I was once diagnosed as “bipolar” by a shrink. He prescribed lithium; and between that and the counseling it was a complete disaster. Besides, I kept pointing out to him that, if I was really bipolar, how come I never ever once experienced the “manic” phase of the disorder? In fact the only “elevated mood” I seemed to experience at all back then was getting up and leaving his office.
Still, the condition is real. Actual flesh and blood men and women [and not just actors up on the screen] have endured it. And I have personally known a few of them myself.
Often with regards to this affliction the narrative revolves around whether the cure is worse than the disease. See for example Mr. Jones above. Apparently the price that some pay for not being depressed is just too grim. They need the “highs” or life becomes even more unbearable.
Bipolar in particular is always tricky because so much of it seems to be “beyond your control”. All the anomalous “stuff” happens in your brain chemically and neurologically. You can medicate it. You can learn to control it [up to a point]. You can learn to live with it in a less dysfunctional manner. But there it is, a biological component [for some] of the human condition.
If that is actually the case. After all, where exactly does the part about nurture, environmental factors, dasein and political economy fit in here?
That is when the film more or less segues into one more rendition of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Well, sans Nurse Ratchet and the more medieval “methodologies” from back then. Though they do come close occasionally.
But still the same group therapy bullshit: be yourself but only in the prescribed manner. Only, sure, it does work for some.
On the other hand, some will argue that films of this sort can “romanticize” the affliction. Almost as though you are “blessed” if you have it. For example, linking it to all of the many great artists who were said to have had it. In other words, that it is not only an affliction.
This film doesn’t do that. Though it does flirt with the idea from time to time.
Then there’s the part where it slips in and out of the “mystical”. All of the psycho-babble New Age bullshit that can become associated with it. Or the part where it seems to reflect out and out insanity.
And then the part about the money. Carla and Marco – both unemployed poets – are really only able to make all of these transitions because of their families are able to actually foot the bills. Both in and out of the mental institutions and the hospitals. The part that really isn’t at all available for vast swaths of the population beset with this condition.
IMDb
The movie is based on the life of director Paul Dalio.
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touched_with_Fire_(film
trailer: youtu.be/8RmzL-YBZwg
TOUCHED WITH FIRE [2015]
Written and directed by Paul Dalio
[b]Carla [at a book reading]: One day the sun cast onto the world to show its image in different light. All the lines were in place but in between no shape or shades, just shadows of the past cast against an aging brain, fading with the sunset’s dying rays. Wiping away all trace of yesterday.
Book store owner: Does anyone have any questions for the author?
[shot of the audience…looking blank, looking grim]
…
George [Marco’s father…on the phone]: So, your super told me that they shut your power off.
Marco: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
George: Why didn’t you pay the bill?
Marco: Oh, because I’m through with that. I don’t need to do that anymore. I’m going off the map.
George: What does that mean?
Marco: It means that I am through with the whole system.
George: What whole system?
Marco: The whole manmade system. I quit my job. I’m not paying bills.
George: You quit your job?
Marco: Yeah. Yeah, I escaped it.
George: How… How are you gonna eat?
Marco: No-no, I don’t need to pay for food anymore. I realized that. I can get free milk at Starbucks. I can get free ketchup at McDonald’s.
George: Ketchup?
Marco: Yeah, the body can survive on ketchup alone for a long time. At least until the apocalypse.[/b]
Next up: Marco the maniac.
[b]Carla: What was I doing when it happened?
Sara [mom]: What do you mean?
Carla: I mean, the doctors said that something has to trigger it. So, what was I doing?
Sara: No, no. There was nothing that we could’ve done. It was gonna happen no matter what.
Carla: No, no. N-N-No. I must’ve done something to trigger it because I am not the same person, Mom…I’m just trying to figure out who I am, you know, because I don’t feel like myself anymore. Even when I go off the medication, I don’t feel like myself.
…
George: Been taking your medication?
Marco: Um… mm… I found that they really weren’t working for me, you know, kind of constricted my emotions, you know, like a dried-up ocean. That wasn’t the potion. Don’t give me the lotion. I just, yeah, it just didn’t work, so I stopped. I stopped.
