James Turrell is one of the most remarkable artists alive. He has an amazing understanding of light and perception. By using darkness and almost imperceptible light, his artwork totally changes the way we see the world. I think his work with light and darkness is a perfect metaphor for trying to see depression in a new light.
james turrell – the tunnel
When you enter one of Jim’s installations, it is so dark that you cannot see anything, or at least not much. The amount of available light is simply too little for our eyes to use. His artwork is not a picture on the wall; it is the entire environment, in which both the perception of the audience and time act as critical components.
If you stay long enough, your eyes begin to adjust to the lack of light. You start to see things that were there all along, but your eyes were not yet ready to perceive.
When you go back out into the “real” world, you bring an entirely new perspective; you begin to see everything in a whole new light (pun intended). Jim’s work can truly be described as a discovery of the act of seeing.
james turrell – experimenting with light
My own art is similar to Jim’s in many ways. Like Jim, instead of using a brush to paint a picture, I choose to build an environment that blocks out light and helps me to perceive. Unlike Jim, my art is not in the physical world; it is in my interior world.
Instead of blocking out the physical light, I learn to block out the thoughts and feelings that distract me from seeing the more subtle light that shines within each of us. I then discover deeper truths hidden within my own consciousness. When I return to the external world, I begin to see the same subtle light in the eyes of everyone I meet.
My art is called meditation. I have been practicing it for over 45 years, sometimes as much as 8 hours a day. Meditation has given me the ability to “see” things in a much deeper way. It can be described as the discovery of the act of knowing.
james turrell – afrum white
I recently went through a fairly deep depression, and came out thinking a lot about James Turrell. I don’t know if he is bipolar or experiences depression, but if he does, I bet he sees it in the way I do.
When I went into depression the first time, all I saw was darkness and pain. At the time, I thought it was unbearable, but looking back and comparing it to some of the far deeper hells I have since experienced, it was really nothing.
As my perception has grown, I am beginning to “see” things I never knew were there: good insights, lessons, and personal growth. In “seeing” clearly, I notice that now depression doesn’t affect me so negatively. It now affects me much more, but in a positive way, at least according to the way I have learned to “see.”
On a scale from one to five, I used to think of a five as experiencing no depression at all, and a one as so deeply depressed that I would attempt suicide. I thought four was a little painful, three even more, and two almost unbearable. Since there was no “light,” and all I could “see” was pain, I judged my experiences solely on that basis.
As I spent more time trying to “see” in depression, I began to notice many things that were probably there all along, but I could not “look” through the pain to “see” them. As I started to discover the “act of seeing” in depression, I started to ponder the significance of my discoveries.
Each time I experienced depression, it became clearer to me. I began to redefine what depression was, based on the features that I could now “see” more clearly. My scale began to change, from a scale based on pain, to one based on a much richer perception of what was going on. I still define a five as “having no symptoms,” and a one as “so difficult that I try to kill myself,” but four, three, and two have become a rich and varied landscape.
james turrell – untitled
I have also come to understand the significant difference between those who have “situational depression,” caused by outward circumstances, and those who have what I consider “true depression,” caused by mental illness. I have learned to articulate that clearly enough to make a difference in the lives of both those who are truly depressed and those who love and support them.
Everyone experiences some form of depression at least once in life. If it is really bad, it means extreme sadness, crying, inability to function fully, lethargy, dullness of thought, and more. For most, it is caused by some great loss like the death of a loved one, or some other great tragedy.
james turrell – roden crater
You wake up in the morning so sad, you think you cannot get through the day. It might even debilitate you for a day or so, but for the most part, you get up, grab a cup of coffee, go to work, and somehow make it through the day, even if seriously diminished in your ability to perform. If it is really bad, this depression lasts for weeks or months, as you slowly get on with life. That is a three in my book. It is also about as deep as anyone gets from “situational depression,” the kind that comes solely from outside circumstances and not from mental illness.
A two is not just the same thing with more intensity. It is fundamentally different than a three. In a two, the world becomes black and white. There is no color. There is an intense physical pain. Thoughts become confused. During such pain, I lose the ability to even remember a time when it was not like this. I can see no future when it might go away. (This is called “state specific memory” and is very common.) My mind keeps repeating “kill yourself, kill yourself, kill yourself,” and I keep seeing visions of car crashes and every method of suicide that you can imagine. All I can do is hang on. A two is the worst kind of hell. (At the time of writing this, I erroneously assumed that a one meant you killed yourself from the pain of the two state.)
james turrell – light install
Being able to explain depression better and help others is great, but there is so much more. Central to my belief, is that nothing is all good or all bad, but a combination of good and bad components. We “see” the good and bad according to our ability to perceive and the filters that we place on ourselves, based on how we assign value. In my struggles with depression, I have been frustrated with my inability to “see” any good in it. In my recent depression and thoughts about James Turrell, I have begun to “see” depression in a whole new light. I am not ready to choose depression, but next time it comes, I look forward to exploring a whole new landscape.
james turrell – untitled
I have noticed that aspects of depression that I used to consider a two and almost unbearable, I am now denoting as a three. I have also begun to gain tremendous insight into many things, including my spiritual life. It is from a spiritual perspective that I have really begun to see that depression can be a great thing. In my readings of the lives of saints, pain and despair is often mentioned as a catalyst that helped them to become better persons and act in a manner that is called saintly. After always struggling with this concept, I am now beginning to understand.
It was the misery of depression that brought me to the realization that I am mentally ill. The unbearable pain is what helped me to recognize the torture I have done to others. Without the heartache, I would never have learned who I really am, and come to understand the power of acceptance. Without the despair, I would not have had the desire to become a better person.
The saints talk about having a despair so strong it becomes unbearable. The despair they feel is specific, it is the agony they feel from not having a direct experience of God. The despair becomes so strong, that they would rather die than go another minute without Him. They describe it as getting to a point that their own sense of self becomes the thing that separates them from God; they feel that they “die” into oneness with the divine. I believe that is what Saint Paul meant when he said “I die daily.”
james turrell – sky apace
In my depressions, I feel tremendous despair. My mind keeps repeating over and over “kill yourself, kill yourself.” What if my perception keeps becoming clearer and I start to notice that the despair truly is for God? What if the self that I am trying to kill, is the “little self” that is keeping me from realizing the true nature that I believe is in each of us. This is our divine self. Jesus said “The kingdom of God is within you.” It seems that for at least some of us, it is depression and despair that gives us the ability to “see” our divine self. That is why depression is the best thing that ever happened to me.
(See Post that follows: “BiPolar In Order vs. Bipolar Disorder” for my opinion of Tom Wootton’s book “BiPolar In Order,” and my story of why I chose to purchase and use this book to help me with my Bipolar).
Research Explores the Positives of Bipolar Disorder
found in Science News:… from universities, journals, and other research organizations
ScienceDaily (May 3, 2012) — The problems of living with bipolar have been well documented, but a new study by Lancaster University has captured the views of those who also report highly-valued, positive experiences of living with the condition.
Researchers at Lancaster’s Spectrum Centre, which is dedicated to the study of bipolar disorder, interviewed and recorded their views of ten people with a bipolar diagnosis, aged between 24 and 57. Participants in the study reported a number of perceived benefits to the condition ranging from to sharper senses to increased productivity.
