BIPOLAR DISORDER:

My 67 Year Chaos Narrative

A Longitudinal Context: October 1943 To October 2010
10th Edition, Draft #5

By
Ron Price of George Town Tasmania Australia
(160 Pages: Font 14—66,000 words)

1. Preamble and Introduction:

1.1 This medium-sized book was once very small, indeed, not much more than a long essay of about 2000 words. It started out as that very short essay ten years ago in 2001: (a) as a statement to obtain a disability pension in Australia and (b) as an appendix to my memoirs, a five volume 2600 page opus found in whole and in part at various places on the internet. Both this statement and that book of my memoirs could benefit from the assistance of one, Rob Cowley, affectionately known in publishing circles back in the seventies and early eighties as “the Boston slasher.” His editing was regarded by some as constructive and deeply sensitive. If he could amputate several dozen pages, several thousand words, of this exploration of my life experience of bipolar disorder(BPD) with minimal agony to my emotional equipment I’m sure readers would be the beneficiaries. But, alas, I think Bob is dead.

I did find an editor, a proof-reader and friend who did not slash and burn but left my soul quite intact as he waded through my labyrinthine passages, smoothed them all out and excised undesirable elements. But this editor is in the late evening of his life and, after editing several hundred pages of my writing, he has tired of any continued exercise in my literary fields and so I am left on my own. I have begun to assume the role that both Cowley and my friend exercised, but it is a difficult and relentless role and I, therefore, only take it up sporadically given the quantity of my writing which does require editing. Without my editor friend, who is now nearly 80 and leads a quiet non-editing life, I advise readers not to hold their breath waiting for me to do what is a necessary edit in this now lengthy work.

1.1.1 John Kenneth Galbraith, the famous economist and a fine writer, had some helpful comments for writers like myself. So, too, did Galbraith’s first editor Henry Luce, the founder of Time Magazine. Both Luce and Galbraith were aces at helping a writer like me to avoid excess. Galbraith saw this capacity to be succinct as a basic part of all good writing. Galbraith also emphasized the music and the rhythm of the words as well as the need to go through many drafts. I've always admired Galbraith, a man who helped me understand some of the mystery that is economics. He passed away while I was writing this book. I’ve followed his advice on the need to go through endless drafts. I’ve lost count of the number of changes, of additions and of deletions to this text. I know I have not avoided excess or repetition among other writing weaknesses that readers will find in the following pages. In some ways I have found that the more drafts I do, the more I have had to say. Excess is one of the qualities of my life, it seems to me, as I muse over seven decades of living, if I may begin the confessional aspect of this work in a minor key.

And so it is that I have Galbraith watching over my shoulder and his mentor, Henry Luce, as well. Galbraith spent his last years in a nursing home before he passed away in 2006 at the age of 98. Perhaps his spirit will live on in my writing as an expression of my appreciation for his work and for a man who lived and worked not far from where I grew up and studied in Ontario, in Canada. His spirit is needed here for there is much editing that is required in this far too-lengthy work; but I do not have the energy or enthusiasm or, perhaps, even the skill, to take on the task.

Spontaneity did not begin to come into this piece of exposition until, perhaps, one of the drafts of its fifth edition back in 2005. Galbraith says that artificiality enters a text along with spontaneity because of the process of writing many drafts. I think he is right; part of this artificiality is the same as that artificiality which one senses in life itself: at least that I sense. Galbraith also observed with considerable accuracy, in discussing the role of a columnist, that a literary man or woman is obliged by the nature of their trade to find significance three times a week in events, often, of absolutely no consequence. I trust that the nature of my work here, as I say a part of my memoir, what I have come to call my chaos narrative, will not result in my being obliged to find significance where there is none. I’m not optimistic though. Perhaps I should simply say “no comment” and accept the reality of the presence of the inevitable gassy emissions that are part of the world of memoirs.

1.2 This is a longitudinal, retrospective account going back to my conception in the last half of October 1943. The story continues up to the last half of October 2010. This statement, even at some 66,000 words, is still a work in progress, as they say these days, some 67 years. Neurobiological, neuropsychiatric and affective disorders like BPD are Neurobiological, neuropsychiatric and affective disorders like BPD are found in diverse forms as well as in a broad range of age of onset and in a specificity of symptoms. Little is still known about its pathogenesis, that is, the origin and development of the disease. What follows is one person’s story, one person’s life experience of BPD, an illness that silently and not-so-silently shaped my life. It is a focussed account on a part of my personal life-narrative with the many manifestations, the symptomology, of BPD as I experienced it. BPD shaped, but did not define all that has been my life. It was a medical affliction that made for a certain inconstancy in living, a certain impulsivity and much else. The story of that ‘much else’ is found here.
----------PART 2 TO COME IF INTEREST IS SHOWN------

hi ron, how are you today?
bizi

Thanks, Ron,

You have an important story to tell.
M.

