Saturday, January 24, 2009
The Bipolar Time Warp
This is the most popular video from my YouTube Collection. The reason may have to do more with Rocky Horror fans searching "Time Warp" than the video's intrinsic worth. But viewer feedback to both the video and the mcmanweb article on which the video was based indicates I that I may have struck a chord.
I wrote the article sometime in 2000. I shot my video in early summer last year. It was my first venture into "acting," rather than simply narrating. It was also the first video where I started using studio lights - actually cheap work lights I picked up at the hardware store. For some reason, I thought lighting only applied to Hollywood. Then my orange face from my previous video forced me to rethink that notion.
Enjoy ...
From my mcmanweb article:
Bipolar is the equivalent of being stuck in bumper to bumper traffic in a race car. The world is simply too slow and people too dull-witted to accommodate you. The initial advantage over one's fellow man inevitably gives way to frustration and occasional rage. Sure, at first you experience the exuberation of weaving in and out of traffic as you leave the world behind in your rearview mirror, but now there are more cars, all closer together, backed up for miles on end. Your engine is revving hard, but you find yourself banging your head against the dash in utter despair because you are desperate to pop the clutch and floor it, but all you can do is hopelessly idle and suck other people's fumes.
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2 comments:
I heard Tom Wootton, author and "consumer" with bipolar disorder, speak three times, once at a Calif NAMI convention (National Alliance on Mental Illness, a grass roots, nation-wide organization composed of those with mental illness, their loved ones, and professional providers, all of whom fight for the elimination of stigma, access to health care, housing, etc., and education re mental illness), once at a presentation to NAMI-Contra Costa County, CA, and once at a seminar in Concord, CA. At all times I was impressed with the over-arching humanity of the communications, the ability to find the power in illness (remember Helen Keller says that in the darkest of dark their is light), and the ability to take that power, however dark it is, and go with it. This is not to say you do not take medications, see your therapist, or participate in other things that lead to a healthy life style. It is rather to say, yes, I have this incredible experience--a difficult one, one that can be unmangable at times, one that brings on the abyss of despair, the chasm of darkness--and I will look at it and discover the "good" that is within it. Each person's discovery in self is different. It is a spiritual (not religious) quest of power and alignment with what is good. It is all about self-empowerment, taking responsibility of self, taking charge of self. The philosophy that Thomas Wootton espouses in reality is health for all people, not just those with mental illness; thus, his message is a universal spiritual message, not just a message for those with mental illness. Yes, Wootton's message is directed to people with mental illness, and in particular those dealing with mood disorders. That is his disorder, his challenge, and it sets the scene for his proactive stance in helping those with bipolar disorder and clinical depression.
all people considered, I highly recommend attending any of his lectures that he gives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Needing to protect loved ones, I remain anonymous.
Hi, Anonymous. Many thanks for bringing this up. I'm a friend of Tom's and was on the road with him for several days in late 2006. Go back two or three blogs and you will see I mention Tom very favorably.
His thinking on this is more developed than mine, but we are definitely on the same page and asking very similar questions. Thus, you will be hearing a lot more from him here at "Knowledge is Necessity."
So please keep coming back and please keep contributing to the conversation.
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