The research was designed to explore growing evidence that some people with bipolar value their experiences and in some cases would prefer not to be without the condition.
Participants described a wide range of experiences and internal states that they believed they felt to a far greater intensity than those without the condition. These included increased perceptual sensitivity, creativity, focus and clarity of thought.
Some held (or had previously held) high functioning professional jobs or had been studying for higher level qualifications. They described in detail how they experienced times when tasks that are usually quite difficult or time consuming, would feel incredibly easy and the ability to achieve at a high level during these times was clearly immensely rewarding.
Others expressed the view that they felt ‘lucky’ or even ‘blessed’ to have the condition.
Alan, (not his real name) one of the interviewees, said: “It’s almost as if it opens up something in the brain that isn’t otherwise there, and I see colour much more vividly than I used to……So I think that my access to music and art are something for which I’m grateful to bipolar for enhancing. It’s almost as if it’s a magnifying glass that sits between that and myself.”
Researchers even found some people with bipolar reaped positive experiences from their lows such as greater empathy with the suffering of others.
Dr Fiona Lobban, who led the study, said: “Bipolar Disorder is generally seen as a severe and enduring mental illness with serious negative consequences for the people with this diagnosis and their friends and family. For some people this is very much the case. Research shows that long term unemployment rates are high, relationships are marred by high levels of burden on family and friends and quality of life is often poor. High rates of drug and alcohol misuse are reported for people with this diagnosis and suicide rates are twenty times that of the general population.
“However, despite all these factors researchers and clinicians are aware that some aspects of bipolar experiences are also highly valued by some people. We wanted to find out what these positive experiences were.
“People were very keen to take part in this study and express views which some felt had to be hidden from the medical profession.
“It is really important that we learn more about the positives of bipolar as focusing only on negative aspects paints a very biased picture that perpetuates the view of bipolar as a wholly negative experience. If we fail to explore the positives of bipolar we also fail to understand the ambivalence of some people towards treatment.”
Rita Long from Stockport was not part of the study but can identify with its findings. She was 40 when she was diagnosed with the condition but from her school days she was aware that she experienced the world differently to her twin sister.
“We were making Christmas cakes at school and I was so interested and excited by it and my sister says she remembers watching me and thinking, ‘I really wish I could get that excited about making a Christmas cake’. I noticed things, experienced them with a different level of intensity, we’d be on a walk and I’d be saying look at the colour of this, and my sister would be saying, ‘It’s just a berry’. Socially too, people with bipolar can be quite quick witted, humorous. Until much later in life I just presumed those things were part of my personality.
“I don’t want to underestimate how difficult the bad times can be that some people go through with bipolar but at the same time I feel very passionate about the positives. If we are going to move on as a society — in academia, in business, in entertainment — we need people who will push boundaries. People with bipolar can do that.”
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Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Lancaster University, via AlphaGalileo.
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Journal Reference:
1.Fiona Lobban, Katherine Taylor, Craig Murray, Steven Jones. Bipolar Disorder is a two-edged sword: a qualitative study to understand the positive edge. Journal of Affective Disorders, 2012; DOI: 10.1016/j.jad.2012.03.001
writing that letter to my mother by jennifer kiley WARNING: there may be some triggering material in this post.
i told my therapist about reading a letter on someone’s blog where they expressed how abusive their mother was to them. They, also, created a mother’s day card. at the time, i did not realize how i responded to it. i did write a comment on this person’s post but i didn’t realize exactly how much their letter and card had triggered me. my therapist asked me if i ever thought about writing a letter to my mother. She thought it would help me emotionally and mentally to express to my mother just what she did to me and how it had affected me then and what it has been doing to me my entire life. the moment she said those words, the thoughts and feelings went through my mind of a great chill and fear. conjuring up that woman and facing the past with her in my mind feels to my insides like more than i could handle.
i see my therapist twice a week, so tomorrow i am sure she will bring up the idea of that letter as one of the topics we talk about. it probably is something that i should really consider doing. it is really difficult for me to face my childhood. last time i tried to do that was in a trauma group. at that time i had a different therapist, one who i loved so much and who i lost about 1 1/2 yrs ago.
my therapist today was a co-leader in the trauma group. she told me that when i would read what i had written as part of our assignments back then, there was absolutely no emotion attached to my presentation, when we read out loud in front of everyone in the group. i was so shut down emotionally, that the words felt like they belonged to someone else.
in therapy, we have been taking it really slowly, getting in touch with my feelings. i have buried them quite deep inside of me. but if i am going to heal the damage i need to face the abuse openly and honestly. which is more than i feel i am ever going to be able to do. but, obviously, i wouldn’t be in therapy all this time if i didn’t know and want to do this work. i want to be healed. i want the nightmares to stop. it would be grand if i could live a life where i didn’t shut down everytime i got too close to being who i really am and to express my feelings without fear always preceeding them. being real is extremely important to me. that is why i wake up every day knowing i must do whatever i need to, in order that this day will have meaning. i will live my life with purpose and hope to find more pieces of the puzzle to make sense out of my being alive.
there will be enjoyment in the mix of learning and growing. and i will do what i love. that is creating and loving my chosen family which includes my partnr and our animals. getting to watch good to great films. reading enlightening words in books and online material from multiple sources. watching television. listening to music. creating blog posts. participating in the whole social media experience. and just feeling and being happy. getting beyond the down side of bipolar. never forgetting the variety that comes with being part of the living world. enjoying art in all its forms. enjoying life in all its forms.
monet “giverny“
A few days later i wrote the followng:
my next session, i told my therapist that i started writing a post on writing a letter to my mother, just to express my feelings about the idea of doing that. she told me she thought that was good but she didn’t want me to talk about my blog posts. she felt that i was avoiding therapy. instead she wanted me to talk about death and suicide and my childhood abuse. she felt it was time. well, i will tell you that she really freaked me out. i told her i still have that post on the preliminary of writing the letter to my mother but it is in draft form. someone wrote to me about this and expressed to me that healing is not a race. i totally agree with her. i know that i am good at avoidance but there are reasons. facing certains things can cause bad things to happen in my mind if i push forward too quickly. even the idea that she (my dead mother) will never read it still makes it scary.
two nights ago i had the worse nightmare and my dead mother and younger brother, who has been in a psych hospital since november 2011 for his bipolar/schizophrenia. he has stopped taking his medication and is in bad shape. he is the brother that has threatened to kill me if he ever saw me again. (and i am actively trying to find out how he is doing so that i might try to hekp him.) they were both in the nightmare. i was there prisoner, stranded at this awful house with no means to escape or at least that is what it felt like. is the thought of writing the letter making my dreams turn into nightmares or are my nightmarse trying to tell me something? how one’s past and one’s demented family can skew your mind from being sure of one’s sanity.
what the hell is sanity? does it mean you are not mentally ill? or does it mean you are able to function in this world with as little paranoia as possible. i know i am not insane but i have a hell of a lot of psych diagnoses that prevent me from living a relatively calm and uneventful life. does everyday have to have some form of torture in it to make one feel alive? when i say torture, i believe i mean feel anguish or suicidal or depressed or so manic that you get into a rage too easily at nothing that important. would you call feeling this way, being tortured? my mother tortured me. is that why i am tortured now. my father had the most perverted collection of friends that he allowed his sicko friends to set me up in order to sexually abuse me. he even forced me to be with them against my protestations. did my mother know? she said certain things that led me to believe she had some sort of cognition of their irreputable behavior. there is so much more that occurred in my childhood that i will at the moment reserve for therapy sessions. i don’t feel i have anything to hide. i was not the abuser, they were. i was just the abandoned child whose vulnerabilty was recognized as an easy target for any evil pedophile, inside and outside of our family.
there were no child abuse hotlines to call. the police would be too dangerous to talk to. one of my abusers threatened to kill me and my family if i told anyone, including the police. i felt isolated and alone in this living nightmare. i had and have a vivid imagination plus i am quite good at dissociation. going to fantasy places is second nature to my mind. maybe that is why when i read a fantasy book i slip so easily into the world that the writer has created. the land in the book becomes more real then the world that actually surrounds me. it’s also more inviting. i don’t believe you can die as if you were one of the characters in the story. you’re more like harry potter with his invisibility cloak.
there are questions that are asked of people who are gay or bipolar or both: if you had the choice to not be gay and/or bipolar what would you chose?