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After more than 4 years, I'll post a Part 2 to the story I began several years ago:
-------------------------------------
FOREWORD

Section 1:

I open this foreword with a brief reference to two famous cases of depression. Case 1: On 3 February 2014 Ian Thorpe, Australia's famous swimming legend, was admitted to a rehabilitation clinic in Sydney Australia after neighbors found him dazed near his parents' home. Thorpe was taken to Bankstown Hospital by police before being admitted to a rehabilitation clinic. In his 2012 autobiography "This is Me", Thorpe admitted that he had at times considered suicide and confessed to drinking huge quantities of alcohol to deal with his crippling depression, a battle he had to deal with for years. In 2014 Thorpe was 31. Case 2: On 11 August 2014 Robin Williams committed suicide. He was 63. Psychologist Julie Cerel, chairperson of the board of the American Association of Suicidology, said Williams was known to have bipolar disorder, depression and problems with alcohol and drug abuse. I never had to deal with alcohol and drug abuse.

My battle, like the battle of all people who have to deal with clinical depression and/or bipolar disorder, and any one of the many forms and types of mental health disorders, is different to Thorpe's and Williams'. Both of these men and I had the black-dog hit us in our teens. I did not have to deal with alcohol, though, as Thorpe and Williams did. My life-narrative took a different course with depression. My journey through the several stages in the lifespan dealing with mental health problems, after they first hit me more than 50 years ago in my late teens in 1963, has been a circuitous route to say the least.

We know from Roland Barthes that beginning my story 50 years ago is a "chronological illusion." The illusion is created because the story really begins with the ending, with my present situation as I write these words. Roland Barthes(1915-1980) was a French literary theorist, philosopher, linguist, critic, and semiotician. Barthes' ideas explored a diverse range of fields and he influenced the development of schools of theory including structuralism, semiotics, social theory, anthropology and post-structuralism. More than fifty years later, in this sixth month after my 71st year, I still battle mental health issues, and they have been diagnosed several times since my teens. My story is found below; I encourage readers who come to this life-narrative to skim or scan it, surf-about to those sections of personal interest.

Section 1.1:

My story is far too long for the Facebook-oriented, twitter enthusiasts, the quick-hit, folk who prefer their print in the smallest does possible. In our world of print and image-glut lengthy accounts like the one below are primarily of use to those with a special interest in mental health issues or, arguably, any one of a number of other traumatic experiences that individuals have to deal with in life. In addition, my style of writing may only appeal to some. Writers only connect with a coterie of the 7.4 billion inhabitants on Earth less than half of whom are still unconnected to the world-wide-web. People who want short and pithy, compact and concise, terse and cogent, curt and crisp, stories and analyses need to look elsewhere in cyberspace's many literary fields. I write this especially for those who have mental health issues to face in their life but, since there are now literally 100s of sites with help for others, this is but one of many sources of help. I write, as I say, for a coterie of a coterie.

My lengthy story is now a 110,000 word(270 page, font-14; 350 page, font-16) longitudinal, retrospective and prospective account of my experience with bipolar disorder, as well as several other mental health problems over more than 70 years: from October 1943 to December 2014. This is a personal, clinical, and idiosyncratic study of what some life-study students call 'a chaos narrative'. This study focuses on an aspect of my life involving several mental health issues, but mainly bipolar 1 disorder. This account is now in the 3rd draft of its 14th edition. In my retirement, beginning in the first year of the 3rd millennium, 2001, I have revised the account each yeari) to add the changes in my medications and life experience, and (ii) to update the information base in relation to the relevant knowledge about mental health, and especially about BPD and several other disorders, as that base of information became available, for the most part, in cyberspace. The writer's job, among his or her many jobs, is to turn life into material so that others can find comfort in their own suffering and, better, so that others can find the courage to tell their own stories and, if not to tell their stories, at least find the courage to live them.