…
George: Tomorrow morning, let’s go…let’s go to Dr. Lyons, and we’ll ask him and just hear what he thinks about that.
Marco: Who cares what he thinks?
George: He’s an expert on your illness. He’ll know…
Marco: I don’t have an illness. Why are you bringing Dr. Lyons into this? There’s nothing wrong with…
George: He’s an expert on your medication.
Marco: No, he’s not a fucking expert! He’s a goddamned Nazi!
…
Doctor: Do a lot of people read these messages?
Marco: Everyone.
Doctor: Well, how do you know?
Marco: Because of my online fan base.
Doctor: Would you mind showing that to me on the computer?
Marco: There. You see that? 106 million people.
Doctor: No, see, that number is the number of people in the entire network. Actually, only 119 people have seen your page.
Marco [gaping at the screen]: What…?
…
Carla [at group therapy]: Could you please just stop?
Marco: You have an opinion on what’s being said here?
Carla: It’s your first day here, and you’re alienating yourself from the entire group.
Marco: Are you saying that I should hide what I think in order to become part of a group?[/b]
And boy have I been there!
[b]Nurse Amy: Luna, why don’t you color?
Marco [who wishes to be called Luna]: Because I’m uninspired.
Nurse Amy: Okay, why don’t you take a look at the books on the shelf. Maybe they’ll give you some inspiration.
Marco [goes over to the bookshelf]: Here we go. Van Gogh. Top member of the Bipolar Club. You see this?
Nurse Amy: Yes, it’s beautiful!
Marco [indicating Van Gogh’s Starry Night]: You know why?
Nurse Amy: Why?
Marco: Because it’s the painting of the sky he saw from his sanitarium window when he was manic.
Nurse Amy: Really?
Marco: Yeah. You don’t believe me, go look it up.
Nurse Amy: I believe you.
Marco: Well, when you go out tonight, and you look at the sky and you see how dull it is, think about if you would’ve medicated Van Gogh!
…
Marco: So Emily, can I ask you what your full fake name is?
Carla: Emily Lowell.
Marco: Is that Emily Dickinson and Robert Lowell? Those are good poets. Do you know they were both bipolar?
Carla: You think every great artist was bipolar. It’s fine if it helps you.
Marco: “We of the craft are all crazy/Some are affected by gaiety/others with melancholy/But all are more or less touched.” You know who said that? Lord Byron. One of the greatest manic-depressive poets of all time. It’s in the opening to this book, Touched with Fire by Kay Jamison. She’s a psychologist, and when she was first starting out, she, out of nowhere, had this manic episode. It scared her. So she tried to keep it a secret. But then something changed. She decided to write books about it. She did all this research, and she found all these crazy connections between bipolar and artistic genius all through history, all over the world. Instead of being ashamed of it she made it a gift.
…
Marco [to Carla]: You accidentally checked yourself into a mental institution?
…
Marco [to Carla noting a photograph of the brain]: This is a normal brain, lit up just in a few places. But this, this is a manic brain, fully lit. That’s what you call illumination.
…
Doctor: Is it true that neither of you thinks you’re from this planet?
Marco: Because we’re not from this planet.
Doctor: Okay, sit. Where do you think you’re from?
Marco [doing a series of bizarre things]: Would someone from your planet do this?
…
George: Why is he so sedated?
Doctor: He was with a female patient, and they made each other manic. We separated them and they became even more manic.
George: How long is he going to be like that?
Doctor: It’s not just the medication. Because the mania got so out of control and he went so high, he’s going to go just as low with the depression. It’s going to be severe.
…
Doctor: You’ve just come out of the depression. You haven’t been in a physical relationship for quite a while. It’s understandable.
Marco: No, it’s not just that. I don’t feel the emotion that I should feel for her.
Doctor: Well, you won’t have the passion you had when you were manic. You’re going to have to learn to live within a normal range of emotions.
Marco: This isn’t a normal range. I don’t feel anything.
Doctor: You’ve lived in emotional extremes for so long, you’ve no way of knowing what normal feels like.
…
Marco: We can’t take the meds.
Sara: Okay, well, just as I thought.