I would chose to be both. but since i have no choice i would say that the goddess predetermined my answer by making it so, without any request by me or asking my conscious permission. now comes the explanation why i would not reverse the process on either of these characteristics or manifestations of who or what i am. i love being attracted to women but it does not preclude having an attraction – non-sexual – for certain men, who often more than not turn out to be gay themselves or just extremely androgynous. being with a woman is more appealing. but it is not just any woman. as that would be true for any straight woman, it’s not just any man.
as to the specifics of bipolar and why i would not want that to be taken away: i embrace the energy and the creative side that often accompanies bipolar. the hypomanic state makes you feel alive with an unlimited amount of energetic resources that enable you to go on forever when you are working on a creative project. it, actually, allows you to work on a multiplicity of projects that fill you with immense satisfaction. it hieghtens all of your senses. your thinking, when focused, gives you an abundance of ideas that feel magical. and your muse is so generous with her participation in livening your imagination. it is better than having almost any kind of drug high that i can think of that i have tried in the past. it is a state of euphoria like no other. trust me, i have tried almost every kind of illegal drug. i must admit that hallucinating on acid or mushrooms were exceptional but the acid always had that drawback of bringing on a sense of paranoia. that really sucked.
admittedly, with bipolar, there are many deterents that suck also. the great depression that takes you down into the depths of the seven circles of hell. suicidal thinking is always one of the descending factors of bipolar. the actual trying is so close one can reach out and touch it: the knife that will open up your veins or the pills that will lull you into a deep and endless sleep where that melancholia of all consuming emotional pain can be silenced as you slip away into a deathlike euphoria of peace. but you don’t stay in that state forever.
vincent van gogh -”starry night” – lived his art & his suicide with manic depression
slipping back into the manic or hypomaic state there awaits you a rage that overtakes you without permission and is released like a cobra striking at it’s victim. the anger, frustration and irritability that slip in and out without a moments notice, then are gone. all of this is a balancing act with triggers that if you are lucky you may learn to recognize before the mood changes.
the unpredictability of the preditability of the mood changes: you know you need to be on a schedule of eating and sleeping regularly. if you take medication, you need to have that regulated also. you try to meditate or destress regularly. exercise is great if you are physically able. doing regularly scheduled psychotherapy sessions. talk therapy is quite helpful in working on the important issues of your life, past, present and future. in my case, my past has such a traumatic and dramatic affect on my life now that i need to unearth all the shit that i was forced to live through. sometimes i feel like most of my life has been like living in a constant trauma.
death is a driving force in my life. i seem to be haunted by people, esp. women i love dying suddenly and unexpectedly. i have had seven serious brushes with death myself through car accidents and near drownings. i have the best guardian angels one could ask for to protect me. and i have known and know some of the greatest people in my life. and have lived the most magnificent experiences. so out with the shit and in with the good. now just to stop seeing dead people when i am sleeping, esp. my mother and father. it was okay when my grandmother and grandfather visited me after they died. and my freinds visited me, some that had died but usually the ones who are still alive. those dreams i love the most. also, i have a tendency to have dreams where i am being visited by famous people in the acting profession. it feels quite real and we have the best of times. when i awaken from these dreams i am sometimes in a haze and feel like i am friends with the actors in my dreams. that is how real they do feel. but how real is life anyway. it moves time along quite quickly.
so, do i write that letter to my dead mother, which she will never read. or will she hover in her ghost like consciousness and spy on me to see what it is i will dig up from my memories about her? when i really open up inside, what will i find? if i write the letter then i will have my answer.
Caitlin & Will – Address In The Star this is for the therapst i lost who taught me tenderness and love.
losing her was so painful. i will love her always and forever.
In simple terms, yes. I believe everyone could benefit from a good friend to talk to, someone they can bounce things off of, someone who can give them advice and direct them in the best place possible. But we can get all those things from friends' we don't have to pay, right? Wrong!
Friends are great to have, but it's really not fair to them or their own mental well-being if we are constantly bogging them down with our troubles.
Yes, I believe therapy is important & this blog post states it very fluidly. Therapy has saved my life. I highly recommend taking a read of the rest of this post. It is so honest and well thought out. Great Post.
always look on the bright side of life i’m a lumberjack and i’m okay harry potter and the deathly hollows
by jen kiley
apologies – always look on the bright side of life – after all it’s monty python…as good mantra for a manic of the manic-depressive. i jump around so much. moments ago i was in depressive mode then i watched the trailer for part 2 of “harry potter and the deathly hollows”. tonight i watched part 1 with my partner and drove her crazy because i thought i had taken my geodon and other meds but it suddenly clicked that i was so manic and couldn’t shut the hell up with all my questions that i really didn’t want the answers to. it was such an exciting film and i am waiting to read the books after i see the last of the films. we have the complete set of both books and films except we will have to wait for the dvd of part 2. we will place it on special order as soon as amazon.com makes it available for pre-order. part 1 was so exciting and scary and so detailed that i wanted to know things before they happened. didn’t want the surprises. there was one that i will not say – do not want to spoil – but it greatly upset me to the point that i felt like someone was strangling me. my throat became very tight and painful and tears filled my eyes. that is all i will say. i’ve seen all the films but part 2 due out on july 15th in the states usa. and i would emphatically say that “HP and the Deathly Hollows” part 1 is by far the greatest of the entire series. next time i watch it, which will be quite soon, i will shut up and speak only minimally (they would have thrown me out of the theatre for sure)and take my geodon an hour before hand. i like getting excited but can do that even on the meds. so here’s to next time.
