So I forked over $3.99 to rent “Of Two Minds” at Amazon.com. I wasn’t about to actually buy the movie, award-winning or not (it is). I mean what if I didn’t relate to anyone in this documentary, what if they were really crazy?
Well, they totally were. And I related to at least a piece of each of them.
“Them” being the people with bipolar disorder that the filmmakers followed for three years.
I watched it last night on my computer. I cried. I laughed. Shouted “yes!” a few times when someone described a sensation or thought I have often had:
- “It’s like the flu but in your mind.”
- “The parts of the life I enjoyed are now an illness.”
- “There’s no ‘Oh, I’m gonna calm down.’ You can’t, it’s your brain.”
There’s the whole let’s organize the bathroom closet at midnight. Or wanting to eat dinner in bed, because the thought of leaving the room is unbearable. Your mind has gone to the dark place.
Yeah, sounds pretty crappy. And it is. But this whole crazy thing also makes us crazy creative. Like the people in the movie – artists, musicians, writers.
Liz was the person I most related to. Like me, she’s had a journalism career. She’s succeeding, even after a nine-year hiatus. And I love that.
Although there was plenty in the film that I did not relate to, it portrays well the extraordinary mood swings that come with bipolar disorder. It pretty much wipes out the idea that bipolar = moodiness = like the rest of the population.
It’s so much more than that.
Watch “Of Two Minds” – if you have bipolar disorder, but especially if you do not. You “normal” folks can help crumple up the stigma and toss it in the garbage.
Bipolar Ave. 