Stephen and I go back a long way. I've often relied upon him for a bit of 'vicarious living', although of course we have never met. We seem similar in many ways (apart from the sexuality that is - I consider myself 95% straight).
Everyone enjoys some vicarious living, and since the rise of Hollywood in the 1930's, probably more so in our time than in previous eras. But the more socially isolated one is - the more one lives in fantasy with little 'reality checking', and the more one depends upon it for the sense of intimacy and belonging one would normally get face to face. Stated another way, those with a diagnosis or label of mental illness depend on fantasy more than others.
So having imaged for many years that Stephen and I had a temperamental connection, the revelations in the two documentaries came as no surprise. But my attitude on first viewing was very different to the one I have now. Then I was happy to describe myself as Bipolar, the label had explanatory value for me. Indeed the only reason to accept a diagnosis should be if it has some practical use value to you; if it explains something about you to yourself, making it easier to live with yourself; if it gives you access to useful help, or helpers; if it helps you to act differently, or to let you get things you want but don’t already have.
Also at that time I believed mental health services still had some useful expertise I could acquire (even though by that stage I'd been a service user - off and on - for 18 years) Equally, alongside 'Bipolar' explaining something to me about myself, when I found some supposed characteristic of the Bipolar person I'd not previously known about, I still gave serious thought to the possibility that I must have missed something more about myself. I was well on the way to becoming the next Kay Redfield Jameson.
Why do we hang-on to beliefs, routines, habits which appear illogical and sometimes positively self-destructive? Because they appear safer than the alternative. All change (good or bad) is at first experienced as stressful (occasionally terrifying). Others will be reassuring and tell you of the benefits of change, but this of course counts for nothing! Any change requires acting before we really feel competent to do so.
Having learnt something of the above much has changed in my life over the last five years. I have no 'symptoms' so cannot legitimately use the label, my identity is based upon my actual activities and the social contacts I make, my explanations of myself come from evolutionary biology and neuroscience (natural variation in the limbic system and as a consequence a lot of dodgy learning) and not from psychiatry or clinical psychology. But as I get better and happier, the more angry I become about the pathetic record of mental health services, past and present. However, I still take one prescription drug - having been on one mood stabilizer or another for 17 years, it gives me a certain minimal status and some entitlements in the face of unemploy-ability!
And Stephen? Well, I still follow his antics and enjoy his writing - he persists in making me laugh. I can see that his giving-up smoking and taking more physical exercise are hugely beneficial. But it now seems crazy for him to use an intense work schedule as therapy - a way of staying one step ahead of depression rather than stopping and confronting it. It is not until we give ourselves permission to relax that you can feel and let go of pain. He remains a man uncomfortable in his own body - especially in those moments of verbal linguistic magic. And that takes us to the core fear of the supposed Bipolar person - that recovery, change, or just stopping to relax and let go, means an end to creativity. IT'S A MYTH. Indeed, the ability to let go brings greater spontaneous creation. Stephen declares he must shut himself away in order to write, even to the extent of keeping the curtains drawn to shut out the rising sun. Tish and pish I say my fluffy friend, raise your eyes to the horizon, the answers come from being at home in the outside world.
For more on labelling ourselves, see my February post Goffman and Becker; stigma and labelling.
Stephen's website is at; http://www.stephenfry.com/
The DVD is available at Amazon; http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stephen-Frys-Secret-Manic-Depressive/dp/B002XT38GO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1277016760&sr=1-2
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