J.K. Rowling must be very proud that her baby has succeeded so well in the world. so much imagination and detail to enjoy and remember that so many generations are going to enjoy the books and the films forever as long as people are interested in fantasy and great cultural entertainment. they will be there with the likes of the major trilogy of LOTR and Narnia and Thomas Covenant. Someday maybe someone will get with it and start making films from the “The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant”. I mean the first series of books were a marvelous escape. i would be at lunch when they first came out and leave for the Land immediately after i started to read and when it was time to return to this world it was such a bummer. The Land was so exciting and magical and dangerous. You felt every moment and could see all of it inside your mind. The imagination went riding the trip with Thomas Covenant by Stephen R. Donaldson. There is a second series in the Chronicles also available. SO delighted someone turned me onto all these worlds of magic and intrigue and good vs evil. such a divine way to spend ones time amongst the realms where suspension of disbelief lives.
brilliant trailer of part 2 by the way. mind blowing. explosive. go harry. hermione and ron – beat the crap out of “V…” the SOB… i think the Deathly Hollows videos are different but it is sunrise and i can be absolutely sure but they are both spectacular. imagine them on a larger screen. OH MY!!!
my all time favorite monty python song “i’m a lumberjack and i’m okay”. stay with the video the song comes in eventually after a rather bloody skit. if you want the shorter version check out the next links.
then there’s this version that follows that is quite lively and has a fabulous chorus. just watch and enjoy.
my psychiatrist is spying on me and i’m not paranoid
but if i was, and i am definitely not, paranoid
it doesn’t mean my psychiatrist is not spying on me
by jen kiley
a new addition to this post. i found out someone is spying on my posts and informed my former former therapist, the one who emotionally and psychologically used their position and their words to tortuously manipulate me into doubting my sense of reality and intuitive judgments. this informant and former former therapist passed this information along to the psychiatrist i was writing about in this post. she informed my current therapist that she knows what i have been writing in my blog posts. since i am an identity who on paper does not exist it is pretty pretty interesting that someone i do not know nor who should have no clue to who i am feels that they actually know who i am. i feel like capt. yossarian in the joseph heller novel ‘catch-22′ i exist therefore i am but i do not exist therefore who the hell thinks they know me. i can’t fly if i am crazy but i am crazy if i want to fly; and not wanting to fly proves that i am sane.
just what every stalked child who suffered child sexual abuse wants to feel.
the rest is the original post in which i have made some modifications.
where to begin: i have multiple diagnoses and recently found out that one of them is manic depression/bipolar (which was recorded many years ago on my psych chart but no one told me). I also have the following diagnoses: DID/MPD; Panic Disorder; Agoraphobia; C-PTSD; Major Depressive Illness plus Anxiety Disorder. The problem that i am dealing with right now is i lost my therapist, “to lose one’s therapist may be regarded as misfortune to lose two is carelessness.” (paraphrasing oscar wilde.) which is causing me extreme levels of pain and sadness which is driving me mad. i started seeing a new therapist who i asked to check out my psych records and she discovered the Bipolar Diagnosis. She wasn’t surprised because during our sessions i would go into a manic state and it is like a roller coaster ride. Since i found out about this new/old diagnosis i have been doing research. in the past I’ve seen several psychiatrists and psychotherapists and not until now did anyone tell me this was what was causing my deep depressions and suicidal ideations and just as magically i would go into a manic episode and not sleep; suffering from sleep deprivation; forgetting to eat; talking rapidly; so many thoughts needing to be expressed; sudden high energies of creativity [i am a writer and a poet.] forgetting to take my meds; mixing them up; in the past wild spending; what i am trying to say is all the symptoms are there but i have a psychiatrist who (one) told my medical provider that i am imagining my DID (was diagnosed by a psychiatrist and a psychotherapist earlier on in my life and have all the signs of DID/MPD) and now when i asked her to alter my meds to help deal with my manic depression she told me that i did not have bipolar disorder. that it was the trauma i suffered in my life that was causing all these symptoms. Her reasoning is that i have never exhibited my symptoms in her office. well my therapist told me today that i am bipolar and my partner has witnessed all of this behavior including the DID. she’s met my alters over the years. they would switch out all the time around her without any awareness by me. i wasn’t told i had DID/MPD until several years ago. she has also witnessed the bipolar. my new therapist sees me twice a week and i am manic as hell. she told me that my psychiatrist never witnessed this behavior because for such a long time i have been totally unemotional after having a major mental and emotional breakdown. so except for the deep depressions and feelings of suicide and thinking about how i would do it to the point that my partner would hide the knives i felt nothing. but when i started seeing the therapist before her, she was working with me and she was starting to bring to the surface my emotions. we worked together to break through the barriers i had built up to protect myself from feeling pain and now after she abandoned me my emotions are in full release mode. when i get depressed it is so severe that i want to kill myself. this occurs several times a week and sometimes several times a day. i never know how i will feel or what will trigger my mood changes. i have a difficult time remembering what i have even done during the times of my manic episodes which lead to high levels of creativity and euphoria and i become so engaged in my projects. on any given day i never know what it is i will be doing but i cannot stop once i get started, unless my body just gives out and i find that i have lost consciousness because i am so exhausted. now to the question: what do i do with a psychiatrist who does not acknowledge my diagnoses and just tells me to set alarms and just go to bed on time. i do not feel i have any control over that. i’m not crazy about the idea of taking anymore meds than i do and i take a great many psych and medical medications 6 times a day and over 20 pills a day, one of which is an anti-depressant. from what i have read taking an anti-depressant without a mood stabilizer acerbates the manic states. i see my psychiatrist soon. she will not do anything for me until we meet ftf (face to face) but the last several times we have met we have just argued and the last time we met i was in a suicidal state which she caused to make more severe. i use to trust her but i am feeling she just doesn’t get me and is unaware of how she most recently effected me. i am suicidal quite a bit and depressed but i am on an anti-depressant and have been on different ones over the past many years. before that i use to self medicate with marijuana from the time i was a teenager and alcohol and other mind altering drugs. there is bipolar in my family. my younger brother has been diagnosed with it and with paranoid schizophrenia and my uncle committed suicide by shooting himself in the head, just like ernest hemingway. he may have been a fan, i really don’t know, my aunt died in a mental institution in her late 40s and my mother was completely off the f@#king wall emotionally and extremely abusive and emotionally unpredictable. I am at a loss. My therapist will be seeing my psychiatrist at an all group meeting for the counseling center i go to and plans on speaking with her. my new therapist said that i am starting to have emotions and i am expressing them. the dam has broken.
i want to add to my previous comment that i have seen a multitudinous number of psychotherapists since i was 19 and quite a large number of psychiatrists, one who actually had a nervous breakdown while treating me and prescribing the wrong medication which caused me to overdose. needed the emergency room on that one because after drinking my lunch and popping the pills he prescribed that were not relieving my anxiety which is what they were suppose to do i became more and more agitated so that when i got back to work one of my alters crawled under the desk and wouldn’t come out. this was long before we knew anything about the DID/MPD. Before and since then we have acted on 3 suicide attempts and have been in danger of doing physical harm to ourselves and have thoughts of suicide on a regular and continual basis.
to add to all this my best friend who died suddenly at a young age from unknown causes whom i met at the same time as the therapist i was seeing before my current one. together the three of us became very close and we had a continuing connection through texting and phone calls and i would always run into her at the counseling center where we both met our own therapists. she was the only person i trusted sharing my feelings with and she was helping me through the loss of my former therapist until she died. my new therapist had to break the news to me over the telephone after leaving me a cryptic message on my voicemail earlier on the same day: “there is something i want to talk to you about.” i immediately jumped to the conclusion that i had done something terribly wrong and she wanted to terminate therapy with me. when we finally connected she told me she had bad news to tell me. my mind went in every direction. first thought was that something terrible had happened to my former therapist that i loved so much and missed so much. my second thought was that she really was going to end our therapeutic relationship but the worse news was yet to come when she said the name of my friend and that she had died. it was like hearing an echo from a distance. i know i heard the name wrong and said oh no not her. i thought she said the name of my former therapist but then it came streaming into my consciousness that it was my friend who had died. there was no relief in any of this, just shock and disbelief. i couldn’t imagine my friend not being there. earlier that morning around 3am i was going to text her but then i remembered she had told me that her cell phone would wake her up so i put it off and told myself that i would text her or call her later in the day after i got some sleep. now i wish i had texted her. maybe i would have woken her up and she would not have died. whatever had killed her might have been chased away. i think it was an aneurysm. she had been having headaches for a very long time and no one seemed to be able to find out what was the problem. she is gone now. i never got to tell her about the bipolar but maybe she figured it out. my partner did before i ever told her. we did share an abusive childhood and DID/MPD. she lived a difficult life but she had two young girls that she really loved. they will also miss her. and she had many friends she made through the counseling center we both visited often. i’ll never see her face again. she was the only one any of us trusted there. everyone else scared us or made us feel uncomfortable.
