Bipolar Celebrities

 


i know it's a good thing when bipolar celebrities go public with their diagnosis.

for a minute or two, there's more information going out about what bipolar is, and what it is not, it puts a face on it, it chips away at the stigma, etc etc etc...

but it's not all good- ie - it's not all good for me. it seems to activate something back in my lizard brain, something small, and kind of nasty. i'm not proud of it, but i'm not going to pretend i don't feel it either.

i get really envious when i see those to whom attention is already given get more, because i'm starving for it. i'm envious because once you are a bipolar celebrity, you don't have to talk about with anyone anymore.

 you don't have to worry about who you can trust with that information.  you don't have to wonder if you should tell the next person you meet, or a potential employer.

ms. zeta-jones' phone will ring next week as much as it did this week, or last week. carrie fisher's too. they got work, and they'll get more. they were amazing people before, and now they are even more amazing.

there's more information going out, there's a face on it, but if there's less stigma, it's because one less person living beyond it's influence, not because it's going away anytime soon.

but when the headline moment moves on, i am so frickin' depressed i can hardly talk. every awful thing i ever thought about myself is true. in fact, i am even more useless than i thought. it's at least possible that every awful thing anybody else ever said about me is true too.

look at these people! they are bipolar and amazing. i'm a fucking loser who's also bipolar. what a sack of shit i am. what a waste of a skin.

bipolar celebrities don't have to worry about money for meds this month, or waiting on a maybe to see someone who might really help. people don't 'whatever' them when they talk about it, they listen. they buy tickets to hear them talk about it. they buy their books about it.

the only people who who listen when i talk about bipolar living are a few friends who are bipolar too. there were about 3 people who really gave a damn when i wrote a book, and i was one of them.


i said it wasn't pretty.

i don't dislike anyone who is positive, creative and trying to make things better while trying to make sense of whatever it is we are... and when celebrities go public with their agnosis, they are doing all this and more.

my problem is that i don't like me very much.

- tbc -

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