Posts tagged with “bipolar”
Bears at my table?
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OK so this was weird.... I began with a search for quotations to back me up on an allegation I felt like making about the nature of all psychiatrists (somewhat [[anti-psychiatric]]).
I turned up nada, but a couple of gems were both from Malcolm Rogers (never did find out if he is the Dr 'Mack' Portera Rogers or not)
- "The science of Psychiatry is now where the science of Medicine was before germs were discovered"
- “A psychiatrist is a person who will give you expensive answers that your wife will give you for free”
Around here I fell off into the wonderful world of Wikipedia for around half an hour...
...Believe it or not in my attempts to discover who the heck this Malcolm Rogers was I find I land at [this article](http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-244X/10/9 "a link to a paper") on "Excessive substance use in bipolar disorder is associated with impaired functioning rather than clinical characteristics, a descriptive study"
Which was simply weird....
And various images like this one, attempts to insert a html picture link....
and when I came to I had landed back in the world of google images, discovered the picture above, and added [Reciprocity Failure](http://reciprocity-failure.blogspot.co.uk/2008_09_01_archive.html "link to blog the picture came from") to my blogroll (this was the, albeit removed by one, source of the picture I have used).
01:56 AM
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0 Comments
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Tags: bipolar, blog, bear
An open letter, and a challenge!
Dear friends
We have pledged to complete a 100 kilometer charity night ride
through London taking place on the night of Saturday June 11th..
Starting from Crystal palace at or soon after midnight and finishing
there at “breakfast time” (“kitchen” closes at nine!) on the Sunday
morning. We cycle a route around London, including Alexandra Palace
to the North and crossing the Thames no less than five times along the
way.
Our chosen charity is Mind, the organization supports and campaigns
for the rights of people with mental illness. As someone who has
personal experience of the issues involved thi is close to my heart.
Organizations like MIND are crucial in supporting, informing and
campaigning for those who can be politically ignored all too easily.
Please consider sponsoring us!
We really want to make a difference and have pledged to raise at least
£500 for MIND and you can see how we are doing via the link below.
You can use a form, post money, or donate at our page here
Although I have begun enjoying the practice for the event it has also
shown me that 100k demands a little respect and I am not the young
man who could zip off to Brighton on his bike for a night out with
friends and ride back the next day none the worse for it!
So your sponsorship and support would really help me and even more
so encourage us both to know we are making a difference. You can
choose by the kilometer or every ten, or just to finish, whatever you
feel work best. Do feel free to come and cheer us on, perhaps even
bring some liquid refreshments or a picnic to the finish at Crystal
Palace if it's a nice day?
We leave Crystal Palace around midnight (riders being batched into
“mini-peletons” of fifty cycles) but leaving Mount Ash Road of course a
little earlier. All your encouragement is much appreciated.
Thanks for your support.
NOTE: This post is "pinned" to the front of the blog until the 11th June (when I shall "unpin" it) so that any visitors may see it first and foremost. If you scroll to the end of the entry there may be more recent ones below this.
06:18 AM | 0 Comments | Tags: Mind, charity, tandem, holiday, bicycle, bipolar, Tandem Club UK, Easter
Polar Bear
So last weekend we went to see "Polar Bear" by [[Mark Haddon]] and I was really looking forward to it. I had been quite disappointed to hear initially that we could not get seats, which also surprised me because I had it on good authority that the reviews were quite mixed. So all the more exciting to be going and even taking a friend along and dinner to follow after the matinee. Sadly our friend's partner was called away to Mexico City, and I think he missed out on something he may very well have enjoyed a great deal.
There is no interval and the performance is an hour and a half, but after seeing it I can quite see how no break is a necessary part to the entire piece. The narrative is not chronological and as a result a break could add to any confusion. I loved the set and the way it worked, it was not quite "in the round" but it had that feeling to it. No one actor "upstaged" any other, though [[Celia Imrie]]'s performance was masterful, if you can use that word in the context. I was embarrassed on entering the foyer to get her name wrong and think it was Imelda Staunton.
If I had to single any one actor as impressing me it would actually be the female lead though. She played the part of Kelly who as it turns out is the manic depressive in the play. When the play starts she is in fact dead, or at least we are led to believe so. As the narrative moves along and back and forth in time I personally began to wonder if there was some ambiguity on that score, if in fact her husband had become deranged and she was actually in Oslo and not the body in the cellar.
Our friend noticed and we all agreed that since we realise bipolar disorder is a big part of the play then we all thought the husband was the person affected by it (and of course he was, but only indirectly). It is not until the change in scene that it becomes apparent Kelly is the primary focus for the bipolar, though there is the shadow of her father and his depressive suicide hanging over the whole play menacingly.
Later we have a Jesus figure (several perhaps!), and I especially loved the scene where he said true love is when the person you love does not know your name and went on to itemise the stages of decomposition of a corpse and the associated "symptoms". This was interesting, the husband is a philosophy professor and I felt we were being played with for Mr Haddon to display a knowledge of the subject on a par with mine (IE very amateur!). Mark Haddon always manages to irritate me at some level, and in this play it was the mention of a coach tour through the philosophers of the ages and the "stopping at Kierkegaard for someone to be sick" which I thought was a cheap laugh (I have a LOT of respect for the Dane).
On leaving the theatre none of us could understand the poor reviews - apparently it was slated by quite a few critics - but since we believed there were good reviews too we settled on the play having "bipolar reviews"! Over dinner I asked everyone what they thought they would remember from the play (we had all enjoyed it thoroughly). For me ultimately it is the subject of suicide, mental disorder, family, and the ensuing trauma from the act and ripples down the generations that shall be my abiding interest and memory.
09:34 AM | 0 Comments | Tags: teddy bears, Mark Haddon, parenting, Annie, sex, bipolar, reviews, neighbours, suicide