so where do i go from here. i write my poems; collect my quotes; write my manuscript; work on my other writing projects with the help of all of us inside and i work with my new therapist to try to get help for all the madness that i have to work through.
i need to hear and feel this kind of song. this is so beautiful. it is painful to listen to. a sweet pain. it makes me feel sad. it holds so many memories of love and loss. to me it’s a fantasy but brings on such a longing for those i have lost so suddenly to death. the singing voice is so sweet and loving. i want to feel her touch again. but there are many who i feel this way about who were ripped from my life and my arms.
“where ever you go. whatever you do i will be right here waiting for you. what ever it takes or how my heart breaks i will be right here waiting for you…you’ve got me going crazy.”
i’ve lived an adventurous life with a great deal of of my alters doing what ever they wanted to do. i never knew who i was or who i am. the women that i have loved and the ones i still love overwhelm my emotions. many have disappeared from my life but the relationships did not end. they vanished or i vanished and the one i thought i would love forever was killed. i love the woman i am living with now and plan on spending the rest of my life with her but it is difficult for me not to love many woman but they seem to die on me. now i am learning i need to get to know myself and to love myself so that i can understand intimacy. the pain of loss seems to follow me throughout my life. now i have discovered something about myself that changes everything. i do not only have multiple personalities but i have manic depression with an artistic temperament that flairs up unexpectedly and my divine madness and my alters are never sure who is doing what or feeling what at given time.
this is how i feel about my last therapist. i wish she were here to talk to. not being able to see her or hear her voice. not knowing whether i ever cross her mind. i want so badly to call her. the rules of the american psychological association forbid contact for two years. i feel like it’s an unfair punishment. i gave this song to my new therapist as a birthday present and she is great but i do not have the strong feelings for her that i had for “her” my last therapist. i love her and it goes way beyond transference. she is so gentle and understanding and had the kindest and softest voice i’ve ever heard. i have never trusted or cared about or loved someone the way i do her. it’s unbearable missing her. my new therapist makes me laugh and understands and is not overwhelmed by my manic states during our sessions. she goes with where ever my mind goes and keeps up. the emotional explosion happened after we started seeing each other. i was in a depressive episode when we met and unaware of my manic depression. all i could do is cry at the beginning then the mania hit full on. but now the depression is back and the lows are extremely low and suicidal. on tuesday i have to convince my psychiatrist that i am bipolar and she needs to rethink her medication plan for me. when your psychiatrist is in denial that’s when you are really in trouble. last four times i met with her we either argued or she put me into a deeper depression and made me feel more severely suicidal. what is that all about??? she told my therapist that she has never seen me manic so how could i possibly be manic depressive. answer: i have been an emotional zombie for the past number of years from having an emotional and mental breakdown and shut down and locked up every emotion that existed except anger and depression if you can call that an emotion. my therapist said when i did trauma group my emotions were so locked up into little compartments inside of me that there were chains for the chains to keep them from coming out. but now they have exploded when my last therapist left so abruptly. i had another mental and emotional breakdown but this time the chains melted too fast and pandora’s proverbial box was opened too quickly and everything spilled out from inside of me. too much to handle and full blown manic depression reoccurred. can’t sleep until my body shuts down on it’s own. don’t want to eat. have no appetite. forget to take the multiplicity of pills that i take or take them at the wrong time. like taking ambien cr and other sleep meds before dinner not noticing i was doing it. just plain f@#king up. talking a mile a second and interrupting everyone but not meaning to but can’t seem to help it. i read. i write. i listen to sad music. i try to watch films and tv but cannot concentrate. the only thing i can seem to do is start my laptop when i get up and stay on it until i go to bed. then when i am in bed i do more writing and reading then eventually put my head on the pillow after the sun has been up forever. but i won’t sleep past noon most days and on therapy days i get up around 10am with a wake up call at 9:30am. wear sunglasses to therapy and doctors appointments because my eyes are too sensitive to the light. my partner thinks i am manic depressive and have multiple personalities because she has seen everything close up for more years then i will mention. she understands the did and agoraphobia and panic and mania and depression and suicide attempts and the need to protect me. have two numbers on speed dial for suicide hotlines just in case. so why can’t my psychiatrist see any of this. is she crazy???
“the walls and the scars that won’t go away and opening up has always been the hardest thing. so lay here beside me and hold me and don’t let go. this feeling i’m feeling is something i’ve never known. i just can’t take my eyes off you.” this is the way i feel about my last therapist except replace “lay here beside me” with “just hold me and don’t let go.” she let go and i won’t ever get over that pain when we hugged and said goodbye.
a moment from my life. “a broken heart that is still beating. you got inside my head. i like to see your reflection inside of my eyes. i’m falling apart. i’m barely breathing. i’m holding on. i’m barely holding onto you. i’m hanging on. you say that i will be okay. broken lights on the freeway. i’m barely holding on to you.”
find out about stephen fry’s statement: “i may well commit suicide.”
a compilation of information as a reaction to this statement made by stephen fry on the tv show “in confidence” on sky art 1 on june 2nd, 2011 pre-telecast and post-telecast.
I watched this short video (which is no longer available) peaked my curiosity and also concern on my part that stephen fry would be making such a statement about suicide. having followed his career and life since first seeing him in P.G. Wodehouse on PBS and noticing him particularly in the film “Peter’s Friends”, I have had an admiration for his talent and brilliance ever since. I have also followed his revelations about his manic depression diagnosis as of late after having received knowledge that I also suffer from the condition of bipolar disorder: the name the psychological community choose to use in order to sanitize the strength and earthiness of the words manic depression, which describes more accurately what exactly one is taking about when one is suffering from manic episodes and fall down into the depths of depressive episodes. i know there are many levels this condition exhibits in each individual who finds that they have this diagnosis. for myself, I have suffered from this from the time I was a teenager but only recently discovered that I had bipolar disorder. It was hidden in my psych charts but never revealed to me until my most recent therapist unearthed it from my charts through my request to find out just what the totality of my diagnoses were in all their glory. Immediately after finding out I had this diagnosis I have been on an almost non-stop research mission to discover all the information I can find about manic depression. Amazement has hit me about what I am learning every day. I’ve listened to videos on YouTube; found the brilliant Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison who wrote the book: “Touched With Fire: Manic Depression and the Artistic Temperament” – a brilliant book and the one to read. I take it to bed with me every night and have been learning an in depth view of the inner workings of my emotional and psychological makeup. It helps to understand the creative artists who want to understand the reasons for their “Divine Madness”. I am a writer and reading this book is like reading an autobiography of the activities of my mind and my life. Dr. Jamison also does incredibly informative lectures that are on videos available on YouTube. Stephen Fry is also available and a multitude of other videos on bipolar: manic depression from all POV (points of view) are mind opening. I am extremely creative when I am in a manic phase but I also don’t get sleep and I drive my partner crazy when I go off on talking tangents non-stop. My therapist has to register all the information we talk about in our sessions at a later date. She tells me there is so much to remember but she also says that all of what I say is connected, no non-sequitors. i’ve always worried about being crazy and if i started losing the connection between my thoughts into the next one while talking i would then become concerned that the divine madness had begun its control on me and the battle was beginning to be lost. Finding out I have manic depression alleviates my constant concern from over the years of actually thinking I was always losing my mind. My first therapist when I was 19 told me that after all the drugs I was doing, esp. LSD, that if I was to go insane then surely that LSD would have succeeded in putting me out of my mind literally and permanently. Well, back to why I am putting together this post: Stephen Fry stating that: “I may well commit suicide!” ~jen~
A video with parts from the interview on the British TV show In Confidence: Stephen Fry states: “I may well kill myself.”
