mind-teasing than the incomprehensible eagerly avowed - Dennet

Well, Cath, some of the things you've accused me of doing in past tiffs with you are fairly, amusingly appalling as well, so I guess we're even. I agree my remark was both tasteless and below the belt. With anyone else, I may have felt bad about being so callous and thus rescinded it, but I do believe I'll just let it lie, thanks. Maddan, no, I haven't. Should I? Yan, I'm not sure exactly what it's called besides 'integrative'; apparently they just take tidbits from all the different theories and schools of thought (psychodynamic, etc.) It seems to work, though, for many people.

One of the more fascinating aspects of bipolarity i think, is the symptom of the grandiose ... the over exaggeration say, of past / current life achievements. Another is the appearance of multiple personality traits (or one could even say, personalities) from the same person.

Everyone should read it, it's a wonderful book.

Ah, Cath. The thing is, see, that I *have* had all these experiences I speak of, no exaggeration necessary. Nothing grandiose about it; I've just led an adventurous and varied life with lots of peaks and troughs. If I was going to exaggerate, I'd say I *did* have a master's degree, instead of admitting I *almost* had one, or say that I graduated summa cum laude instead of with the cum laude that I actually got. But whether you believe me or not isn't a concern of mine; I certainly don't lose sleep over it. I find it funny that you and others feel that if someone says they have an interesting life, they *must* be lying about it. A bit too cynical for my taste, but Brits are cynical, by and large. It must be the water. Or the weather. And you're still missing a crucial element in the debate about other 'personalities', but if you can't figure it out, far be it from me to enlighten you. Heh heh. You're a clever girl; you can do better than that!

"I feel I can be facetious about it because I've been in a similar place and try, at least, to have a sense of humour about myself and the horrid things I did/said." I was going to say: "Sorry, AG, I don't think that follows at all. If you know what it's like to suffer from bipolar disorder it seems to me very cruel to joke about someone else being in that situation. You don't have ignorance as an excuse. Laughing at someone else in the middle of a misfortune you've undergone isn't the same as having a sense of humour about yourself." Then I read: "I agree my remark was both tasteless and below the belt." Which kind of neuters my reply. But *then* I read: "With anyone else, I may have felt bad about being so callous and thus rescinded it, but I do believe I'll just let it lie, thanks." Seeing as the barb was really far more at the expense of bipolar sufferers everywhere than your intended target, I think you should still feel bad about it. It's kind of like calling someone a 'queer-ass homosexual bumfucker' and then saying you don't feel bad because the insultee deserved it. You should read the start of 'Three Men in a Boat'. Dan's joke will become clear within the first couple of pages. I'm afraid err... it does make one of your above comments look a bit silly. ~ I'll Show You Tyrants * Fuselit * The Prowl Log * Woe's Woe

JC. Why don't you ever pick on cath_carr? Are _you_ cath_carr? *guffaws*

PS, JC. Your in-depth lit crit of AG's post is _very_ detailed, don't you think? Not that I want to use the word anal or anything.

Oh, well, thanks for the recommendation; I'll add it to the list, right behind the bible and 'Of Mice and Men'. Plenty of silly comments and ridiculous insults are to be found on this site, made by all and sundry; and I'm sure, somewhere on this site, someone has called someone else a queer-ass homosexual bumfucker at some point or other . I doubt bipolar sufferers everywhere will feel particularly debilitated and insulted by the suggestion that they are out of touch with their feelings, and that the barb was from one to another has a certain logic to it. I admire your concern with political correctness, but such a bland and uninteresting world it makes.

I didn't say that!

Hey, AG. Are you calling me a debilitated bipolar queer-ass homosexual bumfucker? Cos you'd be right of course. I am all that and more. Sock it to me, baby.

You didn't say what?

Go read the book, it will all become clear love.

Oh hi, the lovely cath. Pick on me, baby, pick on me. I'm getting hot at the thought of it.

I just went and read it, love. It's all very witty and clever, much like you, but it doesn't change a thing. As I said, what you think don't lose me no sleep, shweetheart. Jecks, I'm sure you know more about these kinds of things, being a Doctor and all. Tell me...am I a self-diagnosed hypochondriac looking for a label to stitch on myself? Heh heh.

Go on, tell _me_ to read a special book. You're so special and in the know darling.

Oh! Look! Cath! I have two computers and I'm TYPING TO MYSELF. I rilly rilly MUST be bipolar! *smiles*

_I've_ got a nice cure for you AG.... *Doctor being flirty*

*waits for nasty emails to begin arriving*

cath_carr - are you Jack Cade? Have you got a willy?

Doc, you can cure me any time you want.

I have a big willy, you know. *flirting technique a bit rusty*

Oh, classic! I'm going to bed now. Dr Jekyll is *not* going to bed with me, at least, not tonight, that I know of. *wink*

"I admire your concern with political correctness, but such a bland and uninteresting world it makes." I'm sorry - when did *not* being homophobic, or *not* making fun of mentally ill people become political correctness? I didn't realise being above that kind of behaviour means you automatically threaten the world with blandness. "I doubt bipolar sufferers everywhere will feel particularly debilitated and insulted by the suggestion that they are out of touch with their feelings." Weak defence. You were using it in the context of an insult - a cheap shot. It makes light of the condition. "...and that the barb was from one to another has a certain logic to it." You're not a bipolar sufferer. Having gone through it once doesn't make you one for life. I reckon 90% of the people who regularly use this site have been on anti-depressants at one time or another, but that doesn't make us all mentally unstable. Call your jackal off - the improvised puppetry is making a mess of the thread. ~ I'll Show You Tyrants * Fuselit * The Prowl Log * Woe's Woe Just to avoid me (and

well, I've just spent ten mins reading what *was* an interesting discussion until Ag and Jekyll joined in and subsequently reduced it to puerile insults. Grow up Ag. Why don't you let people here work out your personality and *who* you are for themselves without you and your *mates* ramming it down their throats? Also, please allow other users of this forum a modicum of intelligence. Not everyone is as thick as your alleged entourage, you know.

Give me some credit, JC. After all, I'm not the one with someone else's hand up my arse. Pepsoid - you're right in many ways. A bit of craziness on this thread (a little experiment to gauge tolerance levels) wasn't well tolerated by the most self-avowedly tolerant on here..... Stormy - imagining alleged entourages is a symptom of paranoia/delusion you know.