Bipolar disorder, manic depression, depression, black dog, whatever you want to call it, is inherent in our society. It's a product of stress and in my case over-work.
Snow is like a manic pixie dream girl: fun and whimsical when you encounter it only through the barrier of a movie screen - but absolute misery to have to put up with in real life.
Money is a huge issue for manic depressives. Sometimes the problem is not nearly on the same scale as it has been for me, but nonetheless, it's difficult to deal with. Many get themselves into debt that can take years to clear up, write bad cheques, shoplift and borrow huge amounts from family and friends.
Manic depression is a type of depression, technically, and it's the opposite of uni-polar. Manic depression is also called bi-polar disorder. Some people don't like to call it that because they think it makes it sound too nice, when the reality is if you have manic-depression you have manic-depression.
I think almost all manic depressives exhibit some kind of criminal behaviour, even if it's something as minimal as shoplifting, but then they often go on to bigger and better things - in my case, it was fraud.
Like most manic depressives, some of my symptoms included racing thoughts that I simply had to act upon - flying from New York to Paris and taking the train to Berlin; flying to Argentina in the middle of the night; spending tens of thousands of dollars on unnecessary garments, dinners and gifts.
In total, I was diagnosed with depression by eight psychotherapists and psychiatrists over a period of thirteen years. Diagnosed wrong. Absolutely wrong. My accurate diagnosis was manic depression, or what we call bipolar disorder today.
My manic depression was ravaging my life, but because nobody could see it, many people thought it was a figment of my imagination.
I very classically would go into manic phases, which were as dangerous, if not more so, than the depressed phases, and I think I'd come up with the best ideas I ever had, and then the next day, I'd look at them and be like, 'This is nonsense,' because it was born out of a manic episode. What a waste of time.
Getting help for my issues was one of the hardest things I've ever done, because when I get dangerously sad or manic, those feelings seek to perpetuate themselves.