sorry for the quality. used flip video off of computer. just wanted to make available to public. important message and could not find any other way to get this out there. do not own copyright. not doing for profit. just want people to be aware of manic depression and the effects and how it can make you feel extremely euphoric one moment and deeply suicidal the next. Stephen Fry has been active in getting this message across. so just listen and forget about the quality of the video. thx.
He’s one of the most respected and well-loved stars currently on British television.
But Stephen Fry is clearly not comfortable with the ‘national treasure’ tag, as he reveals in this intimate interview.
Actor, author, director, presenter and raconteur extraordinaire, it seems there are very few things that Stephen Fry can’t do.
However, one thing he refuses to do is read his own reviews. So this fascinating In Confidence chat gets off to a rocky start, when Fry threatens to walk out if Laurie Taylor tells him what the critics said about his recent one-man shows.
Revealing he hasn’t read a newspaper in 13 years, Stephen argues why ‘would he spend his whole life avoiding stepping in puddles only to have someone throw water at his feet’?
But, thanks to his huge IQ and undeniably vast intellect, Fry doesn’t feel snubbing the media means he’s missing out, saying: “I’ve yet to meet anyone who reads newspapers who knows more about what’s going on in the world than me.”
One reason for rejecting the mass media is Stephen’s frustration with what he sees as his own overexposure – and the cult of celebrity.
Wittily recounting what it’s like for him to go out in public, posing for endless mobile phone pictures, he also honestly describes how his fame and fortune – while making life very comfortable – have distanced him from friends and led to awkward situations.
Despite his encyclopaedic knowledge of most subjects – as demonstrated on shows like QI – Stephen finds it frustrating that the viewing public see him as some kind of oracle. “If there is one thing I can’t bear, it’s a greasy prefect attitude,” he says.
Professor Taylor also speaks to Fry about his ongoing and well-publicised battle with bipolar disorder and the breakdown he suffered in 1995.
Although Stephen says he doesn’t feel his condition is too serious, he also knows that doesn’t mean that one day he might try to take his own life.
Discussing what he sees as his duty to raise awareness of mental health issues, he adds: “One thing that fame gives you that’s good, is that you are essentially immune from stigma.”
The following are two articles I found through a search that I felt were somewhat informative with obviously some repetition in the reporting:
Stephen Fry warns his illness may lead him to commit suicide June 3, 2011 @11:06AM
“I may kill myself,” says Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry explains the impact of bipolar disorder in a candid TV interview and warns it might lead to suicide.
British actor and comedian Stephen Fry says his depression may one day lead him to commit suicide and that bipolar disorder should not be dismissed as a “celebrity designer accessory”.
Fry, 53, has long spoken publicly about his battle with cyclothymic disorder, a form of bipolar disorder, including in his documentary series Secret Life of The Manic Depressive.
In an interview aired in Britain, Fry expressed his frustration that his condition was sometimes described as “bipolar light”.
“It’s a morbid condition and any doctor will tell you it’s one of the most serious morbid conditions at present in Britain,” he told the Sky Arts interview program In Confidence.
“The fact that I’m lucky enough not to have it so seriously doesn’t mean I won’t one day kill myself. I may well.”
He joked that many people do not talk about their mental health issues, in the same way no one would show off a case of genital warts.
“We’ll take your word that you’ve got them, but must you really show them to anybody?
“Similarly with my mental disorders, why would anybody want to see [them]?”
But he said it was worth speaking out for the sake of others who might turn to alcohol and drugs to control their moods.
“I know how easy it is to think that it must be a celebrity designer accessory problem, in the same way that homosexuality is seen as one because only people like me talk about it.
“Naturally someone who works in an office is not going to talk about their mental instability because they’ll either get teased bullied or fired.
“That’s the problem with it, the stigma of it is enormous.”
In excerpts of the interview published in The Daily Mail, Fry also spoke about the “exhausting” demands of fame.
“You resort to not travelling on the Tube or walking round the street any more and going in a big car with a driver.
“And people think, ‘Oh, he thinks he’s so grand, doesn’t he?’ Well, no. I’d rather walk, but sometimes I just can’t.
“I feel I would love to close down for a number of years in some way and just be in the country making pork pies and chutneys and never have to poke my head out of the parapet.
Why I may commit suicide one day, by ‘exhausted’ Stephen Fry By Lydia Warren
Last updated @7:03 PM on 2nd June 2011
Stress: Stephen Fry will discuss his battle with bipolar disorder
Stephen Fry finds the demands of fame ‘exhausting’ – and fears he may one day kill himself.
In a TV interview to be screened tonight, the 53-year-old broadcaster discusses his struggles with bipolar disorder.
‘The fact that I am lucky enough not to have it so seriously doesn’t mean I won’t one day kill myself – I may well,’ he says.
Fry came close to committing suicide in 1995 after walking out of the West End play Cell Mates, which had suffered poor reviews.
He fled Britain by ferry and was missing, feared dead, for a week before he resurfaced in Belgium.
He later revealed that he almost gassed himself in his car before escaping the country, but ‘I had this image of my parents staring right in at me… so I decided not to do it’.
In tonight’s interview, he laments: ‘It is exhausting knowing that most of the time the phone rings, most of the time there’s an email, most of the time there’s a letter, someone wants something of you. They want to touch the hem of the fame, not the hem of the person.
‘You resort to not traveling on the Tube or walking round the street anymore and going in a big car with a driver.
‘And people think, “Oh, he thinks he’s so grand, doesn’t he?” Well, no. I’d rather walk, but sometimes I just can’t.
I feel I would love to close down for a number of years in some way and just be in the country making pork pies and chutneys and never have to poke my head out of the parapet.’
Fry dismisses claims that he intentionally adds to the commercial pressures he is under, defending his voiceover work on adverts.
He denies that jobs such as his voice campaigns for Twinings tea and Marks & Spencer are to make more money, asserting that he already has enough.
He says: ‘I will continue to do commercials because they are so enjoyable, not because of the money – because I don’t need the money – but because it is really wonderful.’