Carla [to Marco]: What are you talking about?
Marco: You know what I’m talking about.
George: Marco, listen. You know that it’s going to take time till you find the right dosage, right? Even the doctor, the doctor has said that eventually you are going to feel the wide range of normal emotions.
Marco: And how does he know? He’s not taking the meds…I don’t think it’s such a bad thing to feel life with the deepest emotion. I don’t think that’s a problem.
Sara: It’s an illness.
Marco: Well, maybe for you, because maybe you have a low emotional capacity, and so to you, it makes you feel sick.[/b]
And around and around and around they go trying to pin down what is “normal”.
[b]Marco: You don’t understand, Dad.
George: I understand more than you know. And if you think that there’s any romance in being crazy, you’re crazy.
Marco: No, if you understood, then Mom wouldn’t have left.
George: Your mother, she left because she was sick.
Marco: She left because you thought she was sick, because she was wild. And you were tame, and you wanted to tame her, Dad.
…
Marco: Maybe I could walk dogs. I’d be out there, I’d be working, you know? I’d be, the same time, taking everything in, the sounds, the trees, the buildings, the… just all of it, sort of just absorbing all of that, and then like, letting that sort of be infused into my poetry, you know?
Carla: We did tell our parents that we were going to try to support ourselves with…
Marco: Exactly. And that’s why I’m thinking of things to do.
Carla: I mean, I just don’t know how much you would get paid. With the baby we’re going to have diapers and blankets and food and supplies and school and strollers and the rent and, you know…
…
Carla: I can get him to go back on the meds.
Sara: No, you can’t.
Carla: Yes, I can. We have to.
Sara: Carla, you can’t. If he didn’t get the message after he almost killed the two of you in the river, he’s not going to get it. I don’t see how you can stay with him.
Carla: What are you saying? That I shouldn’t have this child if…
Sara: I just want to be really clear. Okay? You want to raise a child with a psychotic manic parent.
…
Kay Jamison [playing herself]: When I first was medicated, I was first medicated a very long time ago. Lithium had just come out on the market. I was kept at a very high dose because that’s what people did at that time, and I did feel somewhat dead, and I resisted it.
But I’m still on lithium, and I don’t feel in any way inhibited.
Marco: I just don’t know how I’m gonna make… how my creativity is going to be affected.
Kay Jamison: You’re concerned about losing your art and losing your passion. Medication’s not going to take your personality away. It’s not going to take your own gift. It’s a fire when it’s out of control. And what medication can do is to kind of tamp that down a bit without losing that gift. It took quite a while for my moods to kind of get in gear. I have felt infinitely happier. I’m more productive. I’m more able to count on myself to produce and write. In every aspect of my life it’s been a godsend.
…
Carla: I thought Kay was really impressive.
Marco: She’s weak. She didn’t have the strength, so she gave up.
Carla: What?
Marco: You could see it in her. She was like she wished that she could have what those artists have that she writes about. But she doesn’t have the guts. That’s why she writes about them. You know, do you think that Poe or Byron or Tchaikovsky, Melville, Hemingway, would’ve backed down and turned away from the storm the way she did? No. They rode the tides. They rode them, but she didn’t. That’s why she writes about them, because she wants to be like them in her fantasy, but she can’t.
Carla: Well, I liked what she had to say about, you know, how we can experience full emotion even more than…
Marco: I don’t want the full emotion!
Carla: Well, then what do you want?
Marco: I want the mania!
Carla: You want the mania?
[she paces back and forth]
Carla: Well, it’s fucking crazy.
Marco: Why, because of something that your doctor told you or something that your parents told you?
Carla: No. Because you’re not willing to make any sacrifices. You say you want a family. You say you want love. But you’re not willing to give anything up for it.
…
Marco: Why don’t you have a drink, Carla? Are you still gonna pretend, after all of this, that you still can’t drink? Because I know. Why don’t you just say it? All right. Just say it. Just say it, say it.
[he turns to his father and Carla’s parents]
Marco: Carla had an abortion. Surprise. Right? So, why don’t you just say it, Carla? Please say it, please.
Carla: All right, I did.[/b]