For more of my story Google the words: RonPrice BPD

After 4 months......I'll add the following comment on some films that deal, in various ways, with mental health issues.-Ron
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WHEN A PSYCHOSIS IS FUNNY
...and when mental illness is stigmatized

Part 1:

Analyze This is a 1999 gangster comedy film directed by Harold Ramis. He co-wrote the screenplay with playwright Kenneth Lonergan and Peter Tolan. The film starred Robert De Niro as a mafioso and Billy Crystal as his psychiatrist. A sequel, Analyze That, was released in 2002. I had the pleasure of watching these two comedy films about a mafia mobster who has a psychotic-break while in prison and several panic attacks outside prison. It was more than a dozen years, though, after these films were released before I watched them. That is the pattern now in the evening of my life. I have not been to the cinema in all the years of my retirement from paid-employment since back in 1999 when I lived in Western Australia. I wait, and eventually I can watch the movie on television.

Initially there was no plan to create a sequel to Analyze This, but the positive reaction generated by the first film encouraged the producers to consider a sequel and discuss it with the studio and actors. They believed, as Crystal put it, that: "There was an unfinished relationship between Ben Sobel and Paul Vitti, the psychiatrist and the mobster, from the first film" and "there was a good story to tell", so the sequel was commissioned. I leave it to readers with the interest to Google the story, the plot and the characters, the production and background details, the box office and reception/ratings the films received, the money which the films grossed, and all the who's whos.

Part 2:

Initially there was no plan to create a sequel to Analyze This, but the positive reaction generated by the first film encouraged the producers to consider a sequel and discuss it with the studio and actors. They believed, as Crystal put it, that: "There was an unfinished relationship between Ben Sobel and Paul Vitti, the psychiatrist and the mobster, from the first film" and "there was a good story to tell", so the sequel was commissioned. I leave it to readers with the interest to Google the story, the plot and the characters, the production and background details, the box office and reception/ratings the films received, the money which the films grossed, and all the who's whos.

"Freud has never been more relevant," said David Cronenberg(1943- ) recently. Cronenberg is a Canadian filmmaker, screenwriter, and actor. He is one of the principal originators of what is commonly known as the body horror or venereal horror genre. "Because of Freud's understanding of what human beings are, and his insistence on the reality of the human body. We do not escape from that. Jung went into a kind of Aryan mysticism, whereas Freud was insisting on humans as we really are, not as we might want to be."2

Cronenberg points out in relation to some of his more extreme depictions of
violence and sex, mental health issues and criminality that: "Different countries have different reactions to my depictions of somewhat extreme situations and topics..2 Some films are successful in some places; some not. What will play in Glasgow for three years non-stop will be taken off the air in a dozen or more Middle Eastern countries.......I'm interested in people who don't accept the official version of reality, but try to find out what's really going on under the hood."-Ron Price with thanks to 1Wikipedia, 7/2/'15; & 2Steve Rose, "David Cronenberg: Analyse this," The Guardian, 6 February 2012.

Part 3:

The psychotherapy used in these
movies, like that used in the TV
show, The Sopranos, raised all
sorts of questions about human
nature & morality; for example,
can a criminal mind be changed,
and committed to going straight?

What is the nature of a psychotic
break and can it be treated in the
short-term without medications &
therapy for years to come?.....Are
these portrayals of mental health
problems honest and accurate???
Ron Price 7/2/'15 to 9/2/'15.
---------------------------------
Mr JONES and ME

Part 1:

I saw the 1993 movie Mr Jones at some time during the years when I was retiring from FT, PT and volunteer-work, 1999 to 2005, and retiring from an extensive involvement in Baha’i community life.1 I had had a working life of 50 years, 1949 to 1999, and been involved in the earliest years-decades of community-building for Baha’is in Canada and Australia.

I don’t remember now exactly when I first saw Mr Jones, but I watched the last half of that same movie last night.2 In the movie Jones was diagnosed with manic-depressive illness in his late adolescence. He had several hospitalizations over more than 20 years. I, too, was diagnosed with a variant of manic-depressive illness. It was called a "schizo-affective state" at first, but a dozen years later psychiatrists gave it the name bipolar disorder. Jones talked about his serious suicide attempt at college; I have had suicidal ideation or the death-wish, as it is also and sometimes called, for more than half a century from 1963 to 2015.

Part 2:

Watching this movie made me reflect on my own experience and the result is this prose-poem.-Ron Price with thanks to 1 The Universal House of Justice, April 1996; and 2Mr Jones, 7TWO TV, 10:40-1:00 a.m., 23 & 24 March 2012.