On the Sky Arts programme In Confidence, Fry also talks about his 15-year addiction to cocaine, revealing he used to take it to enhance his enjoyment of crossword puzzles.
Lastly I came upon a Forum where they were discussing Stephen Fry and this topic and other points of his life. I edited out the majority of negative comments, yet included a few just to demonstrate how insensitive people can be toward Stephen and the attitudes that one should shut up about speaking on the subject of suicide or mental illness. Where some of the vitriolic attitude comes from decide for yourself. It is also mentioned in the discussion about an interview for a British Gay Magazine where Stephen supposedly makes unkind comments about women. I am not aware nor have I read this interview but his response to it was he was doing an Oscar Wilde and playing with his wit during the interview and denied being serious and also felt he was misquoted. The Gay Magazine said they had him on tape and refuted his denials. Well, he is a Gay man and I am a lesbian and I don’t always have the nicest things to say about the opposite sex. I will leave that part of it here and say no more.
Here are the comments that I selected from the Forum with the topic being discussed is Stephen Fry: the link to the full discussion is at bottom of post.
Couldn’t see a thread on this….
Is it just me who is angered by this? Seems a bit attention seeking and disrespectful to be honest. I am sure people who really commit suicide don’t go broadcasting it to everyone.
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I’ve been in a street when Stephen Fry happened to be there with his boyfriend. He wasn’t left alone for a second, people wanting to chat, tell him they like him, ask for a photo, autograph etc.
As much as I am a fan and would liked to have said ‘hello’, I decided to leave the poor man alone, he didn’t get a second’s peace. I imagine much of his every day is like that.
I applaud Stephen for his honesty, talking about his depression and the effects of it, too many people cover it up.
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Aren’t these just a few comments taken out of an interview he gave? I can only assume he was being quizzed about being bi-polar. I think it’s ok for a person to talk about their personal feelings on occasion, famous or not but maybe that’s just me
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If you are friends or have a relationship with someone famous or semi famous then you do see just how monotonous fame is.
I agree with his comments about driving in a darkened car instead of walking, It can drain you and take four times as long because everyone wants to say hello.
Some of his observations are not quite as clear or even as well thought through. But I doubt many peoples are all the time.
It is easy to jump down someone’s throat on DS especially when the quotes have been edited or presented by a third party. Taken out of context a quote can sometimes seem extreme, needy, excessive or just plain wrong.
The media will always choose the highlights to grab attention to their article etc
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I can completely understand what he is saying. When you suffer from depression the way Stephen does, it is a lifelong condition and not something that can be made better by giving happy pills.
I can speak from experience because and I can never say that I would never do it again because you can never predict that you are going to hit the bottom and feel like that again.
I hate it when people criticise others who have tried to end it all or who actually have done it and call them selfish and of taking the cowards way out.
Its one thing saying ‘I have felt like I wanted to but I didn’t because I thought of others’ etc…. But to actually try to end it is a different thing.
I’m not good at putting things into words, I just say that depression and mental illness is not a thing that you just grow out of and more people should try to understand that.
I think Stephen Fry is just being honest and its a shame that a person cannot be honest about their mental health without other people being nasty.
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There is an idea that people who want to kill themselves keep quiet about it. Some people, however, choose to talk about it.
Stephen merely said that it was a possibility at some point in the future. This is the same for a lot of people (myself included).
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I didn’t see it as a threat or attention seeking. I think he’s just commenting on the unpredictability of a bi-polar person’s emotions and behaviour.
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My dad had severe bipolar and spent alot of years telling people he was going to die by suicide, and ‘tried’ to commit suicide more times than I care to remember.
I kind of think Stephen is being honest and aware of his illness..
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this comment irritates me but it’s an overview of what types of comments he is commenting about that are disturbing that people, would be so nasty about stephen fry. such assholes. no compassion. i don’t care if they don’t like him. it’s probably b/c he is gay and creative and intelligent and they are not and are jealous b/c they aren’t able to be so articulate and afraid of being open and self examining of their lives.
So money is nice but doesn’t make him completely happy and he wishes he had recognition for his work but didn’t get mobbed in public so often and could walk around peacefully without anyone stopping him or bothering him along the way.
I’m sorry, I think anyone would be annoyed if after years and years of being followed, shouted at in the street and approached by strangers who expect immediate affection for simply recognising you there seemed to be no end in sight.
He seems to accept his position has made him rich and comfortable, but he doesn’t seem entirely happy with the fame and adulation that comes with it. He also seems emotionally retarded in some ways as his Shrink Rap episode with Pamela Stevenson showed previously in regards to his take on being raped.
An intelligent socially awkward man who doesn’t like strangers approaching him and enjoys solitude if he can’t in company he enjoys.
I think you’ll find that’s virtually all of the male members of MENSA.
Dude has a personality disorder and has a skewed view of the world, I don’t see how that’s exactly deserving of any hate. If anything I find it a bit sad someone so educated is seemingly emotionally stunted in many ways.
Also if so many of you apparently hold a great disdain for him, why would you watch anything he is in, let alone something as self serving as an interview focused solely on the man? Are you masochists or just idiots who can’t pick up the remote control when you see something you don’t like?
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a sample of a comment that f@#king pisses me off!!!
Fame is the same for everyone, and not everyone acts like a petulant kid in the same way Stephen does when someone dares to say he’s ‘boring’ or that his views on women are revolting.
Is someone forcing him to lead a public life, if he can’t hack it?
The obvious fact is he craves sympathy as much as he craves adulation.
If he wants a quiet life in a beautiful countryside manor and to spend his days making chutney, he can. Apparently though, he’s having too much wonderful jolly fun selling insurance and tea. Oh, the infernal dichotomy and torture of the artist at work. My heart bleeds for the man with the huge wage packet who craves a quiet life but is compelled by forces beyond his reckoning to do voiceovers for plastic talking phones. A man who craves a quiet life but voluntarily shares his every thought, whim and fart with a million ‘followers’. A man who has public attention-seeking temper tantrums where he storms off in front of his million followers because someone dared to have an opinion of him. A man who craves a quiet life but is forced to publicly express his disgusting opinions of women, lie about having said them, and then once again, storm off in a huff. A man who wants to be right about everything, all the time, to have it both ways, to judge and not be judged, to simultaneously crave anonymity and adulation, to be beyond criticism. In other words, a man who is full to the brim with ****ing $hit.
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Its up to him, if he felt like sharing then, his choice again.
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I think a lot of fans can be a bit selfish at times when in the presence of their idol. I’d only ask for an autograph if I got talking to a celebrity and wanted their autograph. Otherwise, no.
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How exactly do you think people afford to retire in the country? By working and making enough money to do so.
The dichotomy is that if he wants that lifestyle when he retires, he has to accept the trappings of fame while he makes the big bucks. So he deals with being mobbed on the street now in the hope he can retire comfortably and not end up losing most of it to taxes year after year when he’s no longer earning.
If you dislike his views about women, that’s fine. But to actually express such hostility towards someone for their views… I’m not sure if you’re aware this is not a fascist or communist county and he’s entitled to hold whatever views he wants as long as he doesn’t try enforce them on anyone else. I don’t see him starting anti-feminist marches anytime soon so perhaps your heated indignation is more a reflection of your intolerance towards other opposing views and inability to consign such views as personally held beliefs rather than socially enforced dictums.
