If only you could see it through my eyes.

I watched Silver Linings Playbook and now my emotions are in an uproar.  If you live under a rock or really do only watch the awards shows to see what the celebrities are wearing, it is a story that follows a man named Pat with Bipolar Disorder.  His illness has gotten him into a good deal of trouble.  Like Bipolar Disorder, the script was so scattered I have a hard time summarizing the plot.

Hollywood usually does a horrible job depicting Bipolar Disorder.  They either glamorize it, focus on one aspect of the illness where some “B” actress is lying upside down on a scaffolding painting a mural on her bedroom ceiling in the middle of a spastic manic episode or understates its effects by “making the character Bipolar” so the viewer can follow the character’s quirkiness.  Or worse yet, they tell a story of a psychotic killer in which the illness is the cause of the evil.

I don’t know why it provoked such a strong reaction in me but I suspect that it was because it hit home.  Well, parts of it did.  Bipolar Disorder goes from one extreme to another with severe- I can’t get out of bed, I can’t stop crying, I can’t cry any more, I can’t shower, eat or breathe-depression to a delusional type of mania that I can’t even describe because I have never been to the point of hallucinations, or voices…but I hear it is really bad.  I can educate myself about the illness all day long but I will never fully understand some of it because I don’t feel it.   You won’t either unless you do.

If only you could see it through my eyes.  When I watched the wedding video scene, I cried.  It hurt my heart to watch that frustration that I have felt so many times myself.  I imagine the “normal” people watched it and thought something along the lines of Why in the hell is that man waking his parents in the middle of the night to find some damn video that he has surely watched a billion times and besides wasn’t he there?  After all, it was his wedding!  I feel so sorry for those parents, those poor people.  But what I saw with my Bipolar eyes was every time that I have ever felt that same sense of urgency about something.  The urge is so strong that it will keep you all up night long.  It is intense.  It is painful.  It is so agonizing that you can feel the blood pumping in your veins.  You glance at your wrists to make sure they still look the same.

Perhaps this is because of my anal attention to detail or maybe it’s because I am acutely aware of the small parts of the illness that plague me and most people don’t recognize but Pat never eats.  Sure there are multiple scenes with food but he only took a few bites of raisin bran through the whole movie that I noticed.  When you are manic you don’t feel like eating.  You don’t have time for silly shit like chewing.  When you are depressed it is too difficult to choke down a few bites of anything in between sobs.  We eat when we are stable.

I think the “normal” people are probably rooting for Pat and Tiffany to win the contest just because it’s a win.  And any win is good, right?  I saw a deeper significance.  It’s the one where people who suffer from depression and mania struggle with follow through.  The big win wasn’t the bet it was that these two damaged people were able to somehow find within themselves the focus to complete such a huge thing without it sending them spiraling down or up.  When you have Bipolar Disorder and you are able to follow through and finish something that was originally created in a mood swing that is the big win, in my opinion.

There is a lot of interaction with his family and friends in the movie.  They try to help him in their own way even though it appears highly dysfunctional.  It made me realize that just like Pat, there are people in my life who just want to help.  So the next time I hear, “just get back up on that horse”, I might hear it a little differently.  Typically, people don’t know what to say or do to help when you are in a mood swing.  It is like trying comfort a friend who has just told you that his brother has died.  You don’t know if you should say something compassionate or encouraging or not say anything at all.  You just don’t think that there is anything that you can offer that will take away his pain.  But you try anyway.  Anyone with this illness needs to learn to let people help them.  If you have a support system that doesn’t throw in the towel when things get hard you should count yourself lucky.  Let them help you even if you think they don’t know how.

Everyone loves a happy ending but I hope that the general population doesn’t get the message that love conquers all.  Love can’t cure Bipolar Disorder. The best love can do is offer a little strength to keep fighting the good fight.  The end of the movie was not the end of Pat’s story.  There will surely be more peaks and valleys but you have to take the good days when you get them and remember that the bad days are only temporary.