Bipolar Disorder Is A Serious Illness, Not a Celebrity Fad

By Robert Westhead, The Independent UK. Posted February 19, 2008.

Gail Porter has it. Stephen Fry made a documentary about it. Sophie Anderton, Adam Ant, Russell Brand, Richard Dreyfuss, Kerry Katona and Tony Slattery are all sufferers. And now Britney, too, has bipolar disorder, at least according to the media, in whose unforgiving glare she has undergone her very public meltdown.

At times, it seems as though bipolar illness is the latest celebrity fad -- like wheat intolerance, perhaps. But the apparent spike in celebrity sufferers points to something else: that awareness amongst both clinicians and the public is growing and some of the stigma attached to admitting to mental health problems has begun to diminish.

It is impossible for me to say definitively whether Britney has bipolar. However, there can be tell-tale signs of symptomatic behaviour. Bizarre behaviour such as stripping off in a clothes shop in full view of staff and customers and shaving your hair off are the sort of "crazy" things people do when they are in the grip of mania. But people do "crazy" things for other reasons or if they are having a difficult time -- this is what makes bipolar disorder so hard to diagnose correctly.

I used to do some extremely odd things during my manic episodes, when you feel euphoric, disinhibited, full of energy and talk non-stop. Once I went charging back to my school, two years after leaving it. I went bursting into classrooms, interrupting lessons and generally causing havoc. I barged my way into a physics lesson and started pontificating to the class, as my old physics teacher looked on in horror. I did the same thing at a management consultancy I worked at briefly, storming in there and talking excitedly to everyone, a crowd gathering around me.

But the thing about my manic episodes I always found hardest to deal with were the religious delusions. Although I wasn't remotely religious, when at my most ill I thought I was on some kind of mission from God and was going to usher in the Second Coming. I remember seeing God's face in anything and everything. I have since learnt that scientists believe the religious preoccupations associated with mania stem from a part of the brain's temporal lobes that lights up like a Christmas tree with electrical activity, because of the massive over-production of the neurotransmitter dopamine.

It has been suggested that having a celebrity's ultra-outgoing personality might dispose someone to bipolar illness. At least one in 100 people has bipolar disorder. The majority of these are ordinary, everyday people. I find this at the self-help groups run by MDF The BiPolar Organisation (formerly the Manic Depression Fellowship) which I attend. However, there is a huge amount of research suggesting a link between creativity and bipolar disorder. And there have been plenty of people to bear this out, from Beethoven, Byron and Vincent van Gogh to Kurt Cobain. There are two ways of looking at it. If you're mildly manic you bubble over with energy and creative ideas. If you're creative already, the ideas and imagination will overflow. I remember spouting poetry when wandering around the Edinburgh Festival while manic. If I had a gift for poetry, it might have been an incredibly productive phase for me. If you look at Robert Schumann's works, there are years of enormous productivity when he churned out symphonies 10 to the dozen -- no doubt when manic. Then when he was depressed, there's nothing.

The celebrity lifestyle, however, might offer other explanations. Chaotic, rollercoaster fortunes, when you might go from "hero to zero", may trigger illness in those who are vulnerable. Drug abuse is a known trigger. Also, cynics might say claiming that you have what seems to be a "celebrity plague" may be a defence, excusing bad behaviour.

I was first diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 19, but I think the symptoms started when I was much younger. I had a normal childhood and upbringing and came from a relatively privileged background, growing up in a middle-class family in the home counties. I went to a grammar school in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, and was a high achiever academically, as well as being very sporty and popular.

But I was a real worrier -- and always have been. In my early teens I remember on occasion if I got upset about something it would go on for several days. I still have that now -- if something upsets me it feels like the end of the world.

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