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Don’t be so harsh to judge his comments,
He is a highly intelligent man with severe and I mean severe bi polar.
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As both an admirer of Stephen Fry and a bipolar sufferer (I use that word with a pinch of salt because I don’t think I suffer with it all the time, or at least not right now) myself; I am disgusted by some of the comments being posted here, I thought DS members had a bit more respect than to wish him dead so ‘we no longer hear his annoying voice in Direct Line ads’. You utterly horrible people.
It comes across as ‘attention seeking’ because he needs help, whenever I’m feeling suicidal I think the best thing to do is tell someone who I can trust because we need huge amounts of support, it’s not a case of ‘Oh, pull yourself together’, Bipolar Disorder is a serious mental illness that can lead to severe stress, outrageous and impulsive behavior, emptiness inside, mental exhaustion and of course the worst symptom, suicide. It can be an awful thing to put up with and I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone, I fully understand how Mr. Fry feels, if he ever did such a thing as commit suicide then I would be utterly devastated, he’s my favourite person alive because he’s so wise, warm and friendly. My thoughts are completely with Mr. Fry at this time.
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this is one of the negative comments:
His views on women are anything but wise, they’re vicious and bigoted.
If he feels he is unable to function as a ‘celebrity’ he has the option of retreating at any time. Tweeting to a million followers and extolling the virtues of doing commercials are not the actions of one who wishes to be alone.
If outrageous and impulsive behavior, along with disgusting outbursts are a symptom of his illness then those who point them out are doing him a favour. Hopefully his family, friends and associates will see the mess he’s getting into. Likewise with a drunk, a drug addict, a schizophrenic, a paranoid delusional, those who kiss his arse in the face of it all and pretend everything is normal are only enabling him to ignore his condition and worshiping it’s manifestations, if it is indeed the cause.
Quote:
Originally Posted by J******
I think Stephen Fry is just being honest and its a shame that a person can not be honest about their mental health without other people being nasty.
No one is being nasty about his mental health, they’re being truthful about his hypocrisy and his hateful comments towards women in general. If anyone here has made nasty comments about bipolar disorder, by all means, point them out. I’ve had several problems of my own, but I don’t feel the need to constantly, relentlessly use them as an excuse for any opinion I publicly express. Stand by your opinions or apologise for them. Stephen made his opinions on women clear to his interviewer in Attitude magazine. Then he claimed he was misquoted and never said them, and publicly condemned the pioneering publication – one of the first gay issues based magazines in the UK I believe?
An earlier, video interview of Stephen sharing the exact same views then surfaced. Then Attitude magazine threatened releasing the tapes of their interview, and that they would prove Stephen was quoted verbatim. Stephen backed off into a corner saying he was merely ‘gracefully playing with ideas like Oscar Wilde’.
At no point did he apologise to Attitude magazine for throwing their credibility and decency into question. At no point did he admit his lies.
Failure to accept responsibility or apologise for your nasty, vicious actions and hateful, anti-women views are not symptoms of bi-polar disorder. They are symptoms of being a gutless, spineless little coward who’ll throw anyone under the bus to preserve your own image.
All you worshipers – I wonder, would you believe bi-polar disorder excused Nick Griffin’s racist views, Jan Moir’s homophobic views, or Richard Littlejohn’s generally ‘hate everyone who’s not white, male and middle class views’? If not, why do you feel it excuses Stephen’s low opinion of women as spineless, needy whores, reluctantly putting out for their desperate requirement of a man to protect them?
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Also it’s worth noting his former comedy partner, Hugh Laurie is an A List TV star in the USA, with a mega hit show and is the highest paid TV Actor in the world right now.
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His comments on women were stupid but this stuff happens, some public figures put their foot in it. I’m not that offended personally. People just go off the deep end with this stuff. There not really much point posting in a forum like this as it seems mostly populated by self righteous fools that think they know everything.
He is not always right but who is? I suppose you are right All the time eh, never put your foot in it?
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This quote was taken from his Sky Arts In Confidence interview, and as per, DS takes it out of context. He talks about the condition he has, in which the interviewer describes as “watered-down bipolar” in which Stephen disagrees by pointing out that people have died because of it, and it is serious. He uses himself as an example to almost emphasize how unexpected it can be when it can be really bad and it is not something to be taken lightly. I suggest all the negative commenters here should watch the interview then respond back.
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Dear Mr. Fry
That is simply too much information. Sorry you have depression and all that but you are in an excellent position than us lesser mortals in that you have access to the very best in medical/psychiatric specialists to help you, given that you are not short of a bob or two.
I sympathize with your problems but please do not let it be know you are contemplating suicide that sir is your own business.
I’m sure he will take that into consideration lol. DS made the article, he didn’t force them to. he did an interview and they jumped on it, what do you want him to do about it?
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He says nothing whatsoever about contemplating suicide.
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one of the negative comments out of context but related to the following comment
No, you’re right, I should keep my responses to his bigoted opinions to myself, just like when Jan Moir expressed views he disagreed with, and he stayed quiet. Oh wait….
What is this, he’s entitled to express his views, but if I express mine, I’m a ‘fascist’? At what point did I try to enforce my views on Fry, you or anyone? Don’t talk in terms you clearly don’t understand.
Personally I found his views on women every bit as disgusting as Jan Moir’s views on homosexuality (both made bigoted assumptions about perceived ‘seedy’ qualities and motives of a lifestyle they don’t understand), and I treat them with equal disgust.
Are Stephen Fry’s publicly expressed opinions beyond criticism? Does one reach a certain level of self-satisfaction and all are merely expected to bow and kneel at the altar of their pomposity?
Personal beliefs are ones own business. Personal beliefs shared in the public arena are open to scrutiny.
Nice try. Next?
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My point is if you don’t like someone’s views, wasting time focusing on them is just that, a waste of time. You’re not personally rebuking Fry’s opinions to his face are you? So what are you trying to accomplish here? Obviously some hollow victory since apparently you feel you have defeated me and await someone else to step up to be “next”. How incredibly pathetic of you to reduce this to a competition when I am simply suggesting that since you can’t change his views and cannot hold a dialogue with him to suggest he change his ways, exactly what does you expressing your hate for his views achieve? Also, what do his views on women have to do with his views on his own mental well being or lack thereof?
To me it seems you have saw an opportunity to take Fry to task for views he has expressed elsewhere rather than commenting in context about his views on his own health, rather than any on women. Well good for you for taking the shot when you had the chance, I hope you feel you have achieved something in your own little way. I was raised to believe if you can’t agree with someone’s views, it’s best to respect their right to them and move on. Obviously you have a different mindset where you feel the urge to somehow decisively defeat someone in your own mind before they’ve even had time to reply. How that works, I don’t know. With that said, I think I’ll avoid any dialogue with you in the future since you seem to be incredibly self righteous and boorish, something you seem to accuse Fry of being as well. Funny, that.
Also I didn’t say you tried to enforce your views on anyone. I said Fry doesn’t try enforce any of his views on anyone. If he thinks little of women that’s his thing, it’s not like he’s going to Women’s Institute meetings and telling them they need to get home and get used to being barefoot and pregnant, is he? You claim I am talking in terms I don’t understand yet you are suggesting I suggested about you something I suggested about Fry. Take a breather from your indignation and combative mentality to read things properly next time.
forum on discussion of stephen fry re: “i may well commit suicide.”