Richard Gere is a lovely fellow;
Lena Olin is even more lovely.1
But bipolar disorder is not-so-
lovely & needs to be watched
all of one’s life. After Gere &
Olin form the bond that ends
the two hour movie I wonder
what happened to him in his
middle age, late adulthood &
old age…Did he come to full
compliance on his meds; did
he have more talk therapy or
did his battle continue with a
win-win as one likes to think.

1these were the leading actors in this film

Ron Price
24/3/'12 to 9/2/'15.
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SOME REFLECTIONS ON MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES IN THE MOVIES

Part 1:

If I were a Hollywood actor in the last fifty years (1965-2015), to say nothing of films in the last seventy(1945-2015) years of my life, I would be calling my agent to be on the lookout for roles in which I could play a mentally troubled character. Just about every possible disorder finds its place in at least several, if not one or two dozen, films in the decades since WW2.

If I listed all the films, not to mention the TV series containing mental disorders, which I've seen in those 70 years, this prose-poem would go on far too long. I will, though, list some of the disorders themselves: antisocial, avoidant and borderline personality disorders; histrionic, narcissistic, and obsessive-compulsive personality disorders; schizoid and schizoaffective personality disorders, inter alia. The list is legion, and the disorders I have mentioned are just a start.

Part 1.1:

I will list a few films I've seen since retiring from FT, PT and casual-work and
enjoyed while on an old-age pension in the last decade: 2006 to 2015. Dustin Hoffman in the 1988 film Rain Man won an Academy Award for 'Best Actor in a Leading Role' for his portrayal of a man with autism; Kathy Bates earned her Oscar playing a woman with delusional disorder in Misery in 1990; the next year, Anthony Hopkins earned one for the role of a cannibal/serial killer, in the 2001 film Hannibal; in 1993 Holly Hunter was the mute heroine in the 1993 film, The Piano; 1994 produced Tom Hanks as the PTSD and mentally challenged but winning Forrest Gump; in 1995 there was the alcoholic-clinically depressed Nicholas Cage of Leaving Las Vegas; Geoffrey Rush won the Best Actor award in Shine for his 1996 performance as the schizoaffective pianist David Helfgott; 1997 was Jack Nicholson's turn in As Good As It Gets for doing obsessive compulsive disorder; James Coburn picked up his Oscar as the sadistic paranoid father in 1997's Affliction; and in 1999, Michael Caine was a narcotics addict and Angelina Jolie co-starred as a person with clinical depression or a sociopath of Girl, Interrupted. All of the following films featured BPD: Mr. Jones (1993), Pollock (2001), Sylvia (2003), Mad Love (1995), and Michael Clayton(2007).

Part 2:

Overall, the mass media do a poor job of depicting mental illness, with misinformation frequently communicated, unfavourable stereotypes of people with mental illnesses predominating, and psychiatric terms used in inaccurate and often offensive ways. People’s information and knowledge of mental health subjects comes, for the most part, from television. TV often perpetuates the stigma and the negative stereotypes by inaccurate depictions, misinformation and uninformed dramatic sketches. This has been part of the world of the mentally ill for centuries and it has been part of the backdrop of my own experience in these several epochs.

In some ways it is difficult to appreciate how far society has come in its knowledge and understanding; in other ways the problems are massive and complex. The list of activities performed by people and various organizations dedicated to struggle against stigma, though, is not only impressively long and wide-ranging, but provokes strong inspiration as well.

The year 1981, for example, was proclaimed the International Year of Disabled Persons (IYDP) by the United Nations. It called for a plan of action with an emphasis on equalization of opportunities, rehabilitation and prevention of disabilities. The theme of IYDP was "full participation and equality", defined as the right of persons with disabilities to take part fully in the life and development of their societies, enjoy living conditions equal to those of other citizens, and have an equal share in improved conditions resulting from socio-economic development. By 2008 there were 3,900 athletes from 146 countries in Beijing at the paralympics. Although this extended discussion of the disabled portrayed in films and the disabled in sport is tangential to my BPD story, it is relevant to mention, en passant.

Part 3:

The illness I had suffered from, starting perhaps at my conception in 1943, had become, in some ways, a source of claim to fame. But it was not all a story of a new age of understanding. On television, that most popular story-teller in modern society, people negotiated their attitudes to and their understandings of different social and political issues of which mental illness/distress was but one. The most common disability portrayed on television during the years that my autobiography was being written, 1984-2015, has been mental illness/distress.
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