The Media Makes an Effort to Feed Bi-Polar Stigma...

Each person has more to their personality than a single story. A human could not be human if he was a singleton. I am talking about a single story of being Bi-Polar. A person living with Bi-polar has a few moments of un-settlement, and a lot more moments of torture; twice as many Americans die by suicide than murder. Bi-polar does not define them. Bi-polar does not cause them to commit a crime. And, it certainly does not make them sex addicts.


Many people are robbed of their dignity each and every time a crime is committed. Why? Because the media assume this illness was at the crux of the explosive storm. We say we want stigma to be reduced in the mental health area, yet we are continually happy for the media to expose the person’s mental health each time a gruesome crime is committed.


Bipolar disorder, and especially its slightly less disabling form which is known as bipolar 2, is frequently found among successful, driven people (as well as millions of ordinary folk, of course). It is a fact that there are many people setting up the arts, medical, literature and political arena than people sitting in the Goal system. Yet, this fact is rarely publicised. We never read headlines that say, ‘Bi-Polar Brain Surgeon Saves Another Young Adult’ or ‘Bi-Polar Ballet Dancer Gets Standing Ovation at the Opera House’. But, day after day we read in big black letters, ‘Bi-Polar Woman kills her Children’, ‘Bi-Polar Man rapes’.


Thanks to google the world can be alarmed to know that Johnny Depp, Sheryl Crow, Halle Berry, Agatha Christie, Eric Clapton, Kurt Cobain, Drew Barrymore and Princess Dianna all suffered with depression or bi-polar. All these people and many more have never committed an act of gruesomeness, instead they have given us music, art, poetry, literature, adventure and fashion.


The high rates of substance use and abuse is one of the primary factors contributing to the high incarceration rate of the mentally ill. "The prevalence of serious mental health issues is higher among incarcerated individuals than in the general population, and is associated with specific sociodemographic characteristics like male gender, younger age, and non-white race. Severe psychopathology is also associated with higher recidivism and more serious criminal offenses," said Dr. Stathopoulou.


With the social media taking over our lives more rapidly than any other time in history, I have to wonder if this type of information is easily constructing how we think, and also reducing peoples thoughts at the very same time.


 Adrian Holliday says, ‘The weight of responsibility is on us to understand ourselves, rather than on essentialist categories of ‘them’. However, ‘Words’ carry a lot of power, and with technology coming at us faster than we are able to digest the information, is there any wonder we are not progressing past old ideas.


In our fast moving world I am going to ask, ‘is it the mental illness that is dividing us or is it language? Just as it was one hundred years ago (or less) with the colour of a person’s skin dividing us, is it the over use of technology language today? Stuart Hall talks about ‘Language is thus a great divider of people. As soon as people use language they are judged by the people who hear them as belonging to certain social groups, and the images and stereotypes that are attached to these groups may be invoked and applied to them’.


With the use of language we saw the feminist movement begin it’s powerful shift in the late 19th Century. It started with communication. It started with speaking out against what was not right and what needed to change. How did we change Lesbian and Gay rights? We changed it through communication, and again standing up for what is right.


  I spoke to many people about this story. They were not ready to have their names published. I am happy to mention my name, and I am bi-polar. I hold down relationships, add to society, help others, I am bright, intelligent, and I have never once been rude or day dreamed about committing a crime. Not once. Yet, I am ashamed and I am embarrassed that my illness is spread across the front pages of the London Times, New York Gazette or the Sydney Morning Herald each time one person expresses his or her narcissistic and sociopathic behaviours.