Stephen Fry, Bipolarity & Angels

I am inordinately flattered that my posts draw such detailed dissection by the vaunted members of this forum. Jack, you're right. I'm not bipolar. I had a long, probably bipolar episode; whether I diagnosed myself or had it diagnosed by a doctor is beside the point. How many people go undiagnosed by GPs, do you think? I have a deep distrust of doctors, and in fact only went to a doctor for some medication after a particularly bad night when I attempted to flip the car over (with my husband and two children as passengers) by doing 360s in an empty car park. I didn't tell the doctor about that, otherwise it *would* have been Haldol for me, and frankly, I had a degree to finish. I wouldn't want to have to deal with this kind of stuff my entire life; but even if I had to, I would be cautious about pasting a 'bipolar' label on my forehead. 'Oh, you have no idea what I've suffered, etc.' smacks of self-indulgence, and let's face it, 'learning to love aspects of your condition' is the ultimate in self-indulgence. I didn't love anything about it, not the 70 grand in student debt I racked up, spent mostly on shoes and changing hairstyles; not the incoherent rages, not the near-constant consideration of suicide. BUT, I can still laugh about it, and laugh at myself and others, as that is the antidote to self-indulgent 'oh how grim it all is' beliefs. Not everyone will think this way, and that's their right. It's my right to have views that differ. You are welcome to your gravely analytical mien; taking things too seriously is epidemic on this forum, and it reeks of a kind of Victorian-era morality.

I am aware that I seem to create controversy and that this isn't usually deliberate. I'm also aware that I offend many people; this, too, isn't usually deliberate, although in certain cases it most definitely is. I apologise for ruffling the feathers of people whose feathers I seldom ruffle.

This has been a worthy topic. Can we have a 'Rants and Raves' forum please? :) There's nothing more mind-teasing than the incomprehensible eagerly avowed - Dennet

"A bit of craziness on this thread (a little experiment to gauge tolerance levels)" and there was me thinking you were just being a prat

Pepsoid said: "Well… so much for suggesting that “mental illness” might be something other than what we are told it is. I’ll just tootle off back to my pod and wait for the Mother Ship." Pepsoid, you're not the first person to suggest that mental illness isn't what we're told that it is, and that we risk excluding a minority of 'real' things by treating people as delusional. The problem with that thinking is that it always involves a notion of a unified 'them' who are nefariously defining mental illness for malign reasons and a noble, beleaguered unity of 'the mentally ill' who are misunderstood seers and unrecognised spiritual and artistic geni. Another problem is that, seeing the world of treatment for mental illness as a unity with shared objectives, approaches or underpinnings, what you do is create a false opposition between 'inhuman' medicine / therapy and 'human' care, concern and acceptance. Medicine / therapy as a unity is cold, mechanical and impersonal therefore only those outside of the medicine / therapy profession can have a creative, empathetic or sympathetic view of mental illness. It's an argument where lack of knowledge allows you to make huge generalisations. There is huge diversity in approach and treatment for mental illness, as there are a huge amount of creative, sympathetic or empathetic individuals involved with the care, treatment and support of people with mental illness. With this view, based as it is on false oppositions you then get a fallacy of the "all people with manic depression are creative" or "people diagnosed as delusional are only accessing a deeper form of reality that normal people can't see'. These are analogous to statements like 'black young people don't commit crime' in response to the assertion that black young people are the cause of crime. The actuality is some do, some don't. It's really easy to lionise or valourise people that you have sympathy with, in an effort to compensate for the hardships that you feel that they face. The problem is that it doesn't bring you any closer to helping. It's like countering evidence of a problem with a belief that there isn't a problem. As I said earlier on, 'the what if he really is the son of God' runs and runs. It doesn't, in itself, cast any light upon the question of how society can find ways to help and support people with mental illnesses. It almost seemed that you suggest that people who aren't very well should be left alone or even celebrated and supported in their delusion on the off chance that their delusion may turn out to be true. Cheers, Mark

"and there was me thinking you were just being a prat" I was being many things, Monsieur Maddan, and one of them was a prat.

It may help some people to believe that they are visionaries, etc. It's similar to how alot of new-agey mothers won't accept that their kids have ADD and prefer to believe that their children are Indigo Children, ie: Special as opposed to disabled in some way. I have no qualms about that - as long as they continue to take their meds..lol. Seriously, I've nearly had my fingers cut off by a person who gave up his meds. He thought that I was secretly giving him the two fingered salute. There's nothing more mind-teasing than the incomprehensible eagerly avowed - Dennet

Pepsoid said: "My problem is in the fact that there seems to be very little room for considering the possibility that, for example, “delusions” are anything but that." If you check back over my posts, I pick you up on this point Pepsoid. A delusion isn't just an idea. For something to be a 'delusion' it has to be medically recognised as such. For someone to be at the point where they are diagnosed as delusional, there must be a fair degree of suffering or disruption present. Delusion is only important when it is evident that the belief in question seriously impairs the health or wellbeing of the person in question, or in extreme cases, those around them. Someone isn't being treated because they are delusional. They're being treated because they are in distress, in danger or because they are unable, with the delusion in place, to look after themselves or take responsibility for their own conduct. So it's not a matter of taking away beautiful visions on purpose, it's a matter of taking into account what will be best for someone in a wider sense. The business of treating mental illness is a far less prescriptive and unyielding process than you might imagine. There's a lot of slippery, intangible stuff that goes on that you, based on your instinct, would habitually assume could only take place outside of the medical model of treatment. In my own experience, the people who've treated me or supported me have argued very strongly against a reductive medical / physical model of mental illness, tending far more toward the holistic view that you assume could only exist beyond the mainstream services. Cheers, Mark

Psychos? Them lot? They were just spreading the love. Getting rid of the stinky pig PIG PIGGIES! There's nothing more mind-teasing than the incomprehensible eagerly avowed - Dennett