The Brain and Bipolar : Raising Awareness, Removing the Stigma

 

Preamble

 

I have been asked, along with some others, to write a piece to do with the brain. I have chosen the brain and bipolar disorder as I believe there is an urgent need to raise awareness of this debilitating mental illness which affects 1 in 50 people, of which I am one.

 

Bipolars past and present appear between the verses. The picture is of bipolar Virginia Woolf who committed suicide.

 

My purpose in writing this poem

My purpose is to let you know

That explaining bipolar disorder

Will help understanding to grow

 

Stephen Fry (actor, comedienne, writer)

Mariah Carey (singer)

Abraham Lincoln (politician)

Ludvig van Beethoven (composer)

Lord Byron (poet)

Winston Churchill (politician)

Kurt Cobain (musician, suicided)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (poet)

 

Bipolar disorder's an illness

An illness affecting the brain

It's chemicals are not quite in balance

My list it continues again

 

Charles Dickens (writer)

Scott Fitzgerald (novelist)

Zelda Fitzgerald (socialite, novelist)

Graham Greene (novelist)

Ernest Hemingway (journalist, suicided)

John Keats (poet)

Spike Milligan (comedienne)

Isaac Newton (scientist)

 

This out-of-kilter balance of chemicals

Makes bipolars have great mood swings

From deepest and darkest depression

To highs which their mania brings

 

 

Florence Nightingale (nurse)

Sinead O'Conner (singer)

Edgar Alan Poe (poet)

Nina Simone (singer)

Mark Twain (writer)

Vincent van Gogh (artist)

Brian Wilson (musician, Beach Boys)

Virginia Woolf (writer, suicided)

 

They've found bipolar brains seem to shrink

When cycling between moods high and low

While lithium administered for medication

Counteracts this shrinkage, makes it regrow

 

Robin Williams (comedienne. suicided)

Robert Burns (poet)

Rosemary Clooney (singer)

Amadeus Mozart (composer)

Jimi Hendrix (musician)

Sting (musician)

Marilyn Monroe (actress)

Frances Ford Coppola (film director)

Richard Dreyfuss (actor)

 

Bipolars are creative people

As my list here does illustrate

They produce from their minds great ideas

Which to society they give, they donate

 

Carrie Fisher (actress)

Connie Francis (singer)

Mel Gibson (actor)

Kim Novak (actress)

Sia Furler (Aus singer)

Bill Oddie (comedienne)

Franz Shubert (composer)

Dusty Springfield (singer)

Amy Winehouse (singer, suicided)

 

Help get rid of this stigma of bipolar

Stephen Fry has it, I have it too

Does that make us more unacceptable?

Than others? Than to you? Or to you?

 

Don Matthews September 2018

 

“There is a dead space between most people and those afflicted with Mental Illness and it's called Understanding...” --Stanley Victor Paskavich, (bipolar, writer)

 

 

“I admit I'm bipolar, but if you think I'm stupid you're crazy”
― Stanley Victor Paskavich (bipolar, writer)

 

 

“There are times when I'm doing QI and I'm going, 'Ha ha, yeah, yeah,' and inside I'm going 'I want to fucking die. I … want … to … fucking … die.'
” ― Stephen Fry (bipolar, actor)