Would you push the button?

No, not that one. Even if I was a closet Sugababes fan back in the day (sssshhhhhhh). I recently revisited dream dinner party guest, and fellow bipolar babe, Stephen Fry's excellent 2006 The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive documentary. If you haven't watched it, Fry explores his own bipolarity with fantastic candour, and talks to several celebrities including Robbie Williams, Carrie Fisher and Richard Dreyfus about their own struggles with depression and mania. He also interviews several 'real life' people about their experiences with mental ill-health. Six years on, Manic depression has been re branded as bipolar affective disorder, is all the rage, and everyone has heard of it, but back then this was quite the ground-breaking and highly-praised expose of a little-publicly-known illness. Once again, youtube is your friend:

Part 1

Part 2

Fry himself admits to suicide attempts, theft, fraud and general immorality caused by manic delusions and crushing depressions. The reality of such events is that you'll come out of those wild mood swings and some point and have to pick up the pieces of your life. You might've driven people away, lashed out at loved-ones, abandoned friends, and generally behaved like a total prick. What's that you say? "those actions don't mean you are mentally ill", and indeed, you're correct; there are plenty of tossers who perpetuate such behaviours simply because they can. What differentiates being a prick when mentally ill, and just simply being a prick, is the lack any insight into your reckless abandon, you are unable to acknowledge your erratic actions, and you would never dream of doing them when mentally stable.

Whilst hearing from people in the public eye about their own mental demons is fascinating, it was Fry's interviews with regular Joe's about theirs that I find most absorbing. He meets with the family of Zoe Schwarz,  a talented, vivacious and much-loved young woman, who took her own life by jumping in front of an express train in 2000, aged just 27. Zoe's parents, Walter and Dorothy, talk candidly about her suicide, and of her tortured last months before ultimately making the choice that death was preferable to a life spent in such emotional turmoil. Zoe was due to be taken into hospital the day after she killed herself. For her, the prospect of living the rest of her life with manic depression and all that she felt it stole from her was too much to bear. And bipolar affective disorder is just that; a life-long illness. I won't ever be 'cured' of this, and neither would have Zoe.

The documentary also introduces us to Cordelia Feldman, an intelligent and erratic Oxford grad who now struggles to live independently or hold down a full-time job because of the symptoms of her manic depression. Writing is her life blood, much like me, but the ability to write is killed by her depressions. When illness, even temporarily, terminates your talents and love for life, the journey can feel unbearable. I face many of the same issues felt so deeply by Cordelia; I hate my illness when I am depressed - its robs me of ME. It has gotten so dark in my world in the past, so hopeless, that I have felt my potential is like a cruel carrot on a stick that is always just out of reach.

But what of the highs? I've achieved some great things in life when I've been hypomanic - like a first in my degree just months after being hospitalised with an overdose, winning writing awards after sitting up all night beavering away on the keyboard. Hypomania helps me get things done, dream new dreams and get them started. But when its over, darkness falls again, scuppering those manic plans. As much as I am now seeking to stabilise my mood with medication and therapy, there will always be a part of me that treasures what bipolarity gives me: good humour, organised chaos, a love of being outside of the pack and doing things MY way, being fun and 'crazy', 'different'. I love that side of me. 

And so, when I pose the question Stephen Fry does to everyone in the documentary to myself; "If you could, would you press a button to release yourself from it?", I think my answer is 'No'. I need to put more routine in my life, I need to shape and work towards goals, and I need to keep up with my meds, but I'll never be cured, and I think I'm at peace with that.

How about you? If you could press a button to release yourself from your mental illness, would you do so?