MANIC DEPRESSION AND ADMITTING IT

The problem with having Manic Disorder is that it is seldom diagnosed. Especially in the Philippines that is considered to be very optimistic populated nation. People would consider forgetting about it or ignoring it as a solution, because it carries a sense of shame and embarrassment. Trying to get to the roots of the problem is difficult as people will not claim to have ‘bad blood’ in the family, and denies any one in the family could have potentially had such disorder.

A lot of famous people though are actually affected by the disorder. Namely: Kurt Cobain, Patty Duke, Vincent Van Gogh, Mel Gibson, Graham Greene, Linda Hamilton, Vivien Leigh, Ozzy Osborne, Sinead O’Connor, Axl Rose, Sydney Sheldon, Jean Claude Van-Damme, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf. (If you want a longer list go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_affected_by_bipolar_disorder)

One of the things that people should understand about Manic Depressive people is that the intentions and objectives are always pure. Impatience and temperament causes such reactions which results for them to seem like going ballistic about simple things. Bipolar disorder seems to have given Manic Depression a more intense meaning. Manic Depression seems milder. Manic depressive people need to be busy and to make sure to have something always to look forward to.

I know of a friend who is a mother and wife, her child is with the father and both are in Bicol while she stays in Manila to work. She always makes stars while waiting for calls to keep her busy. When I asked her if it was difficult to have her child and husband in Bicol far from her, she says it actually helps, though she misses her child very much, she always have something to look forward to at the end of every payday to go home to. Her tendency to kill herself diminished with the knowledge that she has a child waiting for her. What keeps her going is the love of her child and the love and understanding of her husband.

Suicides are predominant among Manic Depressives, as they believe that if they kill themselves and die it will end all their problems and their death will give the people around them the peace of mind they deserve. Most of the time they feel as if they are the talk of the town, or people or ganging up on them (this a more intense type of MD).

It is a very dark journey and a very difficult one at that. People though will never know the journey of how difficult it is to live in a life that seems to be not yours. How dark the room was, or how lonely and miserable the nights are even if you are surrounded by people. All you ever wanted was a sense of purpose to continue to live, and to be convinced that it was never your fault. It is just is. Manic Depressive people suffer to free themselves, what makes it worst is that nobody listens and if they do listen, they do not understand or refused to understand. Making a MD more depressed and anxious, and even to feel embarrass instead of being free and be understood.

I guess what really could describe a Manic Depressive person was the song written by Don McLean for Van Gogh, entitled ‘Vincent.’ Here it is:

Starry
starry night
paint your palette blue and grey

look out on a summer's day
with eyes that know the
darkness in my soul.
Shadows on the hills
sketch the trees and the daffodils

catch the breeze and the winter chills

in colors on the snowy linen land.
And now I understand what you tried to say to me

how you suffered for your sanity
how you tried to set them free.
They would not listen
they did not know how

perhaps they'll listen now.

Starry
starry night
flaming flo'rs that brightly blaze

swirling clouds in violet haze reflect in
Vincent's eyes of China blue.
Colors changing hue
morning fields of amber grain

weathered faces lined in pain
are soothed beneath the artist's
loving hand.
And now I understand what you tried to say to me

how you suffered for your sanity
how you tried to set them free.
perhaps they'll listen now.

For they could not love you
but still your love was true

and when no hope was left in sight on that starry
starry night.
You took your life
as lovers often do;
But I could have told you
Vincent
this world was never
meant for one
as beautiful as you.

Starry
starry night
portraits hung in empty halls

frameless heads on nameless walls
with eyes
that watch the world and can't forget.
Like the stranger that you've met

the ragged men in ragged clothes

the silver thorn of bloody rose
lie crushed and broken
on the virgin snow.
And now I think I know what you tried to say to me

how you suffered for your sanity

how you tried to set them free.
They would not listen
they're not
list'ning still
perhaps they never will.